Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I spent five to ten minutes yesterday browsing the website, during which I found 11 objectionable new advertisements. Has the Minister looked at the website? She will see internships that clearly displace what should be real jobs and wages and exploit people. Some of the internships include posts as retail assistants, car valets, catering assistants and general maintenance assistants. The posts are dressed up in fancy language to give the impression they are meaningful internships but cursory research dispels that myth. A retail assistant post based in Waterford city claims the intern "will also be trained in the use of highly specialized Microsoft RMS software, used for point of sale". According to the Microsoft website, the RMS software package enables employees "to learn POS procedures in minutes", not 30 hours a week over nine months.

Does the Minister agree she has failed to prevent displacement and exploitation that was an inevitable outworking of the scheme? Does she agree that some employers are using the JobBridge scheme to avoid employing people on proper terms and conditions to undertake standard functions on which their businesses and profits to date depended? Does she agree the design of the scheme facilitates this outrageous exploitation?

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