Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

Again, the skills of people on the live register in various areas are very much a function of what the industry or employment opportunities were pre-recession. One is looking at trying to build new skills or to enhance skills. We feed information in through the ETBs and there is constant engagement with SOLAS to identify different training programmes and skills-building programmes to put in place in various areas. There have also been tremendous successes. One can look at some of the clusters of industry, for example, the biopharma cluster in the midlands where there has been very close interaction between our offices and the industry as a whole. There has been huge success in terms of moving people from unemployment into those sectors where they previously would not have had experience. We work with the employers to provide the skills to ensure people are equipped to take up the jobs in the sector.