Idle IDA Land not Acceptable

21 Mar 2006

The INOU is concerned at the lack of use of IDA-owned land around the country as reported in the national media this week. This is unacceptable in the context of large-scale redundancies being announced on a regular basis. While many jobs are being created in the capital, many thousands of jobs are being lost in country areas where there are little or no jobs being developed.

“Redundancies in the year to date are up 30% on last year” said Mr. Eric Conroy, General Secretary of the INOU. “At this rate, we are looking at a fifth year in a row of losses around 25,000, or 500 a week. It is not acceptable for the IDA to leave two-thirds of their land undeveloped. This suggests that it is not serious about job creation in the regions”, Mr. Conroy added.

The situation is worst in the South East region, where 87% of IDA-owned land is unoccupied. This region also happens to have the highest unemployment rate in the country of 5.7%. “We need to be much more active in generating replacement jobs in areas suffering high job losses”, said Mr. Conroy. “The National Spatial Strategy needs to be implemented as originally intended – the government seems to be paying lip service to it at present. The INOU will be seeking clear reference to kick starting the Strategy in the next round of social partnership”, he added.