Long-term unemployment has fallen by 30 per cent in Dublin in the past 22 months, the Taoiseach said yesterday. The figure will be included in statistics to be published in the next few days, Mr Ahern told guests at the launch of a report on the work of the Dublin Inner City Partnership.
But there still are people who find it difficult to get onto an employment or training scheme because of their low level of education, he said.
"We've industries here in the heart of the city looking for permits to bring in Russians, Koreans, Australians, New Zealanders, Americans, and at the same time we have a whole lot of unemployed people."
Later the Taoiseach heard a plea to save the jobs of 1,000 people in Cork, Dublin and Limerick who had previously been unemployed and who work in childcare and other community-type projects.
The 1,000 jobs were given to people aged over 35 who had been unemployed for five years or more, under a programme called the Whole-time Jobs Initiative.
The Department of Enterprise, Employment and Trade says they were meant to remain in the jobs for only three years - until the end of December.
But the Taoiseach was urged by the director of the Dublin Inner City Partnership, Mr Dave Connolly, to intervene to save the jobs of those currently employed.
The bulk of the jobs are in Dublin, 230 of them in the inner city.
A Department spokesman said the programme is not being discontinued, and that the number of places has been increased to 2,875. However, the first group of 1,000 people are approaching the end of their three-year period.
The Department has been lobbied by organisations in the areas where these people worked and the Minister, Ms Harney, will make a decision in a month or so, an official said.
Everybody recruited to the scheme knew the jobs were temporary, but "there are legitimate issues which affect individuals quite deeply", he explained.
Mr Connolly called for an early decision to save the jobs of the 1,000 people concerned. "A sense of panic is setting in among us," he said.
The Dublin Inner City Partnership yesterday claimed a wide range of successes in 1997 and 1998, including a drop of 2,000 in the number of people receiving social welfare payments in the inner city.