Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, has described the drop in unemployment figures to below 10% for the first time in seven years as a milestone but acknowledged employment inequality remains across regions.

He said the Government is developing a Regional Enterprise Strategy to address this.

He said today's CSO figures are encouraging as they indicate broad-based sector growth.

He said 60% of the growth is outside of Dublin.

The unemployment rate fell to 9.9% by the end of March, according to the Central Statistics Office, putting it below 10% for the first time since 2008.

There were 212,800 people unemployed by the end of the first quarter, according to the figures, down 45,300 on the same point of 2014.

Employment numbers were up 41,300 year-on-year, meanwhile, with 1,929,500 people employed in the country by the end of March.

According to the CSO there was a 3.6% increase in the number of people in full-time employment in the year to March, while part-time employment numbers fell 2.4%.

More than 439,900 people were registered in part-time employment by the end of March, though 114,800 of these were classed as "underemployed", meaning they were working fewer hours than they were available and willing to do.

Of those unemployed, 135,700 were men – down 17% year-on-year. There were 77,100 females unemployed by the end of March, which was down 18.5% on the figure a year ago.

Meanwhile 59.8% of all unemployed people were in the long-term category, meaning they have been out of work for a year or more.

This was down slightly on the same period of 2014, however, when long-term cases represented 60.5% of all unemployment.

Speaking to RTÉ's Six One News Minister Bruton,"The target of 100,000 has been delivered and that's twenty-one months ahead of track and that's really important."

He said it is the Government's objective to reach sustainable and full employment.

Speaking earlier to RTÉ's Drivetime programme Minister Bruton said that the minimum wage is being reviewed and that the Low Pay Commission is looking at the issue.