Recovery is spread unevenly

Ireland’s unemployment levels are falling fast, but many areas are not feeling much of the recovery

Sometimes failure really is success in progress. The national unemployment rate is now 9.8 per cent, more than 212,000 people. On the face of it, a total policy failure, and nothing to be happy about – apart from the fact that that number is dropping from a high of over 15 per cent, and has been dropping since mid-2011.

More than 1.9 million people are employed in Ireland today, getting us back to ...