Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

That is a target in the Pathways to Work programme, which was introduced a number of months ago. It is a target for 2015. It indicates that we have now completely reformed the employment services that were inherited from the previous Government. We now have an employment service that is far more streamlined and is focused on identifying those who are at high risk of entering long-term unemployment and seeking to assist them. A number of programmes have been introduced to support that. They include JobBridge, Springboard, intensive engagement with people who have fallen unemployed, improvements in the Revenue job assist scheme and the promotion of those schemes to get long-term unemployed people back into the workforce. This will be a difficult challenge, but the Government is facing it squarely. Yes, we would love to be doing better in many ways but we recognise that the scale of the disaster inflicted on this economy by a Government of which the Deputy was a member has taken a huge toll. We must fix many of the basic systems that were broken and put them back in working order.

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