There were almost 500 redundancies in Galway over the first three months of this year — many of them in the city area — as the downturn in the economy continues to bite home.

The economic slowdown has hit hardest at the construction sector where many tradesmen and labourers are facing into ‘no work’ scenarios.

In total, 499 people lost their jobs in Galway during January, February and March — the fourth highest number of job losses on a county by county basis. The Galway figure accounted for 6.3% of the total redundancies across the country for the first quarter of the year.

According to the Small Firms Association (SFA), the pattern of job losses in Ireland is nowbecoming more regionally spread — on average nationally, 613 jobs are being lost every week.

Close on one third of the jobs lost so far this year have been in the ........................