Ms Anne Vaughan:

I will ask Mr. McKeon and Mr. Carroll to help me out as we go along.

I am interested in what Deputy Lyons stated about the balance, as he sees it, between the outcome and the process of engagement. As I said, the intensity of engagement is all a work in progress. As I speak, we have a training programme for new case officers whom we are redeploying from other work within the Department.

The process of engagement is how we deal with individuals. I would like to think that our staff have great pride in how they deal with people and that they deal well with people. I hear the point Deputy Lyons is making as to how skilled and trained are they to do it, and with regard to career guidance. Just so I am clear, as this could be something of a language issue, the Department of Social Protection is not involved in career guidance as I would traditionally understand the term. What we are involved in is one-on-one engagement with people to see what are their skills and where they need training, and we try to refer them to what is most appropriate. In that regard, as I stated earlier, we work closely with employers. It is all local. If I were doing this in Ballymun, it would be different from doing it somewhere with a totally different catchment area. We are also involved with what are now the local education and training boards, ETBs. I would like to think that we are trying to improve our skills in the process of engagement through our own staff training and through the staff who came to us from FÁS who are skilled in this area, many of whom have formal qualifications in guidance.

The issue of outcomes goes to the core of whether it is a matter of placing people in any job and whether we merely want to place people in jobs, in which case they may come back because the jobs do not suit them. This is an engagement and it depends on the capabilities and characteristics of the individuals with whom we are dealing. We know that people have been placed in good jobs but have cycled back to our office, and it is not that they were placed in the wrong job but that they needed more support to stay in it. My colleagues feel strongly that as we engage more with those who are unfortunately long-term unemployed, the whole business of getting up and getting out, and doing it, will be more difficult for people. That is an area we certainly have to keep under review.

We are of the view that a job is better than no job, but we will not mismatch people totally, and that is what the engagement process is about. We have to be realistic as well with regard to the capabilities of the person and what he or she thinks he or she is suited for, and if there are employment prospects in that area. My colleagues in the Department of Education and Skills, in the ETBs and in SOLAS, which is about to be formed, are very much in this space as well and very much of the view that it is wrong to refer somebody to a training programme that he or she is not able for. There will be vetting in the ETBs in that regard. Therefore, I would say to Deputy Lyons that we are concerned.

The purpose of the probability of exit, PEX, profiling is that everybody gets treated the same, in the sense that it looks at one's individual characteristics. The process will be the same whether one turns up in the Ballymun Intreo office, the Dún Laoghaire Intreo office or the Limerick Intreo office. What I would say is that all offices are different in the sense that they are physically different and we are trying to get a model service within our physical structures. We have taken a pragmatic approach to this and we are working with the buildings we have, including our own former FÁS buildings.

The Deputy asked whether the resources were matched to the needs of the catchment areas. I would like to think that by and large the answer is "Yes," but my own staff tell me "No," and I need to get a better handle on that. For example, the largest local office that will be an Intreo office next year is Cork. It is our biggest office. It is too big. We need two offices in Cork to deliver a proper service. That is merely an example. We will do that and we will have that next year. That is merely an example of how we respond to issues in the catchment areas.

Different offices - such as the Ballymun office, with which Deputy Lyons is familiar, and the Finglas office - are well matched to the needs of their communities. As to whether they could be better, all offices could be better. As to whether the service could be better, of course it could, and that is what we are trying to work towards. As to whether there is some sort of other issue going on, I do not think so.