Ms Fiona Ward:

Our engagement with jobseeker transition clients is focused on steering them towards education and training opportunities. They do not have to look for employment until their youngest child is 14 years old. We have been engaging with them to see if they need additional skills to assist them in finding secure sustainable employment.

The Department has an agreement with the education and training boards, with which we work very closely not only for jobseeker transition customers but for all customers in developing targeted training programmes. In Tallaght, for example, there were 723 jobseeker transition clients who moved from the one-parent family payment. Our office was the biggest in the country at the time. We have engaged with all such clients, of whom 573 have been brought to information sessions during which people involved in the education and training boards, jobs clubs and community employment schemes, as well as our own case officer, made presentations on the supports and services available to them. The education and training boards offer several part-time evening programmes to which our clients are referred and which they have taken up.

Community employment schemes are suitable for many of our jobseeker transition clients because their youngest child is in school and they can do the required 19.5 hours. Jobs clubs give clients the interview and career guidance skills they need to secure employment.

In Tallaght, we worked with the education and training board to develop a pre-employment return to work programme targeted at our clients in both the Tallaght and Clondalkin areas. Senator Humphreys referred to the challenges of dealing with people who are not used to engaging with us in this way. We were able to run that programme for the Tallaght office but not for the Clondalkin office as we did not get enough interest at the time, but we hope to run it in February. We ran the Tallaght programme in term time, starting in September and beginning each day at 9.30 a.m., after the school day started. Of the 16 people who started the programme, 14 completed it, two of whom have since secured employment. Some of the participants have applied for night training courses with the ETB while others are seeking part-time training options. The feedback from the programme was very positive, with participants saying it gave them great confidence. They now have a CV and are more knowledgeable and confident about applying for jobs. It was a taster programme and participants found the IT module, career planning aspect and work experience component particularly useful. The members of that first group have set up a network to remain in touch and encourage each other in their training and job-seeking efforts. It was a very positive outcome from our perspective and we hope to run the programme again in January. We expect to get the numbers from the Clondalkin office to run it there as well.

There are financial supports available for lone parents who take up employment, including family income supplement and the back to work family dividend. As I said, jobseeker transition clients do not have to look for work and are not, therefore, referred to JobPath. Our focus is not so much on securing work for our clients. The emphasis is on providing education and training opportunities in order that when they can take up full-time employment, they are as near as possible to workforce-ready.

Senator Humphreys referred to the situation of families who become homeless. Within our three divisions in Dublin, we have an agreement in place that if a lone parent or any family member who is in receipt of a payment from one of our offices becomes homeless, he or she will remain within the remit of that office. In other words, people will continue to draw their payment from the same office even though they may be placed in a hotel in a different location. Doing it this away allows clients to continue to access the activation process and avoid disruption to their payment. If they need assistance in taking their children to school, for example, our community welfare service can make payments by way of the supplementary welfare allowance under the emergency needs programme.