Providing pathways to employment or re-employment is vital. The national internship scheme will help young people to get the essential first step on the employment ladder and allow them to build a relationship with prospective employers. From the perspective of employers, the scheme allows them an opportunity to train and develop potential employees at low cost and bring in new skills to enhance their workforce. To facilitate the introduction of the national internship scheme, the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill provides for a number of amendments to social welfare and employment legislation. It also extends to the existing stock of social welfare recipients the current requirements for new claimants to provide additional information that would be useful for profiling purposes to support people to return to work, education and training. It is planned to implement enhanced activation arrangements based on a profiling system developed in conjunction with the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, which will facilitate early targeted interventions for those who need them most, resulting in better outcomes and potential programme savings.

See this item in context