Vol. 421 No. 5
6 Proinsias De Rossa asked the Taoiseach if he will give the figures for unemployment for 29 May 1992, using the same method of compilation and categorisation which was used up to March 1990; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The number of persons on the live register on 29 May 1992 was 269,950. This did not include (a) 5,200 persons who were removed from the register following a statistical review of the coverage of the series or (b) 13,555 persons on pre-retirement allowance and pre-retirement credit schemes. The sum total of all three figures is 288,705.
Would the Minister of State not agree that this changed method of dealing with unemployment statistics is simply a device to pretend that the unemployment problem is being dealt with? Furthermore, would he agree that the Taoiseach's statement some months ago that the unemployment figures would stabilise was simply a preview of the fact that the figures themselves would be doctored?
I would not agree with the Deputy's first statement. I do not agree that the figures are being doctored. As the Deputy has just proved, by asking the question, the figures can be obtained every month simply by adding (a), (b) and (c) together. I might point out, as was indicated in the reply to which the Deputy referred on 3 June — I think it was Deputy De Rossa who asked that question also in relation to a report of the task force on employment — that the statistical review was carried out by an expert group established under the aegis of the central review committee of the Programme for Economic and Social Progress. The group is representative of the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance, Social Welfare, Industry and Commerce and Labour, the Central Statistics Office, the Federation of Irish Employers, the Confederation of Irish Industry and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. The group recommended that the statistical treatment of persons on week-on/week-off working arrangements and self-employed persons formerly on the register should be regularised. In reaching their recommendations the expert group had regard to the internationally accepted principles of the measurement of unemployment. I might add that the group's recommendations were endorsed by the task force.
The fact that other countries engage in doctoring unemployment figures should not lead us down the same road. The fact that people now being removed from being classified as officially unemployed, as defined, who are still in receipt of unemployment benefit, should continue to be included in the statistics. Would the Minister not agree that it is a gross distortion of our unemployment position to have circumstances prevail in which something like 18,000 — or closer to 19,000 — people who are in receipt of unemployment assistance are not now being counted as unemployed?
Again, I reject the use of the word "doctoring". As the Deputy has just proved, those figures are there, can be obtained and are a matter of public record. Of the 18,000 people to whom he refers, 5,200 were removed because they were working on a week-on/week-off basis and comprised part of the numbers involved in the statistical review. The other 13,000 odd are on pre-retirement allowance and credit schemes. It is a condition of participation in both schemes that people declare they are no longer available for work, that they are retiring and are removed from the live register on that basis.
