Mr. Jeff Rudd:

Just two, in respect of the name change and blocked education. Deputy Brady referred to the name change. This is an ongoing issue. It does not just involve the name change. Highly skilled people such as part-time nurses, firefighters and tradesmen want to go further but have been asked to consistently dumb down, including their curriculum vitae. In other words, they must lower their expectations, which, to a certain extent, is right. Let us be honest. We should all be working. However, telling a person with a mountain of qualifications that he or she must dumb down their curriculum vitae and take a basic wage job not only affects the person on a financial level, it also affects him or her on an emotional level. It also affects his or her family. It is a case of asking why Daddy with all his qualifications is stacking shelves in a supermarket and what he did to deserve that or, to put it bluntly, asking why Mammy is cleaning toilets when she has qualifications in marketing or design. How does someone explain that to his or her children? How does he or she explain that the Government is fair when this is happening? That is what it boils down to in real life.

Education was brought up. We have found, and this is borne out by the victims' statements, that JobPath companies allow people out to a certain extent to acquire education. However, because of the hype or madness about people speaking out about the current system and JobPath blocking education, the Government announced that it will now allow people to go into education while they are in the JobPath programme. It did not give the full version, which is that people will be allowed to go into limited education but on top of that, they must get the permission of the JobPath companies. I mentioned the case of a part-time nurse. She wanted to upskill with a year-long course but she was not allowed to do so. The JobPath company told her that the most she would be allowed to do would be four to nine weeks of any sort of training. The companies want to hold on to people because each one is trapped within a 12-month contract. If people want to upskill on a serious level - third level - for 12 months on a part-time or full-time basis, that contract runs out and they can escape from JobPath. If they escape from JobPath and get a job after the contract, the companies are unable to claim their additional payments, Consequently, they want to keep the people down to a minimum of time in terms of education. This is a common problem. Up until two days ago, I was still getting phone calls about this. Many people have come to us and told us that they want to engage within the JobPath programme but that they were not being allowed to upskill in the ways they wanted to. They told me that such upskilling will not only benefit them but their families.