Mr. John McKeon:

The questions on Gateway will probably be the quickest to answer as, although I have loads of figures, unfortunately, I have just noticed that I have no figures for the Gateway programme. I will, therefore, send a written response. I do not want to quote the numbers from memory, but the numbers are on track to reach 3,000. There was a fairly slow take-off, but the figure has accelerated.

On changing the eligibility criteria, there was a policy decision taken, but we can certainly feed back the committee's views and talk to the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, and the Minister of State, Deputy Kevin Humphreys about it. The rationale for picking the particular threshold was to focus on persons who were long-term unemployed. It is very difficult to make exceptions to which we can hold hard. Once we make an exception, the whole thing begins to unravel. That would certainly be my advice from an operational perspective. There are trade-offs to be made.

In respect of the total numbers on schemes, Table 10 in the live register statement from the Central Statistics Office produces them. It shows that the total number on schemes in December 2014 was 86,027. The figure was 86,162 at the end of December 2013; therefore, there has been a small decrease. This shows that the reduction in the level of unemployment during this period was not due to people being shifted into an employment programme. The employment programme numbers have been relatively steady for the past few years. It includes full-time FÁS training for unemployed persons but not some of the part-time and evening training programmes which would not impact on the numbers on the live register. We rely on the numbers produced by the Central Statistics Office which is independent of the Department.

We keep an eye on the emigration figures. It is true that if we had not seen an increase in emigration in the last period - certainly up to last year - there would, without a shadow of doubt, be more people on the live register. That cannot be gainsaid. However, particularly in the past two years, the numbers emigrating have been falling. From a statistical point of view, the reduction in employment has happened, notwithstanding the fact that the outflow due to emigration has reduced.