It is the start of the month, and with it has come the now ritual but extremely depressing litany of statistics that tell us just how bad things are.

Last week, there was general acknowledgement that, in the words of Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, the ship was sinking, but perhaps not so fast.

We've become a nerd nation, transfixed by economic indicators. Manufacturing is declining, but not so quickly as this time last year; exports are better than expected. Tax returns are just about hitting target, but is that because we now have lower expectations and a burden of levies? And the bottom line anyway is that borrowing for current expenditure now stands at €14.7bn, a rate of increase that's far faster than any of the slowdowns in rates of decline elsewhere.

It goes on and on, and in among it all, the human cost has been all but overlooked.

For 19 consecutive months now, unemployment has risen, creating 413,500 "seasonally-adjusted" casualties of our economic disaster.

No doubt the cheerleaders of the markets, who see such hope in the rise in share prices since their blackest day last March, and in the fact that the contraction of the economy is slower than it was, will approve of the taoiseach's display of hand-wringing in the Dáil as he announced the June jobless rate. His muted reaction was to take cheer in the fact that the rate of increase was lower. But, as he admitted himself, current government policy – "strategies outlined and models projected" – means that unemployment will "unfortunately" rise before things get better.

By the end of the year, the jobless numbers will hit 500,000 and in 2010 they will very likely get even worse.

Unemployment is now a massive problem, recalling the worst days of the 1980s. It is also bringing with it some of the worst policies of that lost decade, in which people are regarded as necessary casualties of a fiscal rebalancing.

That may have worked then, when we were a more insular country and expectations were lower, structures were more rigid, and life was considerably less sophisticated and informed than it is today.

It will not work in today's world and the failure to put together a strong, coherent policy to help those who have lost their jobs may fatally undermine this government's attempts to introduce the sort of cutbacks and efficiencies being recommended by An Bord Snip Nua, many of which have been revealed in these pages over the past weeks.

By next year, another 100,000 people, and more school-leavers and graduates, will have few prospects. They will have long gaps in their CVs which may have a permanent effect on their future career choices.

People in their 50s who lose jobs will feel demoralised, defeated and depressed by the knowledge that they have little or no hope of ever finding permanent, pensionable, work again.

The social consequences – not just the economic effects – are enormous, with another whole generation broken by the dispiriting effects of joblessness. The €4bn in cuts that have been earmarked for the next eye-wateringly tough budget will only lessen the options of the jobless.

There had been some optimism a month or two ago that the first international "green shoots" would mean that our jobs market would stop shrinking by the end of 2010, or perhaps at worst in 2011. Our entire jobs policy seems to have been pinned on global recovery.

Now, with economic news from Britain, Europe and America less hopeful, especially on their own employment fronts, the prospects of our being able to take advantage of an international upturn are dimmer because it seems it won't materialise as soon, or as strongly, as hoped.

Anyway, there will be no going back to the glory days of the past. It is unlikely we will ever see a return – internationally or at home – of the strength and ebullience that led to the crash.

It means that those who are on the dole will be on it for longer. It makes it all the more unforgiveable that this government has failed to provide reassurance and stability by putting together a credible plan to cope with joblessness.

David Begg, general secretary of Congress, has drawn attention to ICTU's 10-point plan for recovery, which has been widely ignored, but deserves to be argued about at the very least. He also points to schemes operating in Germany, Spain and Holland that have been quite successful. In Britain, every young person under 25 who has been out of work for a year is now entitled to full-time education.

Here, we are still tinkering around the edges. There have been half-hearted nods at training schemes and disjointed early retirement and career break offers for the public sector. But there has been no coherent structure – one which could even be steered by the taoiseach himself to signal its importance – to help businesses keep people in work and to help workers young and old, single or with families, to plan for their lives when they are asked to take short time or are laid off altogether.

The extremely difficult and shocking personal trauma of unemployment cannot be dismissed with a rueful look, a downturned mouth, a despondent shrug and the word "unfortunate".

It is a national tragedy and should be treated with the urgency that any tragedy of this scale deserves. It is not right that taxpayers should prop up failing businesses. But it is right that a generation is not consigned to the unemployment scrap heap.

Fundamental legal rights infringed

There is no widespread evidence of jury tampering in this country, even in trials involving criminal gangs. Yet, with very little explanation or debate about its consequences, this government is preparing to rush through 25 amendments to the Criminal Justice Act which will remove the most fundamental right of all within our justice system, that of a fair trial before a jury of our peers.

The threat posed by criminal gangs is of course grave, and there is no doubt that gangs have intimidated witnesses. But this legislation does not deal with witness protection. What it does is provide for judge-only trials in the Special Criminal Court in the way membership of subversive organisations such as the IRA used to be dealt with.

This legislation is highly complex and has only just been published, yet the government plans to guillotine debate on it in the Oireachtas next week, precluding many interest groups from making submissions.

Already garda profilers are drawing up details of gang members which senior gardaí can use under the new legislation so that convictions can take place soon after the amendments are enacted.

This is no way to deal with such fundamental legal rights; much more time is needed for a debate of the issues involved.