Yesterday, the Taoiseach walked into the Chamber and plundered the public service income position to pay for the wanton waste of Fianna Fáil's management of the economy over the past ten years. In my view, it was to a disproportionate and unfair extent. His contribution yesterday said precious little about the situation for persons on the live register. We will be in the House when the live register figures are published, but, last night, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern, who seems to have an agenda of his own which is different from the Taoiseach's, said the increase in the live register would be 33,000.

The Taoiseach better watch out.

Fine Gael should not go there.

I am not sure if he was referring to January. If that is the case, however, it will be the highest increase on record and an unemployment bloodbath. As the figures will be published this morning while we are in the House, will the Taoiseach inform the Dáil of the January increase in the live register and the total figure as of the end of January? How does he propose to tackle this?

The figures are being released today. I do not know what the normal protocol is but I have no problem giving them to the House now. The January live register figure will be 36,500 higher than the December 2008 figure. The overall figure will be 327,900 in January. That is an indication of the change that has taken place in recent times.

The whole purpose of the discussions with the social partners was to see in what way we can provide more training places for and help to people who lose their jobs. Obviously, the decision on reductions in public expenditure is an important signal, both home and abroad, of our preparedness to manage and stabilise the public finances.

In the addendum to the Irish stability programme update submitted to the European Commission at the beginning of the year, we took into account this deterioration and estimated, for the purposes of the figures, that approximately 400,000 would be unemployed by the end of the year.

This is catastrophic. These are the worst unemployment figures ever in the history of the State. That is an increase of over 1,500 jobs lost per working day. The December increase was 17,000 but it doubled in January with 36,500 jobs lost, bringing the total out of work to 327,000. It is a long time since the former Taoiseach, the late Jack Lynch, said if unemployment went over 100,000, the Government should leave office. I do not know if the Taoiseach intends to do that or not.

This is a horrendous situation. I am often struck by the shock on the faces of people——

We can see that on Deputy Kenny's face.

——who become unemployed suddenly with no prospect for the future for themselves or their families. That is the real kernel of the problem. The Taoiseach's emphasis and concentration on cuts yesterday did nothing in raising confidence, hope or prospects for people to either retain or obtain jobs.

It is step by step.