Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter . The Department has explained the issue of procurement, in fairness. The employment services here have been outsourced since the mid-1990s. We have spoken to a number of the local employment service contractors and have explained the matter to them. We have been procuring employment services since the 1990s. The strong legal advice we have from the Chief State Solicitor's office is that we have to go out under procurement rules, otherwise we will be in breach of those rules and would be on slippy ground as a result. In addition, the Comptroller and Auditor General has come in and looked at this and reported on a number of occasions that the Government must go out based on public procurement rules. I reassure the Deputy that a high level of ratings under the cost-bid model will go to, first, quality, second, a proven track record - in fairness to the LES, they have the proven track record - and, third, the delivery of services at local level. The services are being delivered at local level.

There are a number of different approaches to getting people back to work. There are 421,000 people on the PUP as we speak. Approximately 120,000 of those have been on the payment for over a year. Then there are 180,000-odd on the live register. We will face a tsunami of people who will need help to get back into employment, and that is what I want to do. I want to make sure we have the services in place to help those people get back into employment because my number one priority in all this is getting people back to jobs: helping them to do job applications and to get advice, interview skills and such things. That is the priority. We will have 400 Intreo staff and we are expanding the capacity of all the contracted providers. As already stated, our commitment is to expand all elements of the public employment services. At the centre of all this, I assure the Deputy, are the users. They are the people we want to help, and we want to make sure they get the support they need to get back into work.