Mr. Paul Carroll:

What we have attempted over the last few years is to engage with employers to find out what the real opportunities are, both locally and at a national level, so that we know where the growing employment areas are. In terms of the specific progression measures we agree with an individual, that is really a function of the interview that takes place. It may well be that somebody is in fact highly skilled and job-ready, despite having lost a job. No course would be required in that instance; what is required is perhaps assistance in polishing his or her interview skills. In looking at the range of service provision in an area, one of the first things we do is to map the service provision, in that a case officer maps the totality of opportunities available in an area. For example, in Swords and Balbriggan we found there was no jobs club. There were people who were highly skilled but were failing at interview, so we recognised the need for a jobs club and we have worked towards the development of a new model of a week-long jobs club.

We recognise that some of the courses were not suitable, or if they were suitable for some, there were gaps in service provision. We have liaised with FÁS, the ETBs and the partnerships to fill those gaps. Again, if I was to talk about Swords and Balbriggan - this does tend to happen at local level - the area manager engaged with the manager of the FÁS centre in Baldoyle and agreed the development of a six-week career planning course. There were people who simply did not know what they wanted to do. Rather than refer them on to a long course that they might find halfway through was not suitable, we now have this six-week career planning course. Again, there was a recognition that there was a gap in service provision for young people, so my staff are in discussions with FÁS and they have finally agreed on a basic skills foundation course, again for six weeks, that FÁS will roll out next year.

We were engaging with a fairly large employer who had a number of opportunities in the security industry, and we hosted a major event for him by drafting in 500 people with security skills. On foot of that day, 60 people got jobs on the spot. He is an employer who operates nationwide and we act as an account manager for him so, for example, when he was in a position to say he had 35 jobs in Cork and 35 in Waterford, and asked whether we could help him, one of my staff, acting as an account manager, liaised with colleagues in Waterford and Cork. Having used our databases to identify everybody in the division - that is, the 500 people in the division who had some kind of security-related qualification or skill - we found that not all of them were suitable for those jobs, because the employer had a range of jobs available at the upper end of the scale, where higher industry standards were required. Again, we sat down with FÁS, which has agreed as part of its programme for contracted training for 2014 that it will provide a security skills course. While it is not necessarily for that employer, that employer has had an involvement in terms of course design because there are jobs available.

It is difficult to speak on a very general basis. There might be people with a range of skills but we would not have the same intervention for all of those people. For example, Deputy Lyons might require a jobs club to just polish his skills, whereas somebody else cannot read or write. That is why we are engaging with the National Adult Literacy Agency to come up with strategies to deal more effectively with people who have literacy or numeracy issues. To talk again about Swords and Balbriggan on an area basis, there are significant numbers of non-nationals there with English language difficulties. We have sat down with the Fingal Leader partnership company and it now provides English language assessment courses for people, and the City of Dublin VECs provide further training thereafter. It is a multidisciplinary approach based on ascertaining what the needs are, what the skills base is locally and what jobs are available both locally and nationally, and then trying to bridge that gap to engage with other service providers.