Unemployed from Europe walk to Amsterdam

LIKE medieval pilgrims, thousands of unemployed people from all over Europe will make their way on foot to Amsterdam for the …

LIKE medieval pilgrims, thousands of unemployed people from all over Europe will make their way on foot to Amsterdam for the EU summit in the city later this month.

Among them will be a group of 14 Irish unemployed who will be seeking a commitment to full employment in the new EU treaty which the 15 heads of government will be discussing.

On June 14th, about 40,000 people will gather in the Dutch capital to lobby and protest at the levels of unemployment and poverty within the EU.

The 14 Irish participants, who began their journey from Derry, met the President, Mrs Robinson, yesterday before making their way south to Cork, from where they will take a ferry to Roscoff in Brittany.

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There they will meet up with a French group and make their way to Amsterdam.

Mr Michael O'Mara is one of those who, by a combination of walking and taking buses, will be in Amsterdam. He is unemployed and gives his time to the unemployed information centre in Clondalkin, Dublin. He is seeking a commitment to job creation and the eradication of poverty within a timescale, possibly five years.

By the time he arrives in Amsterdam, he will have travelled 3,000 kilometres. He will be travelling with unemployed from eight Irish counties, North and South.

The general secretary of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, Mr Mike Allen, said the marchers would lobby to ensure that political weight was put behind verbal commitments to full employment.

The Irish group was the most westerly, the Finns the most northerly.

A group from Sarajevo was also taking part, while the Spanish marchers had set out in April, he said.

The marchers are expected to arrive in Amsterdam on June 12th, two days before the summit.

There are nearly a quarter of a million unemployed in the Republic and throughout Europe, about 17.5 million people are registered as unemployed.

About 35 million people live below the poverty line and some five million are without homes.