Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank the Deputy for affording me the opportunity to discuss this matter.

Tús is a community work-placement initiative which will provide up to 5,000 short-term, quality work opportunities for those who have been unemployed for more than a year. The placements will be with community-sector organisations to support the delivery of their services. The Government has allocated €30 million for this initiative in 2011 with full-year costs growing to €100 million in 2012.

The first supervisors have been employed this week. Over the course of the next fortnight, the 100 or so supervisory or team leader posts will be filled and the first 60 or so participants will commence work with local development companies across the country. The criteria applying to recruitment to the supervisor or team leader position and to the selection of participants for work placements are the same. In order to qualify, a person must satisfy the following conditions. He or she must be unemployed and in receipt of a jobseeker's payment for at least 12 months, currently in receipt of jobseeker's allowance - this is the difficulty to which the Deputy refers - and fully unemployed.

As I have said before, this country faces many challenges at present with unemployment presenting a significant and urgent issue. The need has never been greater for innovative thinking and focus on how we can provide opportunities for those who have lost employment. Tús presents one of a range of opportunities to meet the Government's aim of keeping people work ready and, at the same time, providing and supporting valuable support services in the community and voluntary sectors.

The availability of job opportunities, even short-term work placements with some financial incentives, is important. In addition to any financial benefit, we all know the benefits to the individual and his or her family of being involved in work.

The following are some of the key features of Tús. Some 5,000 work placements are being identified in the not-for-profit, community and voluntary sectors. Local development companies have been working to identify quality work placements within suitable organisations across a broad range of services of benefit to communities. Participants will be paid their social welfare entitlements plus an additional €20 per week. Those under 25 years of age will be paid the maximum jobseeker's allowance plus €20 per week. This will make Tús attractive to this age group. Participants will work for 19.5 hours per week with some degree of flexibility in terms of the schedule of hours.

Recruitment to the supervisory or team leader positions with local development companies has been ongoing for some weeks.

These personnel will be in place shortly. The Department has in place arrangements to randomly select participants from the live register who meet the criteria. This selection will be undertaken at local level in co-operation with each of the local development companies.

It is important that we maintain the focus on the long-term unemployed. For this reason, eligibility is at present confined to those on the live register for 12 months and in receipt of the jobseeker's allowance. These provisions are to ensure a targeted approach to those currently affected by long-term unemployment. As with all new initiatives, the operation of the scheme, including the eligibility criteria being applied, will be kept under review and will inform the evaluation process in due course.

I listened to what the Deputy had to say with interest. If we need to extend the scope for the recruitment of supervisors, I will review the matter. The current criteria for the scheme are being addressed by my Department and individuals are interested. When I entered Government, I was very surprised to learn that, although there were 5,000 places in the Tús scheme, which was announced around the time of the budget, and a comparable number of supervisors, not one person had actually been engaged either as a supervisor or as a participant. I have been to Tullamore to meet the local development managers. I have met them here also and am really anxious that we get this scheme up and running. Based on what the Deputy said, I will keep the scheme under review to determine how it is progressing. I appreciate his insights and those of other Deputies.

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