Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Question 301: To ask the Minister for Social Protection, further to Parliamentary Question No. 137 of 5 October 2011, if she will direct this Deputy to the studies or qualifying research that proves the optimum times for interventions or assistance to jobseeker's is three months. [31420/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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There is significant 'churn' on the Live Register, with, for example, over 530,000 claim closures in 2010 and 300,000 from January to August 2011. 35-40% of closures have under three months claim duration, 55-60% have under six months duration and 75-80% have under twelve months duration. Given this context, there is a tension between the desire for early intervention and efficiency in the process, including the need to avoid deadweight i.e. avoiding the allocation of scarce resources to interventions with people who would have left the Register without intervention. Against this background, three months on the Live Register has been identified as an appropriate point in time for unemployed people to be referred to or avail themselves of certain programmes that will provide work experience, guidance, training and/or education that will in turn support them in returning to the Labour Market. At that point, the person will have had the opportunity to search for work and, if unsuccessful, will be supported in avoiding a drift into long term unemployment. Studies carried out by bodies such as the OECD, ESRI, NESC would generally support this approach.