Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy previously asked who was in charge as long as FÁS exists. The best analogy on how this can work is with Pobail. The responsibility for this body was with the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, which I served in a previous administrative role. However, many different Departments use Pobail to deliver schemes on their behalf under service level agreements. Similarly, primary responsibility for corporate governance in FÁS will transfer to the Department of Education and Science, but there is no difficulty in the short term in having an agreement between my Department and FÁS to deliver services on a contract basis through activation. Decisions on CE schemes and so on will not pose insurmountable difficulties. There are good working models on how to do that.

The Deputy rightly highlighted the next stage, which is the challenge of getting from where we are to where we would like to be. There are industrial relations issues and we will work on these gradually. On a practical level, we must have greater interaction between those working on the payment side of unemployment and the people who are working with deactivation. After three months, about 60% of people have moved back into employment. After one year, it has dropped to about 30%. It is at that juncture where we have to try to move people into some kind of activity rather than having them drawing money for a long time with nothing to do. One of the big things that genuinely unemployed people complain about is the forced inactivity. I will try to tackle that problem as quickly as I can.

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