Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. McKeon for his opening statement. We will address various items mentioned in it during the meeting. It is very interesting to get a picture of what is happening in the Department and people will be interested to hear that during the hours that Mr. McKeon is before the committee, there will be 430 meetings with jobseekers, 26,000 applications will be processed, 118,000 payments to the value of €28 million will be made, 10,000 phone calls will be answered by the Department, 1,600 control reviews will be finalised, the SAFE registration of 1,200 people will be completed and 45 marriages will be registered. It is a very busy Department. Although the committee deals with macro-economic issues, that provides a micro-economic view of the work of the Department. Committee members will deal with such issues in our offices tomorrow morning.

Deputy Cassells is the first speaker and will have 20 minutes. Deputy Deering will be the second speaker and will have 15 minutes. Other Deputies have indicated in the following sequence: Deputies MacSharry, Cullinane, Catherine Murphy and Connolly.