Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The number of vacancies is largely stable, although that is, of course, not good enough. We want to push the number down further. With regard to changes to policy and eligibility, we are open to looking at a lot of them and have made quite a few over the past 12 months, as I have said. On the 12-month rule, I am reluctant to go there because the scheme is designed for a cohort of people who generally find it difficult to get employment and our general marker for that is 12 months' unemployment. I am not ruling it out but it is not the first change we think of with regard to broadening the eligible pool. The Deputy will see a change in the next few months.

I could be proven wrong when we come back here. In terms of the eligible pool of people, it will increase significantly, particularly in April and May.

As always, we will monitor. We will see how the policy changes impact the referral rates.

I should say as well that there are increased intensive efforts on the referral side from officials around the country and there has been a new structure to bump up the referrals.

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