Dr. Ray Griffin:

It is not with the viciousness and to the same extent but it is definitely there. With that seeking element, usually people are well aware of the gap and what needs to be done. We know Irish people do not like claiming. We know that twice in the past 30 years we have had full employment and when the labour market has given people offers, they go for them. We have had times when there is no work out there because of the global financial crisis, or before that because of the oil crisis in the 1980s, and its effect here. We have been subject to the vicissitudes of global markets which have damaged individuals and the automatic stabiliser has kicked in. Everybody was quite stunned at how quickly we returned to full employment. The real measure of that is that many of the schemes we designed to intervene to reduce unemployment were redundant before they hit the market because people were back to work.