David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for missing the presentations. I had a speaking engagement in the Seanad and could not attend. I welcome the delegation to the committee which published a report a number of weeks ago entitled, Southeast Economic Development Strategy 2013-2023. It made a number of recommendations for the south east, although it would be logical to apply some of these across the State. Some of them might be of interest to the delegates because they relate to their Department.

We consulted across the south east. We met SOLAS, people who worked in the VECs, the colleges of further education, the institutes of technology and so on. One thing that concerned almost everybody working in the sphere was that the area was in a state of flux. There might, therefore, be a need for awareness-raising campaigns on what the new bodies do, especially the education and training boards and the Intreo offices, and the services they provide. That is something for the Department to look at, with the many other proposals made.

It is important to say action is required and that we need to support the creation of full-time employment. There is a risk in blaming the unemployed for the lack of opportunities. It is regrettable that I sometimes hear in political discourse and beyond that people who are unemployed are responsible because they are not looking for work and so on. We must recognise the scale of unemployment and emigration and the lack of job creation and see the issue in that context.

I want to hear the delegates' views on a number of points. The first is on the success of the various measures. We want to benchmark success. How are all of the labour activation measures and programmes working and impacting on people's lives? What percentage of those going through the activation measures will find work? What is the difference between the schemes? What percentage of those on JobsBridge, Tús and FÁS training schemes enter full-time employment?

There is also the matter of interaction with Government priorities. If one looks at the Government's focus on hi-tech and export-led firms, what are relations like between IDA Ireland-sponsored companies, for example? How many of these are involved in job activation? How many people find employment in IDA Ireland-supported companies? When IDA Ireland-supported companies make an announcement, has the Department put in place, for example, pre-employment training programmes for the long-term unemployed? Do they fit the needs of companies? An issue that arose strongly in the consultations in the south east was the need to ensure labour activation measures also extended to people furthest away from the jobs market.

There were also interesting observations from NALA, National Adult Literacy Agency, on people's numeracy and literacy skills and how we sometimes did not integrate these areas into labour activation measures. We need to ensure at all times that we reach out to the greatest breadth of people who need supports.

Issues were raised about PRSI and part-time workers. Can we have details about the success of incentivising employees to take up work, including the breakdown by part-time and full-time work? It was mentioned that the PRSI scheme provided a perverse incentive for employers to break full-time work into part-time work. That matter has been discussed by the committee a number of times. Is it a problem? How is the Department looking at the issue?

We also need to look more at apprenticeships. We have taken a particular view of them that has not been all that good. However, if one looks at what Germany and other countries do, one will see that they are an awful lot better at it because apprenticeships are seen to be workable, not only for manufacturing but also IT and all sorts of different areas. Is the Department looking at this issue, too?

I appreciate that the delegates may not have information on all the questions I have asked; therefore, they might be able to send it on after the meeting.