asked the Taoiseach how the rate of unemployment of 7.8 per cent in August, 1972 compares with unemployment rates in the other countries of the enlarged EEC.

The systems under which employment statistics are compiled and the definitions involved vary from country to country and it is not possible to quote current comparable unemployment rates for this country and for the different countries of the EEC.

Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the European Community publishes comparative statistics for the six members of the Community, giving the figure referred to here, and that in a recent publication for August all the six countries in the EEC had a substantially lower unemployment rate than we have?

The figures can only be compared on a broad basis but if the Deputy wishes, I can give him the latest available figures. Should I read them for him here or communicate them to him?

Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would read them out.

The latest such figures which relate to average 1971 levels in so far as they are available are——

1971?

They are the latest figures available.

They are not the figures I got, which are much more recent.

I appreciate that the Deputy got 1972 figures in relation to the EEC countries he mentioned but the comparisons are not available so far as we are concerned.

Are you behindhand?

We are always ahead of time. The numbers out of work as a percentage of the civilian labour force, 1971, are: Germany, .7 per cent, France, 2.2 per cent, Italy, 3.2 per cent, Netherlands, 1.5 per cent, Belgium, 2 per cent—this is 1970—Luxembourg, 0 per cent, United Kingdom, 3.2 per cent, Denmark, .7 per cent—again in 1970— and Ireland, 6 per cent.

That is a rather telling statistic.

11.

asked the Taoiseach if he is aware that the EEC has published figures to the effect that 45 per cent of its unemployed are under 24 years of age; if he has carried out a similar analysis of the unemployed register in Ireland; and, if so, with what results.

While an analysis by age of male registrants residing in town areas is made once a year on the basis of special returns, no comprehensive figures are available for the total live register classified by age groups.

The EEC figures referred to by the Deputy are derived from a labour force sample survey carried out in accordance with agreed definitions in five of the six member countries. These definitions differ in many respects from those pertaining to the live register statistics in this country.

Would the Parliamentary Secretary tell me if he has any figures available to him of youth unemployment in this country and will he agree that in many ways this is the most serious form of unemployment because these are people who definitely are available for work— there is no possible reason to doubt that—and if you have a substantial amount of youth unemployment you have a very serious social problem? Could he tell me in the light of that situation what information he has on youth unemployment?

I think the reply to the next question may answer the Deputy's supplementary.

On youth unemployment?

On the question of unemployment under 25 years of age.