Mr. John McKeon:

There is no age discrimination in terms of accessing services from the State or from Intreo. The issue is about cultural and societal attitudes towards age and long-term unemployment. This is why there are schemes such as JobsPlus and MOMENTUM, which are specifically targeted at people who are long-term unemployed. Anybody has access to the public employment service but they do not necessarily have access to every employment programme. They do have access to the training and education programmes provided by the State but they may not have access to the training allowance that is sometimes paid to people who are on a social welfare payment and go on a training programme. If a person has means, then they would not have access to the training allowance. There may be a charge levied for access to VEC further education programmes but in the case of the training centres, the FÁS programmes as they were known, there is no charge. That is the current position.

Deputy Ryan made reference to surveys. The Department is currently in the process of a survey. It has commissioned an expert market research firm to survey job seekers who use the Intreo service. in order to give us feedback. It is a large scale survey of client experience and we intend to run this twice a year. This takes the lessons we have learned from the INOU-----