Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I will bear in mind what the Deputy has said. We got the go-ahead for the scheme under the very stringent conditionality that it related to people on the live register, for reasons I am sure the Deputy appreciates and understands. JobBridge is not for everybody, and I never claimed it was. It is a specific initiative providing 5,000 places over a two year period. It is very heavily subscribed, as the Deputy knows, and the feedback from it is quite positive. An evaluation mechanism to be put in place has gone to tender.

I am keeping the scheme under constant review. I am aware that some members of the Deputy's party are immensely critical of it, but it has a valuable role for people who are caught in the catch-22 situation of being unable to get a job because they do not have experience and being unable to acquire experience because they cannot get a job.

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