Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy knows, we have completely reorganised the provision of the training and education in regard to the areas referred to, particularly child care. This is in order to provide a qualification opportunity for everybody who goes into child care, whether that is at level 4, level 5 or, as is increasingly demanded, level 6. If such an individual was long-term unemployed and his or her interest was very much as the Deputy suggests, namely, to go into personal care, whether child care or elder care, obviously, the person would have to get qualifications to work in that field. Therefore, the schemes aim to provide a structure, for example, working in a community-based crèche alongside training and education.

I would anticipate that the person the Deputy is talking about would discuss this with his or her local Intreo case officer and seek to get a place. However, there are also people who have no particular idea what it is they would like to do. It may be they have had spells of employment and then unemployment, given Job Path is for people who are more than one year unemployed. What we must do is increase employment opportunities, which is what JobPath is going to do for us.

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