THE GOVERNMENT’S strategy to deal with unemployment is to “switch on the tap of emigration”, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has claimed.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen insisted, however, that making the economy more competitive was the best way to maintain and increase jobs. As the October unemployment figures, released yesterday, showed, jobless numbers were down 11,200 from the previous month.

Mr Kenny said “in the year to April, more than 18,000 Irish nationals emigrated” and 30,000 people from eastern Europe had returned home.

“It seems as if the Government’s strategy to deal with the employment situation is to switch on the tap of emigration and to facilitate longer stays in education.”

Mr Cowen said the unemployment rate was down 0.2 per cent from 12.6 per cent, but “the year-on-year increase of 162,000 since October 2008 is 62.3 per cent up on that date”. The Live Register included 70,000 people on short-time work or doing casual work and signing on for part of the week.

The number of people on Fás training programmes “has practically doubled this year from 66,000 to 128,000”, and 25,000 people were on back-to-work and back-to-education schemes.

However, Mr Kenny said “putting people in programmes and placements here and there is only camouflage for the real problem”.

The taxpayer has paid for the training and high qualifications of young graduating professionals “but there is no future for them in this country in view of the increasing redundancy rates”.

The Fine Gael leader also highlighted an OECD report released yesterday which “states there is a risk that the high rate of unemployment could be sustained due to a combination of weaknesses in activation policies, which is jargon for a jobs strategy”.

Mr Cowen said the Government was putting in place the “fundamental building blocks” to come through the recession.