Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

The Labour Party motion calls for FÁS to be refocused on its core work as the State training agency. The organisation is needed more than ever. As Deputy Shortall noted, almost 430,000 people are on the live register. It is extremely important, therefore, that FÁS is made fit for purpose. While the organisation has had many positive achievements over the years, in many respects it has not worked and has many faults. In addressing the revelations surrounding FÁS and restoring public trust in the agency, we must ensure an employment agency emerges that can deal with the needs of jobseekers.

The Labour Services (Amendment) Bill 2009 published today by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment does not make provision to reform the functions of FÁS. Section 4 of the original legislation, the Labour Services Act 1987 which established FÁS, sets out the purposes of the new organisation. The needs of jobseekers in 2009 are much different from the needs of jobseekers in 1987. We are playing a different ball game in terms of the type of employment we need to create in this period of unprecedented economic crisis. What will the Minister do to reform the functions of FÁS in terms of how it provides services to job seekers and so on?

I mentioned an OECD report in the Dáil, which was published last year, which examined the services provided by FÁS and made recommendations. I asked for a debate on that report. It did not happen and I have not heard the Minister discuss taking a broad review of the services of FÁS.

FÁS has done innovative projects over the years. It has trained thousands of apprentices and we have very skilled tradespeople here. With all the talk about the smart economy, we must not forget that we will always need skilled tradespeople. It is extremely important that we provide the best of education for our apprentices. There are many issues. We will require our apprentices to do different types of work in the future than was done in the past. For example, there are issues about needing to conserve energy in homes, which includes the work carpenters and electricians do.

There have been innovative programmes. My brother went on a placement as an engineering graduate to Japan. I worked on a social employment scheme in the early 1990s and it certainly helped me to get employment. There were problems; it was not perfect and there were many gaps, which I will discuss later. The McCarthy report recommends cuts in the numbers of special needs assistants by the Department of Education and Science. Many such posts were initially provided through FÁS training schemes.

FÁS training schemes have provided services in local communities which were not otherwise provided. Many schemes are unnecessary; the picture is not all bright in terms of the work done. However, there were innovative FÁS training schemes and much work was done in renovating heritage buildings and so on. One problem is that in 1995 there were 40,000 community employment schemes but now there are approximately 20,000 and growing numbers of people are unemployed, including graduates who have no jobs and are sitting at home drawing the dole. We need to do something about providing opportunities for people and FÁS is the obvious agency to do that.

I will discuss the negatives. In the OECD report I mentioned there is no engagement with jobseekers when they sign on now. That is the reality. People do not know where to go. In Lucan a person who loses his job, signs on for the dole but nobody is in place to discuss his needs, direct him to the various agencies or tell him what courses are available. There were 1,000 FÁS places announced by the Minister, which is a drop in the ocean, but most people in Lucan who have lost their jobs do not know about them and are reliant on people like me telling them about them. That is not good enough.

There needs to be much more engagement. People who have never been unemployed before and have been in the workforce for years are being left without proper engagement with the various training agencies and one of the most problematic in that regard in FÁS, because it waits for people to go to it. It does not go to jobseekers or examine their needs, except in a statistical sense, and that needs to be changed.

There is a lack of feedback. When I worked on a FÁS social employment scheme 20 years ago — I presume it is the same now — I was not asked if the scheme was any good, if it helped me or if training has been involved, because there was no training. Nothing like that is done by FÁS. There is duplication and a lack of liaison with other agencies such as the VECs and colleges who provide training and education for young people.

There are issues about the way FÁS is structured. None of that is being examined. There is a problem regarding all the scandals that have come out. There was a culture in FÁS which came from the Government, because there has been a culture of waste of public money and extravagant expenditure by the Government, which was followed through in terms of how the management and board of directors managed and governed FÁS.

Several things need to be done. Deputy Shortall raised the need to deal with ethics, the scandal about expenses and how the board of FÁS is structured and appointed, all of which needs to be followed up. The recommendations in the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts need to be implemented. We also need to examine what we want FÁS to do, its functions and the services it provides. That is the bigger picture. The Minister has fallen down. She must use her ministry to provide for the needs of jobseekers and make sure we have trained and skilled people for our workforce according to the needs of the future and make sure we have sustainable employment.

There is a need, in terms of restructuring FÁS, to consult with the people who work there from the bottom up. There are many good people working there and it provides many good services. We need to bring everybody on board in the improvement of the agency because it is very important to our future economy. There is also a need to consult jobseekers. We should not just have statistics about the men and women who are unemployed. We need to know exactly who these people are, what their needs are, what level of training they have, what area of work they have aptitude for and what services and training FÁS can provide for them. When doing all of this it is very important that we engage all the agencies, not just FÁS, and work together to meet the needs of employees.

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