Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 9:

In page 6, after line 52, to insert the following new subsection:

"(5) The Minister shall, prior to the commencement of this section, publish the types of courses that shall apply under this section, the availability of those courses and the arrangements that have been made to ensure sufficient provision of public transport to such courses.".

When I spoke on Second Stage I said this amendment was ruled out of order. That was my information at the time because of a letter I received from the Ceann Comhairle. However, I believe there was a mistake and I have no problem with that.

To some extent this matter goes back to what Deputy Shortall and Deputy Morgan discussed. I am concerned less about the issues they raise than with the actual availability of courses. I am not convinced either by what the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, has said to date or what the Tánaiste has said in her budget speech to the effect that there will be sufficient suitable courses available for people in their particular localities and so on. I am somewhat mystified as to how this amendment was allowed when I am talking about ensuring sufficient public transport being provided, which probably bears a cost. A previous amendment I proposed to section 6 was not allowed, although it was more or less the same, except for the fact that I asked for assurance that there would be sufficient availability of officers, by which I meant facilitators. In speaking to this amendment and to section 6, I question the availability of facilitators to deliver the service on which we are depending in relation to young people, particularly regarding what they are being asked to do for the unemployed and lone parents. There are 60 of them around the country and there will probably be 500,000 people unemployed. It is a matter of how they are to deal with their existing case loads as well as providing for an increasing workload.

Bearing in mind all that has been said about the difficulties that will arise, there is no point in sending a young person on a course unless it suits the particular individual and it is something he or she will get value from. Anybody can do a computer course, say, but if his or her skills lie in carpentry or something else, that is where he or she should be directed. For facilitators to do this, they will need to spend more time with people on a one to one basis. That is why I have real concerns about how this will operate.

I have made this final point to the Minister before and it comes back to waste within the system and the queues we currently have at social welfare offices. Some of the FÁS courses, from what I read in the Tánaiste's speech, will be of short duration. We have a ridiculous system in operation at the moment where somebody already on jobseeker's allowance goes on to do a FÁS course, which might be of six weeks duration. In the event, he or she must sign off jobseeker's allowance, sign on the FÁS course, do the six weeks and then sign on for jobseeker's allowance. He or she must go through the entire process and then queue again. This is madness and should not happen. Thousands are doing FÁS courses every year and get the same payment as social welfare. If they are in FÁS they will, of course, get child care, transport and whatever, but the plain payment they receive is the same as if they were on social welfare. That is an area where there is room for positive changes to the system, which would certainly ease the Minister's staff time. My main point in this regard is that the right type of course for people should be available everywhere, along with the provision of transport, as relevant. Transport is relatively simply in city areas, but in rural areas it is much more difficult to deliver.

See this speech in context