Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----back to work. To do so, we turned the Department of Social Protection right around. Previously, the Department paid out income support but it is now running a public employment service where we work with employers in the private and public sector to help people who become unemployed to get jobs. The Deputy's proposal is that we extend it to other groups, such as those who have not been on the live register for a variety of reasons as described, which I accept. The latest figures show that the number on the live register has been falling dramatically this year. We are into the third month of the year and it is now approximately 10%. As we get the number of people on the live register down, I look forward to a situation where we can extend activation opportunities to the people described by Deputy O'Sullivan. I refer particularly to opportunities for people to go back to education and training. I want people to get a well-paid job and that we invest in people's skills so that they get a well-paid job that is likely to last.

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