Mr. John Stewart:

On the matter of what needs to be done, the Chairman asked about geographical areas where there are still high rates of unemployment and about intergenerational unemployment. It will be very important to see the detail of the action plan for jobless households and families. One will find it is probably not a question of doing one thing as there as there is a series of things to be done, including considering what works well currently and what has made the difference for people in terms of their being able to stay on a training programme, for example.

We run a training programme at the INOU called Building Futures. We have exceptionally high levels of retention on it, the reason being that we recognise certain things happen in people's lives. There might be times when, for very legitimate reasons, they might not be able to get to a class on time. One basically builds into programmes a means of recognising that people will need additional types of supports as they go through them. We have been able to do that. An awful lot depends on how programmes are designed and on an understanding of unemployment among those delivering programmes. The programmes must be flexible to recognise that circumstances change in people's lives. Very often, of course, they change for the better but unfortunately they sometimes change significantly and substantially for the worse. That is an important point.

With regard to programmes, Senator Humphreys made a point on community employment, Tús and Gateway.

On this specific point on community employment, it is a reality that a very significant amount of important key social and community services are delivered through community employment, which, by its nature, is a part-time temporary programme for the participants. In terms of how community employment and other programmes are perceived by the wider labour market, there is work to be done by the Department of Social Protection in highlighting the positive and useful work being done and the useful skills and work experience being gained by participants through community employment. There is an issue in terms of the perception of how useful and valuable the schemes and programmes are in the wider labour market.

There are different actions that need to be taken on both the income side and the support side. It is important that we look at all of these areas, and that we should not become complacent. Mr. Donohoe is correct about the positive developments in the labour market. The increase in employment and reduction in unemployment is welcome. The unemployed have played their part in that. We are aware from recent previous experience that when jobs are created, the unemployed will take up those jobs in large numbers. There is no question about whether the unemployed want to work. Of course, they want to work. Persons who were unemployed, who genuinely believed a number of years ago that they would remain unemployed, possibly for the rest of their working lives, are now back in work. That is significant and something that should be celebrated. However, that does not happen by accident. Clearly, there is a need for programmes and supports for the unemployed to assist them to get those jobs so that when jobs are announced the unemployed hear about them, there is a good understanding of the criteria that an employer will have in terms of recruitment, and the unemployed are matched to those positions. The initial problems that arose with the new DSP Jobs Ireland website was unfortunate. It has the potential of getting something wrong to the extent that those issues arose. I am sure that has significant potential to put employers off using that type of website and falling back on the more traditional methods of recruiting.

There are many different things that need to be done. This is a good opportunity to raise those and discuss them, and to wish the joint committee well in its deliberations on these matters.