Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----are suited to these jobs and how does she objectively demonstrate they are highly qualified? These people's highly public profiles do not exactly identify or demonstrate their high skills. It is sickening to think that certain cherry-picked individuals are awarded privileged positions in society and, in this instance, allowed to bypass the interview process which ordinary applicants have to overcome.

I remind the Government we have a jobs crisis in this country, whatever about the figures or repetitive talk of an economic upturn. In my county of Donegal, jobseekers looking for work in the local economy have seen little job creation overall since the crash and a lack of rural broadband or infrastructure upgrades to the road and transport network, while other anti-rural policies pushed by the Government have stifled job creation. The quality of the majority of these new jobs is questionable and many people, including seasonal workers, find themselves in "if and when" and zero-hour contract jobs. As a result, they are relying on the social welfare income supports which the Tánaiste has persistently cut since coming into government. Furthermore, she has ruled out any commitment to restore jobseeker payments for those aged under 26 and has failed on the promise of a youth guarantee, leaving over 2,000 young people still unemployed in County Donegal, an unacceptably high number after five years in government.

I recently received parliamentary question replies in regard to JobPath, a programme which is furthering the privatisation of social protection and off-loading the long-term unemployed to private sector companies. Some 3,000 people are currently under their watch and very little is known as to the mechanics of this outsourcing. The "pay by results" contracts at the centre of the private companies' pact with the Department of Social Protection is a model known to push claimants into low pay, low quality and temporary employment. This cycle is already happening to people on part-time, low hours or seasonal work, but many more people who are long-term unemployed could end up moving between poor quality employment and social welfare.

The inclusion of private sector companies to carry out State services is a reflection of the incompetence of the Department and its Minister in dealing with the long-term unemployed. There are not even sufficient monitoring regimes in place, which I know because the Tánaiste could not even answer a question as to the costs awarded to private companies which are coming from the State's pockets because she deemed them commercially sensitive - "commercially sensitive" appears to mean the use of public money. This new strand of privatisation of public services scarily reflects what has been happening in the UK with the Conservative government. I fear that the most vulnerable once again will be pushed aside and that the issue of access to child care has been disregarded, affecting many lone parents already hit hard by the Tánaiste's cruel cuts.

How many others of those who have been or are currently on State boards are to blame for much of the incompetence that has played out in the provision of Government services and the management of our economy? We will never know because we cannot hold these people to account as we never knew if they were objectively or evidently highly qualified.

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