Ms Ellen Brennan:

I will speak to the challenge with referrals. We are quite lucky at Dublin South City Partnership because the office we deal with, which I will not name, is really good at sending these over. Maybe the internal system in the Department of Social Protection is not working as well. I know it is setting up a completely new office to deal with that, which we really welcome. We tend to get the same clients referred to us again and again. They might not be coming on to Tús because they are not eligible for Tús; they may be on a disability payment or in full-time education, for example. It is not that people are refusing but rather that they are not eligible for the programme.

We get a few refusals. I spoke about the variety of placements that we have. We get people who initially do not want to come on to Tús but once they come in, speak to us and see the opportunities that are available, they usually change their minds. It is just a matter of getting them in the door to meet us and see what are the opportunities. Our ethos is to look at what they want to do for their own career and find a placement to suit that rather than the other way around. That works pretty well. I am not overly concerned about the level of refusals but we definitely need more people. It was only a couple of years ago it came out that we were able to take on self-referrals. Until a couple of years ago, we were not allowed to advertise Tús placements. Many people do not know about Tús. It is only recently that we are starting to promote the scheme around the place. As the word gets out, we might be able to get more people that way. Currently, we are really relying on the social welfare direct referrals.

There was a question about the difference between supervisors and co-ordinators. I indicated what supervisors do in looking after participants, doing the paperwork and everything, as well as developing links with community groups. The co-ordinators must oversee all that. As mentioned, we have huge reach in the community and I must ensure that as the role of supervisor develops, our staff are trained to deal with that appropriately. It is about ensuring all the supervisors get proper training in supervisory management, for example, and data protection because of all the new information we must hold on to. It is stuff like that. There is also all the reporting that goes with that.

Self-referrals are also coming in and there is a need to promote and strategise more for the programme. It is very time-consuming. It is a dynamic programme but all the management is a lot to take on for the €5,000 per year plus all the stuff that supervisors do. That is the difference between the supervisor and co-ordinator. The co-ordinator manages the programme, basically, and oversees it.