Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

Will the Minister reconsider or, at least, keep under review the eligibility criteria for the JobBridge programme? The troika and others are somewhat mistaken in insisting on a time requirement for such schemes when it wants to avoid people drifting into long-term unemployment. For example, a person unemployed for two months but who could not sign on until now would have to wait another three months to be eligible for the scheme. In effect, he or she would be unemployed for five months when a suitable vacancy could have been available in that time. The qualifying period for the Springboard scheme has been reduced from six months to zero. Why can such a relaxation of the rules not be applied to the national internship scheme? If we want to prevent people drifting into long-term unemployment, we need to be as flexible as possible.

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