We all know the effects of being unemployed and the feelings it creates in people of being worthless, inadequate and of hopelessness and the mental health issues that follow, and we know the effects of that on relationships and on our communities. When jobs are lost, particularly in rural communities, so much more is lost as well. I know the Tánaiste is going to tell me that unemployment figures are going in the right direction and she will tell me about the various programmes and initiatives for people who are unemployed to educate and retrain them in order to get them back into the workforce, and I know some of them are progressing well.

Certain people are not allowed to register on the live register as unemployed and this means they do not have access to various job activation programmes and education and retraining.

The unemployed population is divided into registered unemployed, with all the entitlements that brings, and the unregistered unemployed, who have no legal recognition from the State. They have no real entitlement to job activation and education programmes. The unregistered group comprises two groups, those who are self-employed and the women who opted out of the workforce to rear their families and now want to come back into the workforce. Looking at the material of the advisory committee, I was struck by two quotations. One is that the eligibility criteria for non-income support based training schemes should be modified to allow self-employed people to gain access to such schemes. Recent trends towards greater flexibility and casualisation have resulted in some workers being classified as self-employed whereas they should really be classified as employees. This has led to a minority group in the unemployed population being excluded from registering on the live register. All job activation programmes and measures are not open to all the unemployed. What are those groups entitled to do in order to get back into the workforce? Is there a statutory or constitutional basis for dividing the unemployed into the registered and unregistered?

Every person who is unemployed is someone on the live register and has registered with the Intreo services in my Department. I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for her comments on how much this has improved. What the Deputy is saying is that she would like to see more people being able to avail of the activation services. I do not disagree with that but when we came into office we inherited a situation that people may recall, with an employment rate tipping 15%. It was well over 400,000 and I had a lot of sleepless nights that it would go over 500,000 people because of the mess our friends in Fianna Fáil had left behind. The sheer volume of unemployed people means that the Government decided to give priority to getting those on the live register-----

Over to Australia.

-----back to work. To do so, we turned the Department of Social Protection right around. Previously, the Department paid out income support but it is now running a public employment service where we work with employers in the private and public sector to help people who become unemployed to get jobs. The Deputy's proposal is that we extend it to other groups, such as those who have not been on the live register for a variety of reasons as described, which I accept. The latest figures show that the number on the live register has been falling dramatically this year. We are into the third month of the year and it is now approximately 10%. As we get the number of people on the live register down, I look forward to a situation where we can extend activation opportunities to the people described by Deputy O'Sullivan. I refer particularly to opportunities for people to go back to education and training. I want people to get a well-paid job and that we invest in people's skills so that they get a well-paid job that is likely to last.

In the meantime, they need a few bob.

During my recent visit to the United States over the St. Patrick's Day period to promote Ireland I noticed a huge number of companies from the US interested in using Ireland as a base for employment. Many of the people described by Deputy O'Sullivan who have not been on the live register for one reason or another would be terrific employees for some of these companies but we must reach out to get more education and training opportunities so that the people the Deputy describes can benefit from the enormous increase in jobs. It is a situation I keep under constant review. As the numbers come down, we should be able to make more opportunities available to the people described.

If people are unemployed and not on the live register, the unemployed figures on the live register do not give an accurate picture of the unemployed people in the country. With Springboard, preference is given to the long-term unemployed. Why would an employer take on someone who is not on the live register because that deprives the employer of some of the benefits when taking someone from the live register? Last week, a report from the Nevin Economic Research Institute gave a relatively positive picture of recovery-----

In Dublin.

-----but it had serious concerns about the low paid. Some 25% of employees, some 345,000 people in the labour force, earn an hourly wage of less than the living wage threshold of €11.45 and 60% of the low paid are women.

Zero-hour contracts.

The Tánaiste is saying people are coming off the live register but if they are going into employment that does not allow them to live in dignity, it is distorting the picture of the progress made on employment. I am not someone who wants to knock the measures going on but we must be realistic and accurate regarding the overall picture. I hope the Tánaiste will follow through in looking at the groups I mentioned, who are technically self-employed, including young people who cannot get onto the live register, and the women who gave up their careers to rear their families and now want to get back into the workforce.

I agree with many of the points made. When I became the leader of the Labour Party, I prioritised something I did after I became the Minister for Social Protection. In the Social Welfare Bill, I reinstated the €1 cut made in the minimum wage by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party.

And took it out of child benefit.

Fianna Fáil decided to cut the minimum wage by €1 an hour. For a woman working in a hotel job on low pay, reinstating the minimum wage was worth €36 or €40 a week.

It did not apply to an employed person.

I met many of them through their trade unions and representative groups. This is a question asked by Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan. At the time, Deputy Colm Keaveney was a strong supporter of the reinstatement.

The Tánaiste cut the respite care grants.

Deputy Colm Keaveney is the new Haughey.

Can I answer the question asked by Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan?

Can we all settle down?

Deputy Timmy Dooley missed the boat.

How is Deputy Ray Butler's driving?

I call the Tánaiste.

The temporary leader of Fianna Fáil is not showing due respect to Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan.

The Tánaiste is a temporary Tánaiste.

Restoring the minimum wage, which was cruelly cut by Fianna Fáil by €1 an hour, was the first thing we did.

What did the Tánaiste not cut?

The waffle.

When I became the leader of the Labour Party, I asked my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Gerald Nash, to bring together a low pay commission to deal with the issue of low levels of income. The Minister of State is undertaking, at my request, a study of the kind of conditions described, where people are on a low number of contracted hours. Although they are paid an hourly rate, if a person only receives ten hours a week, it is difficult to have the financial independence and wage levels needed to live a fully independent life and to provide for oneself and one's family.

As a Government, we are working on that. I anticipate the Low Pay Commission's report will be brought before the Cabinet at the end of July and that it will form part of our deliberations with regard to the forthcoming budget, by means of which we hope to make further progress. This year we lessened the impact of the USC and removed 80,000 people from the low pay net.

Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan referred to people who, for one reason or another, are not registered as being unemployed. As the number of those who are unemployed falls dramatically, it is important that we should seek to increase the number of opportunities on offer to people in terms of upskilling and returning to education in order that they might obtain qualifications. The latter is the route to well-paid employment. I will communicate further with the Deputy on this matter.