Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to address improvements needed in the JobsPlus scheme, a worthy Government scheme that was launched to great fanfare in my constituency of Waterford last year. Many exciting companies participate in the scheme and speak highly of it, including Eishtec, a locally-owned Waterford company. It encourages and rewards employers that employ jobseekers from the live register. It is designed to encourage employers and businesses to employ people who have been out of work for long periods. Employers get a payment of €7,500 for each citizen recruited who has been unemployed for more than 12 months but less than 24 months and if that person is long-term unemployed the employer gets a payment of up to €10,000 for each such person recruited, but the scheme is far from perfect.

There is an issue in terms of equality of access to this scheme and it seems that JobsPlus is discriminating against lone parents. I am sorry to find myself having to point out that, according to the rules of JobsPlus, a person in receipt of a one-parent family payment is not considered eligible given the focus of the scheme. A single parent getting the one-parent family payment may be eligible to do a springboard programme and the State will give some support in terms of re-entering education. After that, a person who has completed a springboard course might decide to get some experience. However, after education and training a person who was unemployed should, in theory, be able to get a job. Despite having done all this and jumped through various hoops, a person getting the one-parent family payment who is more than 12 months unemployed cannot take part in the JobsPlus scheme. I argue that this amounts to discrimination and said so to the Department of Social Protection.

In reality, if an employer is faced with two possible candidates with similar skills and training but one comes with a guarantee of €10,000 through the JobsPlus scheme and the other is a single parent with no such incentive then who will he or she opt for? With so many businesses and companies struggling in a tough economy the payment incentive that an employee might be able to bring to the table is attractive to employers. We are informed by the Department of Social Protection that periods spent under JobBridge are counted towards eligibility, so why is there deemed to be a difference between a mother trying to get back to work and the long-term unemployed? The answer we get from the Department of Social Protection is that the focus of the scheme does not lie with single mothers.

As I said at the outset, JobsPlus is aimed at people on the live register. Governments like to see the live register coming down and, indeed, the number on the live register dropped by almost 7.5% in Waterford during the past year. However, for people who are flying under the radar, such as those on the one-parent family payment, and are not on the live register, JobsPlus is closed off. Is JobsPlus simply a way of manipulating the live register figures? It is a cynical view, but we need to make sure that people who need this scheme are not being discriminated against.

I call on the Department and the Minister to ensure the JobsPlus scheme is extended to single parents who want to get back to work, given the new focus and cut offs implemented by the Department of Social Protection for people in receipt of lone parent payments.

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