Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

It is unbelievable that the Labour Party has privatised and outsourced a function that was being carried out by FÁS. The reason given for doing so is that a recruitment embargo has been in place in recent years. It is laughable that the Department charged with creating employment cannot create jobs in the public sector.

The companies to which the Department awarded the contracts, Turas Nua and Seetec, have been involved in scandals in the United Kingdom where they defrauded the government. They were found to have made fraudulent claims that they were unable to back up. An investigation found that 30% of the claims submitted could not be verified and at least 10% were false. Nevertheless, the Government has awarded contracts to these companies.

The second problem I have with JobPath is that it puts a price on the heads of unemployed people. The companies in question are only interested in profit and their profits increase every time they have someone removed from the dole. There is nothing about the types of jobs they create. This is very poor form on the part of the Labour Party.

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