Ballinasloe in County Galway has high numbers of people out of work and is struggling to attract employers.
Ballinasloe now has over five hundred people unemployed and the prospects of finding employment in the region are bleak.
If you judge a town's wealth by the number of jobs it can provide for its people, then Ballinasloe in County Galway has become pretty down at heel in recent months and its future doesn’t look too bright.
With 520 people unemployed, this means that hundreds of families are now trying to live on a few pounds a week.
Ballinasloe, Co Galway (1971)
A few months ago, a Dutch company had planned to set up a meat factory in the town which would have provided some employment for local people. The factory will now be built at Clara in County Offaly and some see this as a sinister political move. People in Ballinasloe say that the plans for the factory were hijacked by politicians and that saw it located in a different constituency where votes were needed.
Ballinasloe gets its jobs from three main industries. 300 people work in the town’s three footwear factories. However, the footwear industry is going through a lean period and some of these workers may be facing unemployment. Seventy people are employed in the Burnhouse animal meal factory and management is optimistic about the future. However, the Lynch meat exporting plant has laid off 72 workers in the last two years. A further 40 men make a living quarrying limestone at Top Quarries. However, cut stone is now deemed too expensive as a building material, and the workers are being replaced by machines. Ballinasloe’s single biggest employer is the mental hospital.
Denis McCarthy of the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) in Galway explains how the system for establishing a company in a town works and why the plans for the Dutch meat factory moved elsewhere. He refutes any claims that the move was politically motivated. He says that Clara was chosen for geographical reasons by the owner of the meat plant.
We never had any interference whatever from any politician.
This 'Newsbeat’ report was broadcast on 11 March 1971. The reporter is Michael Ryan.
