asked the Minister for Finance if he will indicate official projections for unemployment at the end of the period envisaged in the national plan, and the comparable figure for April 1984 and April 1982.

Table 1.2 of the plan, Building on Reality indicates that unemployment, on a labour force survey definition, will be about 210,000 at mid-April 1987. This compares with an estimated 209,000 at mid-April 1984, as is also indicated in Table 1.2, and 148,000 at mid-April 1982.

Is the Minister aware that since the plan was published unemployment has risen by 10,000?

Yes.

I am glad to have that on the record. Is the Minister aware that the predictions in the plan state that the annual unemployment rate will remain about 15 per cent, half as much again as the EC average? Will the Minister agree that the target in the Government's plan is that unemployment will remain at more than 15 per cent?

Yes, we have set out in the plan what we expect the path of employment and unemployment to be over that period.

According to the figures the Minister announced a short time ago the figure up to April 1982 was 148,000, while at the end of the plan the unemployment figure is expected to be 210,000. I suggest to the Minister that it is dangerous for the country to be predicting an increase in unemployment of the order of 70,000 between 1982 and the end of the plan. Will the Minister agree that that is a hopeless picture? Where are we going if we will have to live with these figures? That is not the way to give hope to our people.

The Minister is not interested in that.

If the Deputy is suggesting that in order to give hope to people we should have followed the same type of policies that his party followed in producing The Way Forward I would refuse to do it.

Is the Minister seriously suggesting that on 27 February 1985 he is asserting that the unemployment level at mid-April this year will be in line with the targets set out in the plan having regard to the fact that it stands at 234,000 now and that the projection in the plan is 217,000 at the end of the plan? Will the Minister acknowledge that the unemployment projections in the plan have already been undermined by the figure that emerged in January, 234,000, while the average projection for the year in the plan was 217,500? How can the Minister reconcile those figures and pretend to the House and the people that the projections in the plan are anything other than nonsense?

The figures I have given are on the labour force survey definition. I should like to refer the Deputy to previous discussions we have had in the House in relation to this matter — in fact, as recently as 22 and 23 January — and to the statements made by the Government on the publication of the December and January figures.

Will the Minister confirm that the provision for unemployment made in the budget for 1985 is 217,500 based, presumably, on the plan? Will he agree that at the end of January that figure was 234,000, almost 17,000 over the average figure projected? Will the Minister acknowledge in the light of that ——

This is material for the budget debate.

——that within months of the publication of the plan it has been demonstrated to be palpable nonsense? The Minister should not have the gall to stand over that.

This is a debate and an abuse of Question Time.

I would not agree with the Deputy because I see no reason to depart so far from the figures given in the plan nor do I expect there will be any reason during the course of the year to do so.