Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I would like to see both but I am not sure how many more facilitators we will be able to get in the immediate term given that we have so many other staff coming in for progressing, control, inspection etc. As I indicated, the facilitators mostly concentrate on people on the live register. We must remember that when the first facilitators were appointed, they dealt with people on the live register who were long-term unemployed and who probably needed a bit more intensive work and more personal attention than a number of people on the live register now who, in some cases, are very capable of finding things for themselves once they have the information and of working with other agencies.

There is much duplication of agencies which are all trying to service the same group. We aim to ensure greater co-operation between FÁS, the local employment service, the partnerships, the adult education guidance initiative, the HSE when it concerns people with disabilities and our facilitators in identifying those people whose needs can be met by working with those agencies. That is happening in some areas.

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