Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There has been progress. Yesterday, for instance, I opened the new Intreo office in Athlone and later in the day I opened the new Intreo office in Longford. They have been well-received in those areas, as they have been throughout the country. Deputy O'Dea was present when I opened the Limerick office late last year. Anyone with an unbiased mind will see that what has happened has amounted to a transformation from what we had under the old Department of Social Welfare, which was a passive pay-out benefits agency.

Now we have a Department that is focused on functioning not just as a benefits payment agency, but, more importantly, as a public employment service charged with getting people back to work.

At the beginning of 2013, services for people who are long-term unemployed were managed by some 300 full-time case officers in the Department who were also operating Intreo and by 150 employment mediators working in local employment services. We have redeployed a further 300 staff to help the long-term unemployed during 2013 and similar numbers will be redeployed again this year. In other words, we have essentially doubled the number of case officers. This initiative comes in a context where the OECD had observed on more than one occasion that we had insufficient staff in place to deal, on an individual basis, with persons who are unemployed. We are now doing that, as shown by the impressive statistics I gave regarding the increase in the number of interviews and the consequent improvement in employment figures.

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