Measures urged to assist commuter towns

DOUBLE-DIGIT unemployment levels and a lack of infrastructure dominated the first day of a new initiative by Oireachtas members to discover the issues of concerns to commuter towns in Leinster.

Both Navan (10.5 per cent) and Athy (15 per cent) have seen unemployment levels rise rapidly this year and have been hit hardest by falls in construction employment and the loss of manufacturing jobs, the members of the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment were told.

The strain of commuting was also raised at both gatherings where Oireachtas members heard from local officials and public representatives.

Arthur Lynch from the Kildare Enterprise Centre said that since it was set up two years ago, 1,500 people had registered with the website www.itsyourtime.ie which is trying to encourage commuters to find work locally.

He said 40 per cent of Kildare's 30,000 commuters got up before 7am to get to work in the morning.

Mayor of Athy John Lawler said commuting would always be a "fact of life" for towns like his, but commuters should travel to Dublin "not because they have to, but because they want to".

A subcommittee, chaired by Willie Penrose TD (Lab), is on a fact-finding mission and will report back to the committee, which will in turn report to Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan in the autumn.

Róisín Doherty, midlands regional director of State training and jobs agency Fás, said redundancy levels were "very, very high", especially among construction workers. There was also a dramatic fall-off of apprenticeships in Kildare in the construction sector.

Local Siptu representative Michael Dowling said Athy was the town that the "Celtic Tiger left behind" as much traditional industry had left in recent years.

"There has been nothing but bad news" in recent years, he said, with the announcement recently that food processor Batchelors would lay off 18 workers in Athy, while the town's biggest employer, Tegral, intended to make 14 people redundant in August.

Cutbacks in the health service meant there were few short-term contracts at St Vincent's hospital, which had 220 employees and was one of the biggest employers in Athy, he added.

Local TD and Minister of State Seán Power said Athy's lack of infrastructure was the reason it had not "progressed to the same degree" as other Co Kildare towns.

In Navan, the issue of the delivery of the controversial M3 motorway was raised. However, committee member Senator Brendan Ryan said locals were working on the assumption that it would be completed on time despite the protests over the route of the motorway near the Tara site.

The shortage of apprenticeships was also raised in Navan.

The committee members are to visit Carlow and Gorey next Monday, Naas on Tuesday and Balbriggan and Drogheda on Wednesday. The final destination will be Mullingar in September.