Cllr calls for job creation committee

Fine Gael Councillor Martin Heydon has called on Kildare County Council to become more proactive on the issue of job creation within the County.

Speaking at last Friday’s reconvened Kildare County Council meeting, where he had placed a motion calling for the establishment of a job creation committee to act as a task force within the county, Cllr Heydon said the strengths and knowledge of local communities and local business people should be used to help create jobs right now, to ensure that everything that can be done by the local authority to aid job creation, is being done.

On the same day, live register figures were released for March 2010. They showed that a total of 17,907 people are now signing on in Kildare, an increase of 19.4% on the corresponding figures for March 2009. They also showed that Kildare and Wicklow had the greatest increase per county in the Live Register figures for the month.

“The startling increase in unemployment within Kildare requires radical and innovative action," Cllr Heydon said. "While I acknowledge the county development board and the proposed establishment of an economic development sub-committee, I believe we need something much more focused with a clearly defined objective and timeline.”

The county manager urged the members to give the proposed sub committee on economic development time before forming a new committee. While this request was acceded to, a review of the progress of the sub committee would be expected in the coming months.

“Circumstances are changing so rapidly it is imperative that any counter measures to try to firstly halt this decline in unemployment then actively reduce it, must be just as equally swift,” concluded Cllr Heydon.