TAOISEACH BRIAN COWEN has predicted unemployment could increase to well over 400,000 as he confirmed that the Government would introduce a supplementary budget early next month.

Mr Cowen said he did not want to get involved in semantics except to say that the Government would make whatever decisions were necessary to keep within budget by the end of the month.

“In the first week of April we will have a supplementary budget brought to the House.”

Mr Cowen said nobody could say with definitive truth how long the recession would last, what its impact would be, and how deep it would go.

“We can only say that everybody agrees that, in terms of financial crisis and economic impact, this is the biggest challenge that has faced the world economy since 1929. That was 80 years ago.”

That, he added, was not an argument to abdicate his responsibility as Taoiseach and leader of the Government to come into the House and take whatever decisions were necessary however difficult they might be, knowing that it would be painful for everybody.

“It is my responsibility to come into this House to make sure our international credibility as a modern economy is upheld and maintained by meeting the targets we must meet. That is our bounden duty.”

The Government, said Mr Cowen, would look forward to any ideas that the Opposition wished to put into the debate.

“If they wish to stay away from it, that is a matter for them, but I do not believe that is their disposition. However, if it is, so be it.

“At the end of the day, the Government must make the necessary decisions and we will do so.”

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said that there were now more than 350,000 people unemployed.

“It is the highest number of people out of work in the State ever. It is 200,000 extra people out of work since the date of the last general election.

“Having 200,000 extra people out of work costs €4 billion to the public finances. That is the Government’s problem.”

Mr Cowen said behind every statistic and job loss was a person or family whose difficulties were made all the greater by losing their job, with the anxiety and concern that it brought with it.

While they would like to see every one of the 354,000 unemployed people at work, the number represented 10.4 per cent of, thankfully, a more enlarged workforce than was the case in the 1980s.

Mr Cowen said the unemployment figures mentioned were somewhere in the region of 400,000.

“It appears clear that if the present rate of job losses were to continue, we are looking well beyond that, certainly in the region of 450,000 and more. We have to be cognisant of that as well.”

Mr Gilmore said some 450,000-plus unemployed was a really shocking prospect.

“What we have to do is not just address the problems in the public finances but address very urgently what can be done to get people back to work and, second, what can be done to provide education, training and meaningful occupation for people who are coming out of work.

“The prospect that we would have approaching 500,000 people unemployed in the country is a really frightening one which requires very urgent and serious consideration.”

Mr Cowen accused the Opposition parties of opposing the initiatives taken by the Government to ensure that it would be successful in maintaining expenditure within 2008 levels