Impact Evaluation of the European Employment Strategy in Ireland. ESRI General Papers

Recent years have seen dramatic growth in employment following unprecedented economic growth and development during the 1990s. Total employment in Ireland grew by a remarkable 534,000, or by 46%, in the eight years from 1993 to 2001, and over 220,000 of this was achieved between 1998 and 2001. In very recent years, the rate of growth in employment fallen somewhat, from a peak of almost 7% in 1997-1998 to about 4% in 2000- 2001. The rapid growth in the economy and in employment after 1993 led to a steady decline in unemployment from 220,000 in 1993 to 127,000 in the 2nd quarter of 1998 and to 65,000 in the 2nd quarter of 2001. The unemployment rate thus fell from 15.7% of the labour force in 1993 to 7.8% in the 2nd quarter of 1998 and to 3.7% in the 2nd quarter of 2001. With the deterioration in the international economy, and the slowdown in the Irish growth rate in 2001, unemployment increased to just under 80,000, or 4.3% of the labour force, in the 3rd quarter of 2001

The evolution of Palaeolake Flixton and the environmental context of Star Carr, NE. Yorkshire: stratigraphy and sedimentology of the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (LGIT) lacustrine sequences

The basal topography and sediments recording the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (LGIT) from Palaeolake Flixton, North Yorkshire have been reinvestigated by a detailed auger and borehole survey. The data presented here, from the area to the north of Flixton Island and the River Hertford, suggests the basal topography of Palaeolake Flixton is irregular with deep and areally small basins interspersed within a gravel surface ca. 21 m OD. At its shallowest the gravel surface is ca. 2 m below current land surface and the deeper, steep-sided basins are up to 9 m in depth. Examination of the sediment sequences indicates the deeper basins accumulate sediments from the Dimlington Stadial (DS), Windermere Interstadial (WI), Loch Lomond Stadial (LLS) and the Holocene, whilst the shallower sequences only record the Holocene. The configuration of the deposits in the basins suggest that lake levels declined during the WI from 24 to 23 m OD and then fell further during the LLS to ca. 20.90 m OD. The lake water levels then rose slowly during the Holocene to a height of between 23 and 24 m OD. These fluctuations in lake water level at the transition from the LLS to Holocene perhaps indicate that the configuration of the water body during the resettlement of the area in the Mesolithic was different to previous reconstructions, with lower water levels and a greater area of land exposed for habitation. This highlights the potential for additional preservation of archaeological assemblages in the area of the former lake. Moreover the complex basal stratigraphy suggests that a systematic analyses of the Palaeolake Flixton sedimentary archive is required to resolve high-resolution palaeoclimate data from this lake sequence