Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan today defended a jobs taskforce which has only met once this year.
Speaking in the Dáil, Ms Coughlan confirmed the High Level Group on Labour Market Issues, which is made up of representatives of the social partners, had failed to hold any follow-up meetings since an initial gathering after its inception in January.
However, the Tánaiste said much of the work into job creation was being carried out by a Dáil sub-committee which met on "an almost" weekly basis.
"The main work is done by the Cabinet sub-committee and I and my officials meet on a constant basis on the context of activation measures with the social partners and have done only recently," she said.
The latest figures from the Cental Statistics Office (CSO) released yesterday show that there were 422,500 people on the Live Register at the end of October, a slight decline on the preceding month when 425,500 were signing on.
The standardised unemployment rate last month stood at 12.5 per cent compared to 12.6 per cent in September.
Brid O'Brien of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU), who is a member of the jobs taskforce, said there had been high hopes for the group at its inception.
"We've called for the taskforce to meet on a regular basis but it has only met the once," she said.
Ms O'Brien said that while she was "delighted" to hear the Dáil sub-committee was meeting to discuss job creation on a regular basis, the INOU felt it needed to be talking to all the relevant partners in order to deal with the unemployment crisis.
"We need a vision for where the labour market is going. We do not have that currently. The Government is very focused on Nama and the public finances but unemployment is running a poor third," she added.
In its Economic Survey of Ireland, which was published yesterday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned that there was a risk of high long-term unemployment in Ireland unless more urgents steps are taken to help those who have lost their jobs.
The Paris-based organisation said more effective polices towards the unemployed must be introduced which include cutting dole payments and the establishment of a single organisation to deal with unemployment benefits and managing back-to-work programmes and training.
