A WEXFORD TD with distinctive locks has said he has been driven close to tearing his hair out, such is his frustration with responses given to him by the Jobs Minister in relation to the rising level of unemployment in the county.

Mick Wallace has described how he asked Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor in December 2016 to take direct action to tackle an unemployment rate of 18.4 per cent in Wexford, which compared negatively with a national average of 7.2 per cent.

“She told me then that everything was great in the South East, when it actual fact it wasn’t,” he said.

At the end of last month, January 2017, he said, the unemployment rate fell to an average of 7.1 per cent nationally, but rose in Wexford to 18.8 per cent.

“Despite having the second-largest population in the South East, Wexford had the lowest number of IDA site visits both last year and for the combined period from 2011 to 2016,” Deputy Wallace said. 

In a bid to highlight shortcomings in County Wexford, Deputy Wallace continued with the strong statement of opinion that “people in Government do not seem to realise that we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country; the highest suicide rate; one of the highest rates of rent supplement payment; one of the highest percentages of people who have no formal primary education and one of the lowest rates of people completing third-level education.”

Bringing his points back around to his hair, Deputy Wallace mentioned how people have been calling for him to get it cut for over forty years.

“I’ll have torn it all out by the time I get a proper response to the issues facing Wexford from someone, this Government or the last!” he said.