Mr. John McKeon:

We are looking at using new media, for example, and we shall see where we can get to with that. For example, I know from the industry in which I worked previously that when a person receives a service in a mobile phone shop, he or she will, within a day, receive a text to rate that service between one and five. We are examining that kind of approach. The responses to that approach are more immediate but the structured survey by experienced researchers is the best way to gauge feedback. The Department has also just evaluated the tender so a contractor will be appointed very soon to conduct a metrically based analysis of the difference in impact between those clients served in Intreo centres and clients still served in offices not yet Intreo. There are very few of those but we can research from when we started and track progression. It will be interesting to see what that kind of econometric analysis indicates. Personally, I am more interested in the client experience response but we shall see what is the outcome

I agree that the potential of additional people entering the labour force creates interesting data and it gets more interesting the lower the unemployment rate falls because one is moving from a situation of labour oversupply to one of labour constraint. In counting the relative ratios for that kind of measure in Ireland compared to the rest of Europe, Ireland is not out of line regarding the ratio of the potential additional labour force to the number of people who are registered unemployed.

Female participation in the labour force is also an issue across Europe. The participation rate of females in the labour force in Ireland is measured by the standard of those aged 15 years and over. We actually have a higher level of female participation than the average across the member states of the EU and it is growing. One of the things affecting the data - and it will probably grow a bit faster - is that the participation rate generally in Ireland has fallen, even though female participation has grown slightly.

The fall in the participation rate is entirely accounted for by people staying in education longer. The fall in participation is entirely in the under-25 age group. It will be interesting to see, as the economy recovers, whether that reverses and whether people were staying on in education because they had no employment opportunities when they left school. The very early, tentative indications are that it is holding. Over the past five years, the norm has been for almost everyone to go on to further education. It looks like that will hold, notwithstanding a recovery. It is very tentative and we should be conscious that we are only in the early days. I take the suggestions on social media and better information in our offices. That is something we will continue to look at. We have Twitter and Facebook accounts. They are not the most followed accounts in the world so we need to look at what we can do about that.