Ms Helen Faughnan:

Yes, that is the provision over the three years, as we ramp up the scheme and pay the people who take it up. The final cost will depend on whether they people are on the €7,500 or the €10,000 figure.

The big problem with the earlier schemes was the extremely low take up because the employer did not know what they were getting into and what the payback would be for them. The fact that they had to wait and recoup the money from Revenue or the Department of Social Protection acted as a disincentive.

Gateway is a pilot scheme. Like JobsPlus, our initial focus is on the long-term unemployed. We will review the scheme after it has been up and running for a while to see about extending it to other cohorts of social welfare recipients, such as people with disabilities and lone parents. However, as Deputy O'Dea said, because there are so many long-term unemployed our initial engagement is with them.

People who are working 19.5 hours a week are free to take up other employment. The idea of such initiatives is to get people engaging again with the workforce, to get used to getting up and going to work but, of course, they are then available to engage with other activities.

There have been issues with vetting by the Garda. Our Department has been working closely with the Department of Justice and Equality. That Department has received extra resources and huge inroads have been made to clear the vetting backlogs. We understand the backlogs have been quite reduced and the Department's aim is to improve the situation further by the end of the year. We have seen that improvement in the number of people who have been approved. We will be working with our customers to ensure it is not a barrier to them getting a place.

On selection, people need to be on the live register. If a self-employed person, such as a taxi driver, for example, is in receipt of a payment, they should be on the live register, but I will double check that and get back to the Deputy offline.