Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I wish to share my time with Deputies Nolan, White, O'Connor, Byrne and O'Rourke.

As Minister for Social and Family Affairs, I am naturally very concerned about the number of people who are unemployed, those 250,000 individuals who are on the live register today and the impact this experience has on them and on their families. On the one hand, my role is to ensure that we have sufficient finance to support these families, the dependent spouses and children. However, the main aim is to get these people back to work, to be able to support them with education and training and to provide employment opportunities for them. The Government is working well to do this and Ministers work in co-operation with each other. We have constant contact through the Cabinet Committee on Social Inclusion and there is also contact between relevant Ministers to ensure that we can meet the needs of unemployed individuals.

We do this in a number of ways. The people involved are of different ages, backgrounds and nationalities and have different work experiences. We must therefore be able to target and match their experience with the work available and we must see what new responses we can produce. Within my own Department we are working successfully in a couple of defined ways. One is through our co-operation with FÁS and the second is by our activation programme, much of which is concerned with getting people back into education and training.

The link between the Department of Social and Family Affairs and FÁS is absolutely crucial. I have already met with FÁS representatives because I believe there are opportunities to facilitate more people with job interviews and support in order to help them get into training. When people are called for interview by FÁS this leads to success. Between January and August this year more than 40,000 people were referred by the Department of Social and Family Affairs to FÁS for interview. These were people who had already spent three months on the live register. It was a difficult time for them because within that time they had not found full or satisfactory employment. The numbers called in the eight months this year was an increase on the numbers of last year which shows good productivity. Of those called, 50% have left the live register, which is a success story. Some were placed in jobs, some in training, some were interviewed and left the live register and some did not show up for interview but left the live register anyway. There are many lessons to learn from that. By increasing the number of people we contact to come for interview we hope to help support others to leave the live register.

The type of training on offer is critical and that is why FÁS offers modular flexible programmes to help people up-skill. The fact that those programmes are certified means that the people on them are getting a valuable training and education. In recent times FÁS is trying to respond to the needs of the individual. Apprentices have been discussed in this House and there is an issue about apprentices who have not been able to finish their training. However, FÁS is actively working to ensure that the particular needs of this group are being met. When apprentices are properly skilled and trained they will have some hope of returning to the workforce.

FÁS has also adapted the types of new courses it offers. The training centre in Loughlinstown, for example, works very well with computer and high-tech companies in Cherrywood to meet their needs. In this way people find that they are no longer merely responding to the needs of their employers but become very flexible and adaptable. FÁS also offers programmes on the installation of new sustainable technologies and on environmental activity and trains to a very high level and this is the type of activity we wish to see continue.

Those people who were called for interview but were not offered employment and who are back on the live register, will be called again in three months. That is the type of co-operation there is between my Department and FÁS.

The second major programme is the back to education allowance. One of the most positive significant figures issued today by the Central Statistics Office is the 24% increase in the number of people accessing the back to education allowance. I am really pleased about this because it shows that the focus that we put on it in the last few months is proving to be successful. We held a seminar for facilitators all over the country to update them on the range of opportunities available. Our facilitators are working on a local basis, with FÁS, the VEC and other education providers to see what is available for young people, focusing in particular on the 18 to 25 year old age group. This is a way of supporting people by providing the equivalent of the social welfare allowance, the €500 cost of education allowance, in order that they can access the opportunities there for them.

My Department is supporting people with welfare payments, with a budget of €19.6 billion next year and an increase included in that of €1.25 billion extra in order to deal with those who are unemployed. More important, by supporting people through education and training in getting back to work, the Government shows it is serious about supporting those who are unemployed.

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