Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As nobody else is indicating, I will pose a number of questions myself. The Minister of State, in responding to Deputy Flaherty, spoke about a whole-of-government approach to unemployment. Hopefully we will reach full employment across the State soon. I represent Limerick and seven of the top ten unemployment blackspots are in my city. Has there been any discussion on this? The Minister of State has said that this is not the sole responsibility of his Department and that it crosses other Departments as well. Has there been any discussion about getting to full employment across the State and making sure that communities like those I represent are not left behind, as they were during the so-called Celtic tiger period? Have there been any discussions about particularly targeting those areas? I want to put on the record my appreciation for the really great work that has been done recently by the Limerick Regeneration programme involving local schools and community centres in the four regeneration areas as well as businesses across the mid west. Huge numbers of businesses have held jobs fairs in the regeneration areas. There was one in Moyross last week and three other areas are scheduled to hold fairs too. Has there been any discussion at Government level on that?