Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

I will take the Deputy's final point first. The application of the taxation system to individuals such as those to whom she refers is no different than it would be to people in public or private employment who are earning that amount of money. This comes down to a decision made by Government previously in respect of PRSI and the disallowance relating thereto.

As the Deputy will be aware, JobBridge is an internship programme. It is designed to give people work experience, in the first instance, and encourage employers to consider the appropriateness of creating new jobs. An evaluation carried out by Indecon shows that progression rates from JobBridge into employment are extremely high in comparison to those which obtain in other European states. In the region of 51% of interns move directly into employment. After a period of five months, this increases to 61%. Those jobs may not necessarily be with the employers with whom the people involved served their internships. Obviously, however, the objective behind JobBridge of providing work experience has legitimate currency in the labour market.

If one looks across Europe, that is a hugely positive outcome for JobBridge when compared with the types of internship programme that exist in other countries.

The Deputy's third question pertained to the Gateway scheme. There is no doubt that Gateway has been much slower in terms of the Government's intention to provide for a significant number of placements. I believe the original target in 2014 was 3,000 placements. New arrangements now have been put in place, as well as new dialogue regarding governance of that scheme to try to remove any impediments that might have existed or any confusion regarding access to the scheme. I am pleased to report that as of today, 177 participants are employed on the scheme and more than 250 job offers are pending. The target we had was to have 1,200 placements by mid-year, and with those numbers, this obviously is extremely ambitious. However, we are working hard to try to achieve that. Obviously, it involves working with partner local authorities and trying to ensure that all the different parameters are teased out in this regard.