New measures may be required to encourage more women, older people and disabled persons to enter the labour market, a Government minister said yesterday.

Mr Tony Killeen, Minister of State for Labour Affairs, said there was a need to mobilise new sources of labour supply to fuel continued economic growth.

He told a conference in Dublin that most countries, including Ireland, had modernised their employment policies.

There was now an increased focus on ensuring that the unemployed retained a close engagement with the labour market through active job-search and other programmes.

In some countries, these approaches had been extended beyond the unemployed to cover other categories of "non-active people", he told the conference, which was organised by FÁS.

"There is a strong case for such an approach in Ireland," he said.

Another speaker at the conference warned, however, that there was limited scope for increasing female participation in the labour market.

Mr Brian McCormick, an economist with FÁS, said many people who wished to work had already entered or re-entered the labour market in recent years.

Mr Jim Power, chief economist and director of investment strategy at Friends First, also said that society needed to consider the impact of having many children raised in creches or by childminders while both parents worked full-time.

In many cases, both parents returned home from work "whacked" at 7 p.m.

He was not a sociologist and did not know what the implications for society were, but it was an issue to be addressed.

With labour supply limited, inward migration was essential to achieve growth potential, he said.