Our local offices administer the schemes of unemployment payments. I have introduced a number of programmes in recent years in co-operation with the Department of Education and with FÁS which provide to unemployed persons a range of educational and manpower opportunities together with options to engage in part-time working and voluntary work. I see these measures as important in equipping unemployed persons to re-enter the labour market.
In recent years too I have been extending the range of services at the Department's local offices to cater not only for the unemployed but also for all social welfare claimants. As new offices have come on stream with these enhanced ranges of facilities I have been renaming them social welfare services offices to reflect their modern role. This expansion of the role of the local offices will be accelerated in the near future when I hope to be in a position, after a period of negotiations with the relevant trade unions, to announce a major plan to reorganise the delivery of social welfare services on a localised basis with regional structures.