Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the publication yesterday of the wording for the children's referendum and commend the Minister for Children on the work she has done. As Deputy Troy said, the Fianna Fáil Party will support the amendment. I hope we will have a sensible campaign in the coming weeks around this very important issue.

The CSO quarterly national household survey statistics were stark and unfortunately may have been lost among other issues. Long-term unemployment is now 60% of total unemployment. There have been some good announcements this week and the IDA continues to do some fantastic work but we have a serious problem. Has the Cabinet subcommittee met to discuss unemployment recently? There is nothing on job creation in the A or B list of the legislative programme, while on the C list there is only legislation to abolish county enterprise boards. Given the challenge presented to the political system and the country by those figures, what plans does the Government have?

Deputy McConalogue and I were wondering what the Tánaiste has done with the Government's allocation of tickets for the match on Sunday. It is one of the allowances the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform was not able to abolish. Has he given them to the Taoiseach or to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources? If there are any tickets left over, we will be able to look after them on this side of the House.

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