Mr. John Conlon:

Ideally, it is 1:120 clients. It may fall below that in some instances but we commit to keep a flow of clients going to local employment service companies.

Deputy Brady raised the question of allegations of fraud made against some of the companies. Let me be very clear that the Department is not aware of any allegations of fraud against the contractors working with us. I think the Deputy may be referring to allegations made against Working Links, which is one of the companies linked to Turas Nua and which works with the Department. This allegation refers to an incident in the UK about ten years ago, but the Department of Work and Pensions in the United Kingdom has publicly stated that errors occurred at that time but were dealt with. We are not aware of any allegations of fraud against companies working here. In the context of Seetec, we are aware that there was alleged frauds by former staff members in the United Kingdom in 2013. I am informed, as a result of inquires made, that the Department of Work and Pensions advised the UK's Public Accounts Committee that it had investigated claims but found no wrongdoing. That is as much as I can say in that context.

Deputy Bríd Smith raised the issue of whether we should refer part-time or casual employees to the JobPath service. If a casual or part-time worker is long-term unemployed, he or she is referred to a company because he or she is underemployed. To continue to receive payments from the Department, people must continue to be available and seeking work for the days they are not working and claiming benefits from the Department. We have asked the JobPath providers to ensure that when they are working with people who are in casual or part-time employees that they focus their meetings with the clients on the days they are not working and schedule other commitments in terms of the personal adviser client relationship around the person's existing work entitlements. Our endeavour is to get them from part-time into full-time employment. That is why we refer them to the JobPath service and that they receive the supports that other long-term unemployed people also receive in terms of progressing from part-time to full-time employment. That is our objective. We do not want to keep people in part-time employment but, rather, to help move them into full-time employment.