Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

The total number of people on the live register for January 2009 is 327,861, which is an increase of 146,412 since January 2008. The live register is not designed to measure unemployment, as it includes part time, seasonal and casual workers entitled to unemployment benefit. Employment and unemployment are measured by the quarterly national household survey and published by the Central Statistics Office. In the third quarter of 2008, which is the most recent quarter for which data is available, employment decreased by 25,200 over 12 months to a current total of 2,120,800. Unemployment increased by 53,300 in the same period to 160,000. The CSO is releasing fourth quarter results of the quarterly national household survey next Friday, 27 February.

The rise in unemployment is particularly unwelcome and is a sign of the difficult times that global economies are facing. The Government is determined to do all in its power to support the rising number of people who have lost their jobs. My Department, FÁS and the Department of Social and Family Affairs are working together to respond quickly and effectively to the rising live register numbers. FÁS employment services and FÁS local employment services are putting in place measures designed to provide increased capacity for the rise in referrals from the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs, and the increased number of unemployed seeking job search assistance voluntarily. The implementation of these measures has increased the capacity of job search services from 6,500 to 12,250 persons per month.

To assist individuals through the provision of education and training opportunities, I recently announced the availability of 51,000 new training places under the FÁS training initiatives strategy. These places are in addition to the 27,000 places that were previously planned for 2009, under the bridging foundation training, specific skills training and traineeships programmes. They are specifically tailored for individuals who wish to add to their existing skills level and improve their prospects of re-entering the labour market.

In response to the significant downturn in construction related activity since the beginning of 2008, FÁS has established a training fund to enable redundant workers to provide a timely response to identified training and re-training needs for low skilled and redundant craft workers from the construction sector. This will enable individuals to secure a speedy return to work. Where this cannot be secured, it will provide relevant upskilling opportunities so that job seekers can secure employment in alternative sectors. FÁS is also focusing on providing retraining opportunities for redundant construction workers. These include redundant apprentices being allowed to move on to their next off-the-job phase of training without having to do the next on-the-job phase.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

A register of redundant apprentices has been established by FÁS and the institutes of technology to identify these people at the earliest possible stage and FÁS has prioritised the need to locate employers to sponsor the completion of the apprentices' off-the-job training. These measures will operate in parallel with the FÁS employer-based redundant apprentice rotation scheme, which aims to provide up to 500 redundant apprentices with on-the-job training with certain approved employers on a rotation basis during 2009.

The Government intends to achieve greater capacity within existing resources to meet the ongoing challenges in the labour market. In this context, we will bring forward further measures to make training and education services available to a greater number of unemployed persons over the coming weeks and months to ensure timely and comprehensive access to the full range of services provided by FÁS.

The Government's focus will also be very much on supporting and promoting enterprise development to create new jobs. The enterprise development agencies of my Department, including IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, are working to ensure that we continue to grow the economy and create jobs, even in the current challenging climate. The pipeline of new business for which IDA Ireland is competing is as strong as at any time in recent years. To continue to facilitate this we need to ensure that our competitiveness is sustained into the future.

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