Mr. John McKeon:

I will try to take the questions in order. If I skip any, please tell me. I am not trying to avoid answering any questions - I will try to answer them all - but when there are so many, sometimes it is hard to keep track of what I have answered. The last day I gave an update on the labour market situation in terms of unemployment rates and so on. Since then, the Central Statistics Office has released the live register figures. It showed that the unemployment rate had dropped from 10.6% to about 10.5%. One of the interesting things the EUROSTAT publication estimated, based on the CSO figures, was that unemployment was now about 21%, whereas the last day I reported it was 23%. They are statistical measures in terms of updates.

Since then, there have been no new policy developments that were not signalled. There have been, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh pointed out, announcements and launches by the Tánaiste of some of the initiatives which we signalled on that day, particularly First Steps and JobPlus Youth. They are designed to deliver on the Government's commitments under the implementation plan for the Youth Guarantee. First Steps is a programme targeted at supporting disadvantaged youth in taking their first steps into the labour force. That is why it is called First Steps rather than JobBridge - to make the point that this is for the many young people who are disadvantaged, may have left school early, may have been on Youthreach programmes, may have been released from the Probation Service or may have addiction problems. These are the young people we are talking about - young people who, even during the Celtic tiger years, would probably have been unemployed. The initiative tries to target that group of young people in terms of work experience. That is what First Steps is about. It is similar to, but different from JobBridge. It is similar in that it is a work experience or internship type of opportunity. It is different in that training will be given to the young people in advance of a placement with an employer. It is different in that the placement with the employer is four days a week and not five days a week. The young person will have a dedicated case worker assigned to him or her from the Department to work with him or her on the fifth day of each week on training and education options and lessons from the internship.

The other thing that is different about it is that the employer does not get to select the candidates. With the JobBridge scheme, which is voluntary, the employer advertises the position on the JobBridge website, people apply and the employer chooses the candidate. In this scenario, we select young people who we identify as being particularly disadvantaged and who we feel would benefit from a work placement. The employer is asked to sponsor these young people.

We are always conscious of displacement. A standard requirement of the JobBridge scheme, which will also be part of this scheme, is that any opportunities offered are not to displace existing workers or to be used to fill vacancies created by redundancies. This is a particular concern for us. The rules of the scheme do not allow this to happen. Unfortunately, there have been some instances of this, but we take action when we believe employers are doing it. I would emphasise that this scheme is for young people who are particularly disadvantaged. To be fair to the employers mentioned earlier, I was involved with both of them and the schemes they ran. They took on young people who, not to put too fine a point of it, might not otherwise have got past their reception desk. They gave them a chance. Most of these young people have gone into employment having had a lot of intense support. This is a good thing. We have to be conscious of this.

I will ask Mr. Egan to deal with the questions on one-parent families.