Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I was advised of this issue some time ago. No more than the Deputy, I was very shocked at how the job initiative workers were advised of this. Deputy Johan Collins, her colleague, Deputy Eric Byrne, and others have been involved for a number of weeks in seeking to assist the job initiative workers and to reassure them. There is no threat to their position from the point of view of the Department of Social Protection. The issue relates to the managers of the particular scheme.

The Department funds the Dublin 12 job initiative scheme, which currently has 44 participants and two team leaders. These participants are placed in various community facilities in the Crumlin, Walkinstown and Drimnagh areas. On 4 April the Dublin 12 Congress Centre, as sponsor, officially informed my Department that it did not want to renew its sponsorship of the job initiative scheme and requested the Department to source an alternative sponsor for the project. My officials are currently in confidential discussions with two organisations which have said they are prepared to sponsor this scheme and I expect these discussions to conclude in the near future. In the meantime, the current sponsors have assured my officials that they will continue to employ all of those involved until such time as a new sponsor is in place.

This issue has quite a long history. The scheme was originally under the partnership of KWCD, the Kimmage, Walkinstown, Crumlin and Drimnagh partnership. When this partnership was dissolved, the Dublin 12 Congress Centre agreed to take over the role of sponsor of the project. The Department expressed appreciation for that co-operation in facilitating the sponsorship of the scheme at the time and again expressed appreciation of the centre on its recent request to withdraw from its sponsorship of the scheme, as it is entitled to do.

The Dublin 12 Congress Centre is also the sponsor of a community employment scheme and a jobs club. The three schemes and the supervisory staff are all based in the Dublin 12 Congress Centre building. At the meeting on 6 March with the Department of Social Protection and the sponsoring committee, various issues which have been the subject of ongoing discussion between the Department and the centre were discussed. These issues have been the subject of negotiation following the centre's agreement to take over the sponsorship some time ago.

The renewal application for the scheme was received but was subsequently withdrawn. On receipt of confirmation that the sponsors wished to withdraw, the Department assured the Dublin 12 Congress Centre that it would source alternative sponsors. This is something we do with regard to the various CE schemes, of which there are over 1,000, and on which there are a couple of hundred people on the jobs initiative. From time to time a sponsor withdraws, and the normal practice is to seek another sponsor so that the people involved, particularly those on the job initiative, are never left out on a limb. I assure those involved that this has always been the position.

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