Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

SICAP was an open competition tendering process which adheres to the EU procurement rules. There are lessons we can learn from how that tendering process was done before we go out to our own tendering process.

It is all about outcomes and it has to be across every single scheme because, ultimately, the aim is to get somebody into long-term, sustainable, supported employment but it is not a race. Different services will have different speeds, for want of a better word, depending on the support they are offering, the types of services they are offering and the people they are serving. It might take one service a year to help somebody get a job and it might take another service three years. Somebody might need to go from one service to another service for five years in total before they get employment. It is not about how quickly we get somebody to the outcome. It is about providing a service that is tailored for that particular person's needs and supporting them through that journey back into full-time, sustainable employment, no matter how long it takes. That must be the aim and it must be acknowledged that one type of service does not fit everybody's requirements. That is why we need a broad spectrum of services provided by a range of people.

We will not increase our Intreo offices. The live register numbers are coming down and the premise from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is that we should be reducing our overall staff count, not increasing it. We have enough capacity in the system currently and we do not need to employ any more. Between LES, job clubs, Intreo case officers and the case officers in JobPath, we have just under 800 individual case office managers which is sufficient, on the ratio of 120:1, which is international best practice, to get the best outcomes.