Mr. John McKeon:

I took them as separate questions.

Deputy Conaghan asked about the change in the service. I acknowledge what he said about the INOU. The INOU has played a very important role in the changes and has worked with the Department doing customer research, etc., for us. It keeps us honest and on our toes. It is a useful service to have. I commend the organisation on its work. It does it in a very civilised way, which makes it even more effective.

Unemployment triggered the process of change. With unemployment of 4%, we could have processes and systems in which gaps are not necessarily visible. When unemployment increases to 15.2%, the flaws in the system become very apparent. The flaws were probably pointed out before, to be fair, but they were not that material in terms of impacts. Suddenly they became material in impact and must be dealt with. That is what triggered the change. The process is not by any means finished.

It is an ongoing process of change. Whether it will ever be fully finished is another matter. Notwithstanding the fact that we have been doing this for about four to five years now, we are still in a period of fairly intense change.

We were asked for our views and advice for the Minister and who will be drafting. The feedback from our consultation process is that the Department has a challenge. The term used was "the broadening and deepening challenge". This is language adopted from Europe. On the one hand, we have to deepen the service by improving the quality. There is a sense that during recent years, we have been through a period in which we have been responding to process inefficiencies, changing processes, focusing on throughput and dealing with the big volume. We now need to consider embedding and deepening the quality of the service. At the same time, we must recognise that there is a need to broaden the service to the kinds of cohorts discussed here today. The next phase involves striking a balance between continuing to deepen it and at the same time broadening it. That will be the challenge in the next phase of drafting. The drafting will be done within the Department of Social Protection working with other Departments, such as the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Certainly, the drafts will be considered by the Government and the Labour Market Council, of which Ms O'Brien is a member. Then they will be brought to the Government. Our intention is to bring them to the Government no later than January of next year. The Government will then decide on the final content. That is the usual process; officials draft and Government decides. However, we will be drafting in as consultative a way as we can, bearing in mind that ultimately it is a Government decision. I believe I have covered everything. I may not have.