READER'S PICS

Thanks to Niamh Connolly from UCC for sending us these pics of UCC Surf Club Committee members on a recent surfing trip to Lahinch. If you want your pictures shown here please email theherald@live.ie.

READER'S PICS

Thanks to Niamh Connolly from UCC for sending us these pics of UCC Surf Club Committee members on a recent surfing trip to Lahinch. If you want your pictures shown here please email theherald@live.ie.

1 in 5 out of work by 2010, claims Brosnan

One in every five people could be unemployed in the Midwest region by this time next year, it has been claimed.

The bleak prediction is made by businessman Denis Brosnan, who has been charged with delivering a blueprint for the region’s economic recovery. In an unpublished letter to Clare Fine Gael TD Joe Carey, Mr Brosnan said: “From all I have heard, it would be my personal prediction that there will be one in every five unemployed in the region by this time next year”.

The Irish Times newspaper today reports that the Midwest Taskforce chairman and former chief executive of the Kerry Group, Mr Brosnan made his gloomy prediction after concluding phase one of the taskforce’s work which involved meeting all agencies associated with employment, industries affected by the Dell jobs loss, as well as leading economists. “This is enabling us to form a view as to what unemployment could be at in the region in the event of no new initiatives being taken,” Mr Brosnan said.

The taskforce was established in the wake of Dell’s announcement of 1,900 job losses at its Limerick manufacturing facility in January.