A Fianna Fail Councillor says the unemployment rate in parts of Waterford City is as high as 37 per cent.

Jason Murphy says a Pobal study puts Waterford City South as the third most disadvantaged electoral area in Ireland.

He explains what it means:

“That puts us ahead of places like Tallaght Central, Tallaght South, Clondalkin, Ballymun, Limerick City North – which includes places like Moyross.

“What does that mean in real terms?

“My housing estate in Larchville only has 4.3 per cent [of people] who have any type of third level education. We have an unemployment rate of 37.6 per cent.”

Councillor Murphy called for changes to how the council allocates grants to communities.

“In striving to keep everyone happy we don’t really keep anyone happy.

“I’m asking if the council can target these grants to the areas that really need it?”

Director of Service Fergus Galvin says councillors can decide to change how grants are allocated.

“At the end of the day the grants go back to yourselves [the councillors] to vote on and to allocate.

“So, it’s a question from a policy point of view. If you wish to change that policy I would suggest would need to be done at a political level and not necessarily at [the executive] level.”

Live Register

Meanwhile, there was a slight increase in the live register in Waterford during February.

The number of people signing on across the City and County increased by 78 to 7,125.

However, the figure is 12 per cent lower than the end of Febuary 2018 when 8,100 people were signing on.