Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

As I recall, the former Minister was Deputy Ó Cuív and the Government was made up of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. The critical issue was the provision in the Estimates for an expectation of 405,000 people on average to be on the register during 2011. As I stated, for the year to date the weekly average live register has been 441,000.

Later today, my colleague, the Minister for Finance, will announce a series of jobs initiatives and measures which we hope will reduce the number of people on the live register. However, those are the figures and the previous Government factored in an assumption of 405,000 which turned out to be significantly different to the experience to date in 2011.

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