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

No. The Deputy is suggesting there is a conflict between what I said last December and what I said in Brussels last week. I am saying there is not. What I said in Brussels last week was that a UK-wide backstop could apply to something like customs but could not apply if there was to be some sort of division of the four freedoms. The European Union is willing to make exceptions for Northern Ireland to allow the European Single Market to apply to Northern Ireland when it comes to goods and services but not other items. However, such an exception would not be made for the UK as a whole. That is at least what I was trying to say, and I am fairly sure it is what I said, but I am happy to clarify that.

Going back to Deputy Burton's comments, I am pleased that there was a welcome for the fact that the unemployment rate is now down to 5.1%. It was 16% at one stage. The long-term unemployment rate, which is people out of work for a year or more, is about 2%.

The youth unemployment rate is down from over 30% to 10% or 12%. It is the case in Ireland for decades, and across the world, that youth employment is generally about double the national rate. There is a reason for that. It is because when youth unemployment is calculated, people who are in education or training are not included so it is a different measure of how the workforce has done. For example, very few people in their 40s or 50s are in education and training. If we take people who are under 25, a huge number of them, perhaps even more than half of them, are not in the workforce. They are in education or training. The unemployment rate, therefore, is based on a minority of people between the ages of 16-----

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