GOREY - "AN UNEMPLOYMENT BLACKSPOT"

Sinn Fein's Anthony Kelly has described Gorey as "an unemployment black spot, which the Establishment parties have let down"

“There is a lack of infrastructure to help people find work. The town doesn’t even have a FÁS office and the FÁS Officer who is there has to use that of the local Partnership and he is only available for 3 hours and on just one day per week – (10 until 1 on a Wednesday).

This isn't surprising as a review of Fás training centres has found that almost 70 workshops and 20 classrooms it operates around the country are lying idle.

At the end of 2008, Fás employed 50 temporary instructors and 40 other temporary staff, but by last Christmas these numbers had fallen to just one temporary instructor and one other!”

Gorey job seekers must head to the Enniscorthy office where things have gotten so desperate that they are looking for a solicitor to take a job as part of the Work Placement Programme but highlighting that the job “doesn’t offer a salary!”

Several businesses around the town have been forced to close and there have been several families have had their homes repossessed. Some have even been evicted.

Referring to the infamous Coolgreany/Croghan evictions of 1887, Kelly said that "this area was known the length and breadth of Ireland (and even as far afield as Russia at that time) due to the mass evictions. Over a century later, the same thing is happening again. We just have a new set of tyrants in control"

EXODUS FROM GOREY AREA

Referring to emigration which is ravaging Co. Wexford once again, Kelly said:

I know of several cases where groups of young men and women in the Gorey area are been driven from this country. They are despairing and angry and feel that the Establishment parties have shamefully let them down and have sold out their country. They are right.

Hundreds turned up to The Bunker recently for a going-away function, where one such group of young people said their goodbyes to their friends and families, as they set out to find work at the other side of the world. It would make you so angry. It's a sick system that we just have to change.

HOPE

Sinn Féin have been pushing for a 7 Billion Euro jobs stimulus package (from Pension Reserve Fund) which will create thousands of new jobs in Co. Wexford ; many new Community Employment places and "Frontline Services Aides Scheme" among many other measures - (for further details see www.sinnfein.ie and electanthonykelly on facebook)