Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We want to get all of the people who are unemployed in Ireland back to work. A significant number of people are working in the Department and a number of companies like the local employment services are working with us. Those resources are not sufficient to help all those who want to go back to work to get back to work. We have looked at best practice around the world to see how we get the best value. We have looked at countries like Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia to see how we get a system that works to the benefit of people who are unemployed and gets them back into work for at least 30 hours per week. The companies do not get payments unless they get results.

In his ignorance, the Deputy talks about people with a disability. This has nothing to do with people with a disability. It relates to people who are unemployed. Our system is an IT-based system. We have had a look at different schemes around the world. My understanding is that during the period in Great Britain referred to by the Deputy, the system was paper-based and was unable to track. We also have a feedback system from the people who are our clients and who participate in any of these programmes. This feedback system is very important to us. Our IT system is designed to tell us when somebody gets a job because if they get a job, they will, of course, appear in the Revenue Commissioners' data as being at work because they will have a commencement notice with the Revenue Commissioners in respect of starting work. We actually have a very elaborate system of verifying what the companies are doing.

If the companies do not produce results that are positive for our customers they will not be paid.

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