Austerity Not Working

An unemployment march and rally in Ireland in April 1957

A report by the group Caritas on the impact of the austerity programme on Ireland and in four other European countries has featured in an RTE  news item. The report called The Impact of the European Crisis was published last Thursday and has cast serious doubt on the current economic orthodoxy. According to RTE:

The first in-depth examination of the impact of austerity policies on people in the five EU countries worst affected by the economic crisis concludes that the policy of prioritising austerity is not working.

Anti-austerity marches have taken place across Europe in recent years.

Caritas represents 49 Catholic organisations involved in charity, relief and aid work worldwide. Speaking with RTE its Secretary General Europe, Jorge Nuño Mayer warned:

Through these political austerity measures politicians are creating a structural poverty, a structural unemployment and we will have a lost generation of young people who won't find a job because they have no possibility to work and no possibility to develop their employability ... There are solutions. We need structural funds to be invested in more employment and anti-poverty measures, but also we need a better solution of the debt crisis, we need that the decisions are not simply cutback, cutback, cutback.

purchase prints @ Irish Photo Archive