Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank Deputy Wallace and other Deputies who are following the website and closely monitoring the positions on offer. Their efforts are important and I have a number of volunteers, departmental staff and people in the labour services side of FÁS doing likewise. Some 1,100 opportunities are available on the JobBridge website. Given their range, the Deputy will agree that many of them are good and there has been a significant number of expressions of interest in them from people wishing to become interns.

I recognise what the Deputy is saying. In some situations, people might try to migrate an ordinary job, one that is not an internship experience as most people would understand it, on to the website. I do not have the exact figures, but approximately 30 or 40 such advertisements have been taken down from the website. We must continually monitor the site to try to ensure the quality of job offerings.

The Deputy asked why the regulations were not more specific. We are trying to provide a general template for a range of different internship opportunities without being so restrictive as to prevent people, whatever their level of training or educational qualification, from taking up interesting internships. The people interested in being interns range from postgraduates to those who have completed various levels of FETAC training.

See this speech in context