Ms Anne Vaughan:

Last year, all the places were taken up. However, we are working with our colleagues in SOLAS and in the education and training boards, ETBs.

There is a review of MOMENTUM about which my colleagues might wish to speak, and we learned from the review. We had a meeting recently with my colleagues in SOLAS to see how we will proceed for this year's MOMENTUM. The MOMENTUM training courses are focused on what is available in the labour market and what employers want. Of those courses we also try to determine what suits best people who are long-term unemployed. It is a two-way process. My understanding is that it is working reasonably well on the ground, but some courses are about to start shortly. I will give the Senator a list of the location of the offices.

The Senator asked about performance data. There is a reference to that in Pathways to Work. Our main performance data, which is available and which we provide in parliamentary questions, is to do with pending rates in terms of how long it takes for somebody across all our payment schemes to receive payment. Obviously, that should be as short a time as possible. One of the areas Intreo in particular has delivered on is paying people more quickly and having a quicker assessment process. The basic SWA weekly payments that used to be administered by the community welfare service when it was part of the Health Service Executive have just dropped. The Department has integrated and we pay people within a week, which means there are usually some reasons to go to the community welfare side of the house. That is an obvious statistic in terms of the way Intreo has improved the situation and the amalgamation of the staff.

There is more to do in that regard, and that is being signalled in Pathways to Work. When I am before the committee I always speak about the Department having three functions in the payments space, namely, delivery of payments, activation, which is what Pathways is all about, and making sure we pay the right people, which would be something on the control side. We have set out macro-metrics in Pathways to Work. We will now drop those into the individual Intreo offices and decide on that. We have to develop them but it will be in the area of progression to employment. That is the obvious metric. Most people would agree that the fewer metrics for people to understand, the better, and that is what we will be aiming for.

Gateway has a target of 3,000 places across all of the local authorities. I will have to check the figure but we will certainly have 1,000 or more by the end of the year. As with many arrangements that are brought in, there are teething problems. This is a scheme operated between ourselves in the Department of Social Protection and the local authorities. There was an effort on both sides to get it to work on the ground. Some local authorities have met or are about to meet their targets. Others are well behind but are now catching up. There were various issues to be addressed. Some of the city authorities had issues that some of the other authorities did not have. It was a slow burner but it is getting there. The Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, is confident that the 3,000 places will be got as a steady State position next year. It will not be this year.

I take the Senator's point that we must know in the case of the individual schemes which is more effective but we must also be clear about the reason we set up schemes, the target groups for them and what would signify they are working well. The Tánaiste would be clear and strong on the various objectives and purposes of, say, community employment schemes. Certain schemes would have a strong professional element and training element and other schemes have a social services dimension and that may be all they can do. We must be clear on this. I take that point on board. We have done reviews and more reviews are in train. I would not disagree with any of what was said in that respect.

Senator Naughten asked about case officers. I am not sure if she was asking specifically about people who are case officers or officers in general. To be clear about penalty rates or where payment is suspended for a period, the whole purpose of having penalties is not to impose them, rather it is to make people engage. A success would be the imposition of fewer penalties because people would be engaging. There may be some discussion as to whether a case officer dealing with a person and advising him or her on activation training, jobs and so on would also have the power to impose a penalty. I am not sure if that is the point the Senator is getting at.