Any remaining hopes that Ireland could avoid the downturn now slowly strangling the world economy were smashed with the CSO announcement in April of a huge jump in the numbers of workers signing on.

March saw a record 12,000 extra people sign on compared to the previous month, the largest single monthly jump since records began in 1967. This increase brings the total number of people out of work up to 200,000, the highest since 1999.

The Live Register which includes all those who claim some form of unemployment benefit has increased by 28,300 since the start of the year. You have to go back to 1975 to find another jump of this size. Chief economist at Friends First, Jim Power described the figures as 'truly awful', adding that the speed of the deterioration was 'quite shocking'.

And the forecast is not expected to improve anytime soon either. Last year the Irish economy grew by a robust 5.4%. However, the IMF have reduced their forecast for this year to 1.8%, while the Central Bank has an equally pessimistic outlook of 1.9%. Towns like Newbridge and Maynooth have an unemployment rate of nearly 12% - more than double the national average. A steady stream of annoucements of job losses have provoked fear among wide layers of workers for their future. Workers who have lost their jobs are now faced with the dole queue rather than the prospect of finding another job.

The downturn in the construction sector has of course been an important contributer to the growth in the jobless figures. Already there have been around 20,000 job losses in construction and the Central Bank expect an extra 32,000 jobs to go before the end of the year.

However, closer inspection shows that the job losses are not confined to the construction sector. That almost 50% of the 12,000 new claiments were female, shows that other sectors like manufacturing and the service sector are being squeezed. The strengthening of the euro against the dollar and pound have made Irish exports more expensive in what is now a tighter market. This is now being compounded as the ripple effects of the credit crunch and financial crisis of recent months begins to creep into the real economy. But this is just part of the cyclical process of boom/bust that is part and parcel of the capitalist system.

This means more jobs are under threat. The employers, not content with the enormous profits they accumulated off the backs of workers during the boom, will now seek to place the burden of their crisis on the shoulders of workers. In this context, the response of the trade unions cannot be merely to argue for “better redundancy packages” as they have done recently.

They must fight job losses head on. When a company or factory is threatened with closure - the unions should demand to see the company accounts. They should point to the enormous profits made and demand that they are reinvested in the company to ensure the survival of the jobs. Failing that, the unions should demand that the state step in and take the company into public ownership.

There is a real infrastructural crisis throughout the country. Thousands of communities lack vital resources like schools, creches, health clinics and youth facilities. The education and health services are chronically under resourced and need immediate and emergency investment. Despite the construction boom of recent years, 50,000 families languish on housing waiting lists. The state should begin a massive public works programme to build affordable homes for all who need them and to provide these communities with all essential services and in doing so provide work for unemployed construction workers.