Mr. David Fitzsimons:

We raised this with Mr. Ollie Rehn and we got a favourable response in Europe to some of the ideas we raised. Basically the retail industry used to employ more than 300,000 people and when the recession came, this reduced to a skeleton full-time staff of 255,000. That means when the seasonal peak arrives at Christmas, there is a necessity to hire many more temporary employees than we used to. It is our contention that between 30,000 and 35,000 will be employed this Christmas. The problem our members have is it is challenging to make these appointments because people on social welfare find it a challenge to get back on welfare when the work finishes. It takes six to eight weeks for them to resume their welfare payments and they are bereft of cash to live off during that period. Thus, they will not take advantage of the opportunity to work temporarily and that is a concern. We need to build a flexible social welfare system that fits today's environment, not yesterday's where we all had jobs for life.