Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The national internship scheme was launched 12 weeks ago, on 1 July. To date, it has had applications from more than 4,000 employers, of whom approximately 2,600 have been accepted as appropriate internship hosts. I know that many people are concerned that the scheme should achieve its core aims and objectives, which are to provide a quality internship and a learning and work experience where the intern is mentored. I hope the scheme will provide an opportunity for employers to retain their interns in more permanent employment.

The history of internship around the world, according to the academic literature on the subject, is extremely positive. Certain types of social welfare interventions and back to work schemes really do help people. One of them is internship. The literature on the subject is clear that long-term unemployment does damage to a person's whole life. Unemployed people lose confidence in themselves, connection with the workplace and motivation. A long spell of unemployment can damage a person's skills level so that the skills become out of date. A graduate who does not find employment within a reasonable time will find him or herself in competition with the next set of graduates, which creates an added difficulty.

We must recognise what an internship can do. Deputies will be familiar with the back to work enterprise allowance. This is an extremely positive scheme that offers people self-validation and appreciation of their willingness to get up and try to create, or recreate, business opportunities for themselves. In the 1990s I was heavily involved in the development of back to work schemes. Deputies may remember that back to work schemes offered high levels of personal validation for people. The State gave people a hand up, rather than simply a social welfare payment with no help, encouragement, coaching, support or opportunities.

The take-up of the national internship scheme and interest in it, by employers and interns, has been very good. More than 1,400 people have commenced internships. About 500 of those came from the work placement programme. They were allowed to transfer because interns receive a top-up payment of €50 in addition to the social welfare payment. I wanted people who were on the work placement programme to have the opportunity to transfer to the internship scheme if they wished to do so. Many people have done that, as I expected. However, more than 800 people have commenced internships entirely from scratch in the 12 weeks since the scheme started.

There are, of course, teething problems. One does not create a whole new scheme without them. For instance, some employers have applied to become hosts while not understanding what an internship involves. We have a large number of people who check, validate and take feedback from the public, social media and people such as public representatives who question the quality of some of the positions offered. It is our job to ensure that the positions offered are quality internships.

The scheme's steering group is chaired by the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard in Ireland. A number of business people have been involved from the start. The stakeholders' group, which includes employers and trade unions, is very active and holds regular discussions in regard to quality.

We are currently putting in place an evaluation structure of social welfare in this country. There is need for reform in this area. Upon taking up my position as Minister, I received a large report from the ESRI on people's experience on FÁS courses. However, the report related to the situation during the height of the boom in 2006 and 2008 and provided no information for 2009 and 2010 in terms of whether people's experiences were positive or negative. We must ensure we have evaluation systems in place.

We need then to learn from experience just as does a person in business responsible for a budget that is not working out. As politicians, we must listen to people's concerns. It is necessary, in terms of public administration in Ireland, that we build in evaluation systems. We must then learn from the experience and amend schemes. An issue brought to my attention is that of people on FÁS training courses who, on taking up a position on a course go off the live register. We have put in place arrangements to ensure that their status, in terms of being on the live register, can be suspended and, if they finish the course, the duration of it will not disqualify from taking up an internship if previously they had the three months on the live register or signing-on qualification.

I am grateful to all the people who have been in fairly continuous contact on this issue. There is a final point with which I would like to deal as it comes up a great deal. Many people have asked why it is necessary to have a qualification period. I would like to respond to that. We are now approaching the third anniversary of the putting in place of the disastrous bank guarantee that led to our loss of sovereignty. We are required to show the IMF that people are moving from unemployment and the live register into education, training, JobBridge and so on. We have received very positive feedback on JobBridge. It will not suit everyone just as no job will suit everyone. Work on setting up this scheme has been the first big initiative in terms of co-operation between my Department and the labour services side of FÁS. The civil servants who have been working flat out on this, holding weekly meetings with myself and others and evaluating it on a constant basis, have helped to achieve a great deal in 12 weeks, which is a short time.

We will be able to evaluate the scheme in approximately nine months time and to see how the first graduates of internship are faring.

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