Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is very clear the intervention we took during Covid worked. The economy was able to bounce back and businesses got back again. The EWSS was particularly successful in keeping employees linked to their employers so when the Covid restrictions lifted they were ready to go. The PUP was absolutely essential. It is encouraging to see many, if not all, the people on the PUP are back at work. A small number have transitioned to the jobseeker's payment but that number continues to reduce.

We are now in a position where unemployment is lower than it was pre-pandemic. We have the lowest live register figures in more than a decade. Some 174,000 people are on the live register, yet we have a significant number of job opportunities in the economy at present. I want to address how we work with those people through retraining or upskilling. I want to help them get back into the workforce because there are still about 170,000 of them.

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