Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important to see this in the context of a range of schemes. I refer to the additional part-time training which is available to a person on the Gateway scheme. FÁS provides approximately 15,000 part-time training courses. JobsPlus is the new grant scheme targeted at people who have been unemployed more than one or two years. A total of 1,600 people are participating in that scheme and 60% of them have been more than two years unemployed. This scheme has been very successful in targeting that cohort which is difficult to place. The same is true of Gateway which is targeting a group of people who are particularly difficult to place in order to find real work opportunities for them.

Where better to look for such opportunities than to our local authorities. They are established in the community with a very strong work ethic and human resources and other support structures to provide a good working environment for participants. Pretending that local authorities are some form of sweat shops as portrayed by the Opposition is an insult to local authorities and to the way in which they will deal with the participants in the schemes. They work to the highest standards in the workplace. They provide the supports needed by people who have been long-term unemployed. I make no apology for having this range of alternatives, including Gateway, which provides 19.5 hours work a week. People complain that €208 a week, an additional €20 a week, is a very low payment. It is not a high payment but I have never heard people rail against community employment which has been a feature of our system for years and 25,000 people are employed on community employment schemes. They are given the opportunity to work, to develop their skills with a placement rate of 26% for work. That rate could be higher. We need a range of programmes and we need to see people progress from a scheme that takes them from being in a very difficult place in their lives and moves them to something in which they can progress. Local authorities have the structures to help people develop their skills and interests. Participants are given a chance to learn about different aspects of local authority work and to gain experience. The hope is that they will progress their skills and move on. This is the process we are seeking to evolve and it has been successful. In 2013, 137,500 people left the live register to take up employment.

This notion that the jobs we are creating are not available to people on the live register is simply incorrect. In fact, as I have outlined, significant numbers are leaving the live register to take up employment.

Pathways to Work is one part of our strategy to get people back into employment. Deputy Crowe denigrated the information we provide and claimed we are all about public relations when it comes to job creation. The Central Statistics Office is not a PR agent of the Department. It has been gathering statistics year in and year out for as long as I have been around and is highly respected for the way in which it presents its information. Opposition Members are entitled to attack Government policy, but the Deputy will admit-----

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