Ms Bríd O'Brien:

Deputy Byrne has identified a real issue, and that is why it is so important that we evaluate everything to get a better grip on what is delivering for people. Some local projects, schools and teachers do deliver. We need to get a better sense of all that, particularly in terms of meeting the needs of those who do not fit into the mainstream or for whom the mainstream is not delivering.

One of the difficulties for self-employed people is due to the nature of the social insurance payment. They have been paying into the social fund for themselves as employees, so to speak. There have been a variety of discussions around that. One of the proposals we had was for the self-employed person to pay for himself or herself as both employer and employee and have that option to build up social insurance entitlement. We would be aware that some people have met the means test criteria and have ended up on a jobseeker's allowance payment, and others have not because of family circumstances. They are then in a very similar space to the unemployed people whose period on jobseeker's benefit has come to an end and who, because of family circumstances, now find themselves in a limbo. It is similar for the person who has worked in the home and now wishes to go back out to the labour market. They are all now in a limbo and without a service because unfortunately one of the things that happened in the downturn was those services were cut. In the past there were some openings, but those doors have all been closed. That is an issue.

Getting the system to work more effectively is important so that we can smooth out any welfare-to-work issues for the individual and also for the employer, particularly the smaller employer who has those cash flow issues the Deputy outlined. That could make a massive difference to so many people and they are probably relatively small changes that would result in huge savings for the system overall if we could get that right.