Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A number of questions were asked and I will have to respond to the more detailed ones by correspondence because I do not have the relevant information in front of me. People are selected for JobPath by the Department based on their being long-term unemployed, or unemployed for more than a year. Essentially, they are with JobPath for a year. They are often people who have been on community employment schemes but did not manage to find a job afterwards. Some people still do not find a job even after their having been in JobPath for a year. They could go back into other options at that point.

The Deputy is absolutely correct that unemployment soared because of the collapse in the economy. The rate is now way down. The live register figures were published today. For the first time since 2008, the number on the live register is below 300,000 and the unemployment rate is below 8%. We are now setting a more ambitious target, to bring the rate of unemployment down to between 5% and 6% by the end of 2020 and the rate of long-term unemployment down to 2.5%. However, that will involve much more one-to-one engagement with jobseekers to help them to get into the workplace.

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