Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

To reassure Deputies, the host organisation which identifies a potential internship opportunity must nominate a suitable mentor from within the organisation, such as the HR department, if a company is of large enough to have one, to oversee the process. Companies must apply to the national employment and entitlements service to have the internship recognised. They will have to make an application and describe the purpose of the internship, what it will be about and what it will contribute to the person's learning and work experience in the course of the internship.

Individuals who are interested in taking up internships will apply to host organisations and the latter will make a selection subject to the eligibility criteria. In order to participate on the programme the host organisation and interns will have to sign a standard internship agreement before commencing the programme. We are trying to limit the paperwork so that it is not too top heavy in terms of administrative burden.

I agree with Deputies who are concerned about abuse that there must be a structure. Someone who is going to employ an intern must put some thought into what an intern will achieve and learn in terms of experience from the process. Throughout the internship there will be regular contact and a log summary will be provided of what career development has taken place in terms of the person's learning experiences.

Deputy Wallace has experience both in training apprentices and as an employer. I accept there are employers who will abuse any situation but the response so far from employers has been extremely positive for the reasons Deputy Keaveney outlined which is that in many areas people want to provide opportunities to young people who are stymied. International research by the most renowned academics on getting people back to work classifies the outcomes from internships in an entirely different manner to the outcomes from other work experience schemes. Internships have positive outcomes for people who take part in them, particularly if they are well designed. That is what we are working towards. We will be monitoring it carefully.

In the jobs initiative, we provided 6,000 places on FÁS specific skills training courses, an extra 3,000 places in the back to education scheme, an extra 1,000 post-leaving certificate places, 5,900 places on the third level springboard scheme and up to 5,000 places on the national internship scheme, which we were just talking about. People may say these are not the same as full-time permanent jobs, but we must start somewhere and give people opportunities. In particular, we must ensure the skills of those coming out of training at this time do not grow cold. Internationally, all of the academic literature shows that when properly done, high quality internships can produce a valuable experience for the people who do them.

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