Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and thank them for accepting the invitation to attend, which was originally extended by Deputy Brady and me.

It is fundamental to this process that we hear directly from those on the front line who are providing this important service, a service that I certainly value. Despite these angelic good looks and this baby face, I have been a public representative for 20 years. I have used the services in Louth, predominantly in Drogheda but also in Dundalk, a great deal and I have referred, as have other public representatives, many constituents to those services. Public representatives with some experience do not refer constituents and use services such as the local employment service, LES, and jobs clubs if they do not work. All of us around this table know, and have the evidence from our work, that these services do exactly what is said on the tin.

I am concerned this review draws conclusions and makes some recommendations that are not embedded in the narrative of the report. By that I mean the proposition there would be a competitive public procurement process for labour activation schemes and the types of sustainable supports that are required, and that they would be put out for public tender is a little bizarre. I say that from a number of perspectives. There is significant evidence and enough evidence objectively analysed in the Indecon report to justify not only the continuation but also the strengthening of the LES and job clubs model throughout the country if we are to address the very deep and entrenched problems we have in terms of the number of jobless households in this country.

We tend to congratulate ourselves every month when the live register figures come out and when we drill deeper into the CSO data in terms of the very welcome and growing employment rates in this country, but we also wilfully ignore the fact that one in six households in the country are jobless, which is a huge stain on our society and a problem in terms of our economic and social cohesion into the future. Successive Administrations have not managed to deal with that. As I have said repeatedly, the idea of work is not necessarily only about the weekly or monthly pay packet but also about the dignity of work and the contribution that work makes to our society. The LES and jobs clubs have an enormous role to play now and in the future in reaching those hard to reach citizens who require wrap-around, customised, tailored services that the pay by results profit-driven model cannot address in any way to anyone's satisfaction.

I am not convinced either that an open procurement system is required. It is not required at all based on points the witnesses made and points made by Deputy O'Dea and others. I am convinced that at the top of the system - I do not necessarily mean the political system - there is an ideological motivation that insists that private is good and public or community-based approaches are bad. That is unfortunate. The reality is, and I will be upfront with the witnesses, a political campaign needs to be run over the next short period to convince the political system and the higher echelons of the public service that we need to maintain and grow these types of services that are critical if we are to address the issues that those one in six jobless households face because it is only through this community-based activation model that this can be done.

Will Mr. Bowe elaborate on the fact that the network has developed a proposal for an ongoing community-based activation programme? It is very important in the context of what we are facing into over the next few weeks and months and the challenge to the system that the Irish global development network, the LES, the jobs clubs, SIPTU and others who favour this approach would outline precisely what it is that Mr. Bowe, and indeed I, are in favour of and not only what we are against. It is important that those of us who believe in this system should articulate that and ensure we are leading the debate on this and not only responding.