Mr. John McKeon:

No it is the Employment Equality Acts 1998 and 2004 which have a prohibition on the public employment service discriminating in its treatment of people based on age. We must deal with this.

I will speak for a moment on JobBridge for disadvantaged youths and I ask committee members to interrupt me if I do not hit the point of the question. JobBridge is about breaking the cycle of not being able to get work without experience but not being able to get experience without a job. Even in the good years some young people would not have had a chance, such as those who may have a record with the probation service or drug addiction problems, or who left school very early. We are canvassing employers to make 1,500 work experience places available for this cohort of young people. We will work closely with them in our Intreo centres and prepare them for work. We will work with the Education and Training Boards on work preparation programmes. If they are offered a place which we believe is appropriate to them and would give them work experience to enable them to go on another step we will ask them to take up the opportunity. It will be somewhat different to the current JobBridge programme in that it will involve a four day rather than a five day week. This extra day can be used for training, job search or other activities. In the context of the guarantee and the cost it will be mandatory, but it will only be mandatory where one of our case officers determines a person can and will benefit from it.

With regard to the review by the end of 2015 the committee should take it as read that we will monitor progress and follow the numbers and trends. It is difficult to undertake a formal review of the impact of schemes which require 12 months work placement or 12 months on Tús. One must let the schemes run their course before a formal review can be done. We will watch the outcomes and if there are any early warning signs we will tailor what we do to take account of them.

Senator Moloney asked about the language and use of the word "expected". We have deliberately used this language. We are fully confident they will qualify but we cannot state they will do so because it is in the gift of the European Commission. This document will go to the Commission so we cannot tell it that it will give us this money, we must tell them we expect it will. This is where the language comes from.

With regard to the issues about full-time employees being displaced by JobBridge all I can say is it is not something we will tolerate if we find out about it. We have disallowed employers from using JobBridge, not unlike the case mentioned. If committee members have details they should send them to us and we will investigate them.