Mr. John McKeon:

I will answer Deputy Ó Snodaigh's question about JobBridge versus JobsPlus. We cannot always control what employers do. We would try to position the two schemes as complementary in the way Senator Moloney suggested, in that they are not competitive. I refer to the numbers in the past year since JobsPlus has been in operation. The numbers of people on JobBridge have fallen slightly by about 300 or 400, whereas the numbers of people on JobsPlus have increased from basically zero to just over 4,000. This does not indicate that people are still being pushed into JobBridge. The number of people who have come from JobBridge into JobsPlus is about 20% - I do not have the exact number but I can send it to the committee for circulation. About 20% or thereabouts of people on JobsPlus were previously on JobBridge with the same employer. We regard the schemes as complementary.

I understand the question as to why would an employer take on someone who has been 12 to 24 months unemployed for €7,500 when they can get someone who is two years unemployed for €10,000. It comes back to the numbers and where we have the critical requirement to respond and the cohort that we need to support - the longer-term unemployed. I will quote some numbers which I know were accurate a couple of years ago and I do not believe they have changed much in the interim.