Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Internships are not jobs yet the Minister tried to put it across as such. Employers have a pool of free labour that has been created by the Government, the Labour Party in particular. That is what the interns are doing. In the past, it was paid employment and includes those within Departments and local authorities. Previously, this was carried out by civil servants and local authority workers and now it is being carried out by people on internships. Real jobs are there, such as for retail assistants, that were entry-level jobs in the past. People got experience while being paid.

Germany has over 300 apprenticeship schemes, while Ireland has 24. The Government has started to address the issue, which I welcome, but the document states that the work must happen quicker to ensure the inappropriate nature of JobBridge is dealt with. The only way this can be done is by scrapping it.

Will the Minister ensure proper jobs, not JobBridge, are promoted? For instance, JobsPlus is subsidised employment with the subsidy given to the employer. I am fully behind it because it creates real full-time jobs yet the Department and the Government are continually trumpeting free labour. Some 37,000 positions in the past four years have been created. Let us think of that as a subsidy for employers with no benefit in the main. The Minister suggests I was selectively quoting from the Indecon report. If the Minister wants me to read the entire Indecon report-----

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