Mr. John McKeon:

A number of members have referenced JobBridge. When it comes to labour market interventions, nothing is perfect. We must be careful that perfection does not become the enemy of the good. JobBridge has many good aspects and I am concerned that we do not lose sight of this during the debate. We work very hard to try to detect and prevent abuses and anybody can report abuse to us. We have information on the website and conduct more than 3,000 random monitoring visits to firms. There is a very good progression rate. I have taken a personal interest in this issue and met quite a number of interns and the vast majority of feedback is positive. This is not to say, however, that there are not and will not be employers or interns who will seek to take advantage. That is the case in almost everything we do. I am concerned that negative commentary will outweigh the many positive aspects.

Local employment services will be part of the picture. Local employment services and job clubs are core and critical to what the Department does. We have provided almost €1 million for Ballymun local employment services each year and will continue to provide this funding. We use local employment services, in particular, for those who are more distant from the labour market such as those mentioned with low educational achievement. In our Intreo offices we will deal with the majority of people who are unemployed, including the majority of young people who are unemployed. Their major issue is not that they have significant barriers to employment but that they do not have employment opportunities. Intreo offices will focus on dealing with them and trying to job-match them. We provide some career guidance and job search assistance. In-depth detailed personal intensive one-to-one work is done for us by local employment services and this will continue. Some of the Intreo offices will do this also, but we see a role for local employment services in this regard.

As to whether there is enough capacity in the system to offer people opportunities, last year approximately 90,000 young people joined the live register, more than two thirds of whom had left after six months. The progression rate of young people off the live register is quite fast. The number of places we need to find is smaller, probably 20,000 to 30,000. We are examining whether we have capacity in the development of the implementation plan. We certainly have capacity on aggregate, as well as some additional capacity. If we use the capacity on aggregate and do not add to it, it will mean taking capacity away from other cohorts. We are examining this issue in the implementation plan. We have also asked the OECD to examine it.

With regard to with how many countries we must share the EU funding, I will ask Mr. Corcoran to answer this question because he is very closely involved in the discussion.