The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
THE number of people signing on the live register in Clare increased by over 200 in Clare during November.
In October the figure for the county was 4,821, before rising to 5,047 in November.
Almost half of those signing on were attached to the Ennis Social Welfare Office, with the figure for the town at 2,490.
The number signing on at Ennistymon was 1,242, while it was 765 at Kilrush and 550 at Tulla.
Each one of the social welfare offices saw an increase during the month of November.
Year on year the number signing on in the county is up by almost 1,200, but much of this is likely to be due to the arrival of large numbers of Ukrainian refugees, rather than any significant dip in economic activity.
Clare saw the second largest increase in recipients year on year, with only Kerry, another county that has seen a substantial numbers of refugees arrive, having a larger increase in percentage terms.
A note on the Central Statistics Office’s website states, “People arriving in Ireland from Ukraine under the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) can access a wide range of Department of Social Protection (DSP) supports.
“The majority of new applications for income support from people of working age are being processed as Jobseeker’s Allowance (JA) claims until the most appropriate income support for that person is identified.
“This facilitates access to existing part-time work supports where appropriate. If a person is on JA for 20* claim paid days or more, they are counted on the Live Register.”
Commenting on today’s publication, Morgan O’Donnell, Statistician in the Labour Market Analysis Section of the CSO, said, “The unadjusted Live Register total for November 2022 was 180,884.
When seasonal effects are considered, the seasonally adjusted Live Register total for November 2022 was 184,700, which is an increase of 900 persons from October 2022.
“There was a decrease of 800 persons on the seasonally adjusted Live Register for November 2022 when compared with November 2019.
“There were 19,500 people benefitting from the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive included in the Live Register figures for November 2022, an increase of 1,929 from October 2022.”
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked for a number of other regional titles in Limerick, Galway and Cork.
