Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I think Mr. Dalton is right in terms of small and indigenous industries, but one thing the shift of 26% in GDP tells us, is that policy-wise we need to focus more on adding value to those businesses and ensuring they are here to stay.

I have really wanted to ask this question since 2013. I want to ask about the role of the CSO in employment figures. I am concerned because in 2013, the CSO reported that 29.8% of the 61,000 purported new jobs created that year, that is 26,800 jobs, came from agriculture, forestry and fishing. That figure of 61,000 new jobs was repeated ad nauseamas being an accurate figure when we know there were not 515 jobs created in the agricultural sector each week or 73 jobs created each day at the height of the recession. I know that the CSO entered a caveat in terms of how it was reporting these figures. I think this is where the weakness is but the media and Government ran with the figure that 26,800 new jobs were created in farming, when we knew that was not true. In some way that is reflected in the lack of confidence of people on the ground in the CSO figures. The people on the ground may not read the caveat or understand the qualification of the information. How do we avoid that happening again?