asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he is aware of the inconvenience caused to numerous persons by there not being an Unemployment Insurance Office in Granard, County Longford, and if he will consider having an office opened in this town to facilitate the people unemployed in that locality.
WRITTEN ANSWERS. - UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE OFFICE.
There was a Branch Employment Office at Granard up to last September, when the branch manager resigned. At that time the volume of work was not sufficient to justify special arrangements to provide a successor. The work of the office was transferred to the parent exchange at Athlone, which henceforth dealt through the post with persons claiming unemployment benefit. I do not think that the absence of a branch office has caused such inconvenience to unemployed persons in Granard as would have justified the disproportionate expense of opening a new office, but the present distribution of branch offices generally is under review, and I will have the case of Granard carefully considered.