Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I must apologise as I forgot to congratulate the Minister on his new appointment. I would be the first to concede that JobBridge has done a lot of good. Will the Minister agree, however, that interns have been exploited? For example, is he aware of a newspaper study which reached the following conclusions and threw up the following statistics? The largest user of the scheme over its five-year period was the HSE, which used it 399 times. The HSE used the scheme to fill 67 assistant psychologist posts. The ESB recruited a solicitor, two industrial economists, three quantity surveyors, a geological data analyst and a legal executive - all very qualified individuals - via JobBridge.

Interns interviewed during the study complained about bullying, working more than 40 hours per week, being forced to work outside their job description, and inadequate monitoring. Does this not smack of exploitation? Why did the Government renege on its commitment to have regular monitoring of JobBridge? It did one report in 2002, but nothing for the past four years.

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