Mr. John McKeon:

We will deal with them. For example, a person who became unemployed in 2012 had a 50% chance of getting employment within the next 12 months. If that person was not successful in finding employment in that period, his or her chances of getting employment in the 12 to 24 month period was about 20%; if not successful in the 12 to 24 month period, his or her chances in the next 24 to 36 month period, was in low single digits - low as in 1% approximately. That is the reason it is structured in a particular way. We have a large number of people in that cohort and as things stand, if there is a two-year gap in a person's CV, the chances of an employer giving that person an opportunity are remote. There are trade-offs but that is the nature of our business in the sense that decisions have to be made and it is not possible to have a perfect continuum. That is the background.

With regard to Senator Moloney's question about displacement, we respond to parliamentary questions and representations from Deputies and we also have an online facility where people can report instances and we act upon them. On the question of the number of staff deployed on JobBridge and JobsPlus, I do not have the information on the precise number with me. JobBridge is operated by a small policy-based team known as the JobBridge policy unit which is comprised of three people. JobsPlus has approximately the same number of people, three or four people working at the centre. Both schemes are supported by our divisional and operational structure for processing applications. JobBridge takes a bit more operational time because we do inspections to ensure that any issues of displacement are captured or allegations of abuse are investigated. We carry out random samples. However, in cases of abuse we send out inspectors to meet the intern and the employer and to check the records. This takes a bit more governance.

On the first step issue, this was not pathways to work nor was it the youth guarantee implementation plan. We called it the youth development internship. We have changed the name from youth development internship which is a bit of a mouthful. It is, in effect, an extension of the programmes we ran with Tesco and with Diageo, to make it more widely available. The Tesco programme had about 40 or 50 people and the Diageo programme had approximately 20 people. We are extending the programme to about 1,500 people. The core of the programme is built on what was learned from those two programmes.