Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair for letting me in because I am heading for Leaders' Questions shortly. I wish everybody a good morning and thank them for attending. I will concentrate on the Department's decision to introduce Pathways to Work 2021-2025. This will, in effect, abolish local employment services so that we can be in line with EU procurement regulations. I have had extensive engagement with local employment services, which have helped thousands of people find gainful employment since the 1990s. They are basically left with two choices. They can either tender to be part of the future arrangements or they can choose not to tender. There are a number of factors involved in making those choices. The new scheme, Pathways to Work, sets impossible timelines. Even though the Minister tells me there was extensive engagement with stakeholders in developing the document, if the local employment services that currently deliver these programmes, which have local knowledge and experience, say the timelines are impossible, I have to question how they came about. They say they cannot provide the service within their budget because the whole service is front-loaded. That makes it financially unsustainable for the existing local employment services to tender. This means all of their staff will be made redundant. I presume the Secretary General has heard the term "stuck between a rock and a hard place". That is where the employees in the local employment services, LESs, find themselves.

The new scheme allows for a maximum of 438 clients per year for the entire county of Wexford. Some 1,350 people availed of the services of the LES in the county in the last year. That does not include walk-ins. The Department's proposal is to reduce that number by 900. That is very concerning. How was that figure arrived at?

Where will the LES workers find themselves in the case of redundancy? How does the Department propose to deal with their future? Will they be made redundant or employed by the successful tenderer? Will there be a transfer of undertakings and so on for existing employees of the LESs?