Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As of 10 October, 21,842 internships have commenced, since JobBridge was launched in July 2011. Some 5,918 jobseekers are completing an internship, while 2,948 internships are advertised and available to jobseekers.

I am increasing the maximum number of internships a jobseeker can undertake from two to three and the maximum cumulative duration from nine months to 18. This measure is being introduced to give jobseekers who are dissatisfied with an internship and have not secured paid employment subsequent to an internship a further chance. It is important to highlight that this measure is being introduced in response to feedback from jobseekers who have participated in the scheme and was one of the recommendations contained in the independent review of the JobBridge scheme. It is also important to note that the maximum duration of an individual internship will remain at nine months and that jobseekers will not be allowed to take up more than one internship with the same host organisation.

The JobBridge scheme incorporates a number of design features to protect workers and jobseekers. These include a cap on the total number of interns that can be hired by any one organisation; limits on the duration of internships of either six or nine months; a cooling off period in order that organisations cannot hire interns one after the other in sequence; requiring organisations to appoint a mentor for each intern, complete a standard agreement for each intern and provide an undertaking that the internship is not being used to displace employees.

Host organisations are not permitted to advertise internships in areas where they have recently made redundancies or where they currently have paid posts advertised. They must also complete and submit a monthly compliance report to the Department. The Department monitors and enforces compliance by screening all applications and providing an online facility for interns or others to report breaches of these conditions. We also conduct random site visits. Approximately 9,000 organisations have sponsored interns in the public, private, voluntary and community sector and over 3,400 monitoring visits to these organisation locations have been completed to-date, of which about 98% have been satisfactory. Remedial action is taken in all cases of non-compliance.

The independent evaluation by Indecon found that 61% of interns went on to achieve paid employment. This is one of the most successful outcomes in Europe for a scheme of this kind.

Additional information not provided on the floor of the House

This demonstrates that JobBridge is delivering for thousands of jobseekers by providing them with the opportunity to gain relevant work experience, knowledge and skills in a workplace environment.

The introduction of Gateway, a partnership with local authorities, will provide employment opportunities for those who are on the live register for 24 months or more and currently in receipt of a jobseeker's payment. Gateway aims to improve the employability and work readiness of participants by providing them with the opportunities to put their work skills into practice and learn new skills to enable them to progress to work, further education or other development opportunities.

The process of identifying work opportunities is under way in each county and city council, including the necessary consultation with stakeholders. Extensive exploratory work was carried out on the preparation of the scheme by officials from the Department to ensure there would be no displacement from the scheme.

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