Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

——and five and a half weeks for jobseeker's allowance. I know the staff in all our offices throughout the country are working flat out to try to help these people and support them. None of them wants to be on the live register or unemployed. They want the opportunity to get back into work. One of the key ways of achieving that is to ensure that the economy beyond the employment sector is kept strong. By that, I mean our expenditure — ensuring that our income is right and that we have a strong banking sector. We have made many decisions about the banking sector in this House over the past few months but now we must see that these decisions feed into ordinary people's lives and into ordinary businesses so that they can get loans and credit and can help to regenerate their own areas.

Given the very big gap between income and expenditure, we must implement very hard measures this year. It was not easy for anybody to sit around the table and say, "yes, we agree", to €2 billion coming out of the economy. For that sum to come out, this year, is a lot to ask. We must look at those areas that are a significant element of our expenditure and our budget. The commitment that people are showing and their willingness to engage with this is a sign of real leadership.

As a Minister, of course it is easier to be able to spend. It is much more difficult for a Government to say that it must take money out of this sector or that. Leadership has been shown right across the different groups and the unions and also by individuals out there, in the making and supporting of those decisions in order to regenerate the economy.

What about the individual, the person who is 18 or 19 years of age, who comes in to sign on? The last thing we want is for him or her to become dependent on social welfare and to become long-term unemployed. We have two pilot projects that are working very well. They are in only two areas at present, although I look forward to expanding them. The aim is to ensure that when an 18 or 19 year old comes to sign on to the live register, he or she is immediately referred to a course that is relevant to his or her needs. Some of these people still have literacy problems. Some are more capable and are better able to take up other skills but——

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