Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I am glad that every time I ask this question, the number of facilitators goes up by ten. There is some progress. If facilitators are to work, they must have time to spend with people. Sadly, they must deal with an ever-increasing group of people who have varied needs from lone parents to people with disabilities to people who are unemployed.

When the Minister launched something for one parent families a few months ago, she spoke about the pilot schemes in Coolock and Kilkenny. She said where participation was voluntary, take up was low which pointed to a need for a more active process to give lone parents encouragement and so on. To have a more active process, facilitators need to have more time to spend with people. I do not see how 70 facilitators can deal with this, given the scale of unemployment we face.

I make the comparison with career guidance teachers and the 60,000 or so leaving certificate students. I know career guidance teachers must deal with the entire school but the focus is on students in the final years in which choices must be made. There are a lot more career guidance teachers relative to the number of students compared with the number of facilitators relative to the number of unemployed, not to mention lone parents and people with disabilities.

While I accept other organisations are involved, I question the ability of facilitators to deal with their workload given there are so few of them. The Minister said she is monitoring this. Does see she more facilitators being employed or does she see more active involvement by other agencies working with her Department which can engage with people on a one-to-one basis?

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