Contractors building in disadvantaged areas should give work to local long-term unemployed, Sinn Fein said today.
Martina Anderson said the Single Equality Act needed to bring about radical change for the most vulnerable.
She was speaking ahead of hearings on the matter at the OFMDFM Committee at Stormont.
"We need to look at the area of the long-term unemployed, looking at how this could be done structurally fitted into contracts during the tendering process," she said.
"Contractors (could be) showing how many they are going to employ from the area who have been associated with the long-term unemployed."
