John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have dealt with JobPath. The allocation for Gateway is down 65%. We know the purpose of Gateway and I questioned the Minister on this previously. The Minister said he was hoping to bring forward a replacement or an alternative scheme for local authorities. My preferred choice would be to have staff working directly for councils within councils. There has been no information on that replacement. Is it the Minister's intention to bring something forward on that?

The other area is that of CE schemes, on which there are huge concerns. The Minister has made an announcement about opening up the criteria to qualify for CE schemes but there is considerable concern that people who previously would have taken up CE schemes to provide essential community services are now being referred to JobPath and locked into it. That is the difficulty for many people. Many of the CE schemes and companies around the State are struggling to get people at present and the Minister's intentions are a little unclear.