Mr. Terry Corcoran:

A small number of questions have not been covered. Deputy Collins asked about the extent of part-time work and under-employed part-time workers and how high the levels of this have become. It is true that there was great growth in this during the recession. It has, however, been coming back down over the last year or two. Virtually all of the growth in employment in the last year was, in fact, in full-time employment, and the number of people reporting themselves as part-time under-employed, which had grown a lot, has been falling. Many people in that position show up on the live register as casual and part-time workers because they are not getting enough hours to make up their income. The number of such people rose from below 20,000 to close to 100,000 during the recession. It has fallen back towards 70,000 and is still falling. We hope that the growth in employment over the next number of years is also reflected in a continuing decline in under-employment.

Senator Moloney asked about people leaving unemployment and where they go. Exits to emigration are a very small part of all exits from our administrative statistics. About 2% of those leaving unemployment each month report themselves as signing off because they are going abroad. Over a third of those leaving are known to enter employment and there is about a third of people who just do not tell us why they are leaving. Survey work in the past has indicated that the vast bulk of them do find work. The CSO started publishing data in their annual emigration and immigration estimates on what people had been doing before they emigrated, and most emigrants are either employed or students just before they leave, rather than emigrating from unemployment.