Mr. Mick Creedon:

I will pick up the point that was raised about JobPath. I hope they are not there today. I would be confident that the quality of our service and staff in the job centres speaks for itself. It remains to be seen whether the organisations involved in the JobPath programme can achieve that standard. That would be the first thing I would say and I would certainly hope it is complementary.

I understand the idea of JobPath started because there was a need to increase the number of case officers or guidance practitioners that would be available to assist unemployed people given the large increase in the numbers. In that sense, we hope that JobPath is complementary to ourselves because there is not enough capacity within the service to provide a good-quality service to unemployed people. This has been acknowledged in the Pathways to Work document. It raises the issue of the ratio of guidance practitioners to unemployed persons. That ratio in the Youth Guarantee was at international norms, at about 150 to one. This made a significant contribution to the success of the pilot. In addition, all of the guidance staff had a background and a qualification in guidance. I remember how at the beginning of the pilot, we had to send in a list of their qualifications to the national steering committee. Since the end of the pilot, we have stopped the intensive support that was there during the pilot because of our other commitments and gone back to our normal work. Our ratio has gone up and is about 250 to one. Whether it is a coincidence or not, we slowly phased out the pilot from the end of December 2014 to April 2015. Since the end of the intensive support that was available in the pilot, the number of people under the age of 25 signing on in Ballymun has gone up. While it came down by 29% during the pilot, it has gone up by 10% since then because we do not have the proper ratio of guidance practitioners to unemployed persons. There is a lesson there for us. I certainly hope JobPath is not there to take our jobs.