Unemployment falls by 11% in Blanchardstown

The Blanchardstown area saw a fall in unemployment by 11% in December, compared to the same month last year, according to statistics released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) this week.
Elsewhere, the Navan Road area saw unemployment fall by 8%.
In addition, statistics showed that there were 790 fewer people on the Live Register in Blanchardstown year on year, as the number fell from 6,845 to 6,055.
Tanaiste Joan Burton welcomed the news and said that the statistics show that unemployment has fallen by a third in both Blanchardstown and the Navan Road since the recession began in August 2011.
Deputy Burton said: “Unemployment in Dublin West is now at the lowest it’s been in seven years. We are creating 1,000 jobs a week, and are close to having two million people at work. We want to continue this momentum towards full employment.”
Minister Burton said that new initiatives including the Pathways to Work strategy for 2016, the USC reduction, and the increase of child benefit payments of €5 per child per family were helping families as part of the economic recovery.
Cllr Jack Chambers (FF) agreed with Minister Burton that the reduction of numbers on the Live Register in the Dublin 15 area is a positive step but he added that it is important to take all components into consideration when looking at unemployment figures.
He said: “The Dublin 15 area had a relatively stagnant and insignificant reduction in numbers on the Live Register prior to this so it is essential to analyse these figures over years rather than in isolation.
“All unemployment figures fail to reflect the missing youth of today who have been forced to emigrate. The challenge for this Government and everyone in our political system is to build a future that brings this forgotten generation home and back into sustainable employment.”
Cllr Chambers explained that a substantial percentage of people who are signing onto the Live Register have been doing so for a year or more.
“This creates a major difficulty in helping them get new jobs in the economy. It is the case that the number of long-term claimants is falling but it is falling at a far slower pace than those signing on for less than a year.”
Cllr Roderic O’Gorman (GP) said he welcomed the reduction in unemployment figures and added: “I’m conscious of the huge effort the council is putting into supporting economic development in Dublin 15 having recently completed a major re-branding of the industrial estates around Blanchardstown as the ‘Dublin Enterprise Zone’ to encourage more companies to establish themselves there.”