John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister touched on discussions with dentists on extending the benefits but did not mention opticians. Have those discussions been initiated?

On the Gateway scheme, the Minister said it was a scheme for its time, that it may be time to replace it and that he was considering the possibility of introducing a sort of Tús scheme for local authorities. There is work to be done by local authorities but the proper way to do it is by increasing the number of staff within local authorities because much of the work that was being carried out by participants on Gateway was previously carried out by full-time paid employees of local authorities. Rather than putting in place another scheme like Tús to replace Gateway, the Minister should start to employ more staff within local authorities. The work needs to be done. People need proper paid employment. Surely that is the way to go about this rather than putting in place another low-cost cheap labour initiative. That is not the route to take.

The Minister referred to CE schemes. I do not want to repeat everything that was said earlier but there are major concerns about those, particularly in terms of people on JobPath not being able to take up CE schemes. The Minister spoke about relaxing the rules to increase the pool of people. I would like a briefing note from the Minister in the coming week laying out exactly what he means and the rules that will be relaxed. That is critical, particularly for people who are locked into JobPath. I do not want to put individual cases to the Minister here but one man who came to me did not know how to turn on a computer yet he has to go into the JobPath office every week and is put sitting in front of a computer that he does not even know how to turn on.

I do not see what benefits are in place for such an individual. Many people must travel long distances at a huge cost on a weekly basis to carry out pointless tasks that do not improve their chances of employment. There are no travel allowances for such individuals. There are huge problems with JobPath and community employment schemes. I would like the Minister to brief us on the matter.

I wish to make a final point about the huge problems with pensions and the State transition pension. The Minister may be aware that I have tabled a Private Members' motion for next week on the gender inequality relating to pensions and the difficulties that 65 year olds face. We need a broader discussion on pensions and I hope my Private Members' motion will act as the starting point in that regard. I look forward to debating this complex issue. I view the matter in simple terms: forcing 65 year olds on to the jobseeker's scheme is unsustainable.