Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)

We are at a crisis point on this issue. It is the biggest problem facing the State and it is progressively getting worse under the stewardship of the Minister's Government. The human face of this crisis is that 450,000 people are unemployed in this State. It is estimated that another two citizens are usually linked to the unemployed person. The crash in income experienced by those unemployed and the negative human experience of unemployment is reaching 1.3 million people directly.

The live register figures we saw recently indicate an unemployment rate of 14.9% but, according to the Census of Population, roughly 19% of the population of the State is unemployed. The real figure is between 15% and 19%. Long-term unemployment figures have increased from 40% to 45%. Nearly 200,000 people in this State are unemployed for as long as this Government has been in office. This is a shocking and startling figure. This is despite 70,000 people emigrating in a year, nine people every single hour. I ask the Minister to imagine if this release valve was not there how much worse these figures would be.

He spoke about the jobs plan but this is ignoring the real issue which is the unemployment crisis. The avalanche of spin is all very well but two key ingredients are missing.

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