Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Yes, I can give the Deputy the numbers. The rate of unemployment will be a function of the numbers of people at work in the economy, immigration, emigration and so forth. Last year, the average live register figure was 419,000. As I said in my opening statement, in October of last year, the register fell below 400,000 for the first time. The register is somewhat seasonal and goes up and down at different times of the year. It rises, for instance, at this time of the year for a period and then falls again as the weather improves and so on. There are seasonal variations in the register. With that in mind, the projected average that we are working on for this year is 390,000. I must stress that the figure is an average. At this time of year, in deepest winter, the average will be higher than that but when we come into the summer and early autumn, we would expect the average to fall significantly. We expect the fall to be significant from autumn onwards and into the pre-Christmas period.

The average unemployment rate was 12.4% based on the last available figures. Given that the last published European average unemployment rate was just over 12%, we are now moving very close to the European mean. While that is a very high unemployment rate, it compares very favourably to where we were drifting towards, which was over 15%. When the Government came into office in 2011, the big fear then was that the live register would hit 500,000. In the event, it never did but 12.4% is very high. Obviously, the rate is even higher for younger people. We have an enormous job of work to do to get more people back to work. To reiterate, the figure last year was 419,000 and this year it is 390,000. That places a very significant demand on the Department. If we achieve those numbers on the live register, we will achieve very significant savings.