ADDING his voice to the concern recently expressed by various Limerick city politicians regarding the delayed release of the final report of the Mid West Task Force on Jobs, Cllr Maurice Quinlivan asks: “What hope is there for more than 21,000 people unemployed across Limerick city and county if our Minister for Jobs, Richard Bruton, can take six months and counting to publish this report?” Commenting on the minister’s response to a parliamentary question from Sinn Fein, in which he said that he intended to publish the report in the run up to Budget 2012, he points out that the Mid West Task Force was established following the huge job losses suffered in Limerick due to the closure of manufacturing by Dell computers in January 2009.
“An interim report was published in July 2009 and duly ignored for two years by the then Fianna Fail/Green government, and Minister Bruton is “sitting on his hands in not taking any action to kick-start employment in the Mid West”.
Decrying the absence of action to confront the crisis, Cllr Quinlivan says that with unemployment and emigration at record levels, Limerick city is in crisis and yet the minister is “doing nothing, just like his predecessor and to give an example, the abandoned Parkway Valley development needs an urgent solution.
“I have no doubt but that the Task Force report will come out strongly against the development but still we wait for any response from the Minister while this is a live planning issue”.
Cllr Quinlivan also queries the position of the Minister of Finance, Michael Noonan, on the issue.
“Is he happy to have the final report gathering dust while it awaits publication, and why has he not spoken out on this issue?”
