Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To date, there have been either 28,000 or 50,000 referrals - I cannot remember the exact figure - to JobPath, which has been running for approximately a year. I am sure with any service there will be people with complaints or who have had a bad experience and I do not think they should be allowed to characterise the entire service, but I would encourage individuals who do have complaints about the way they were treated to make complaints to my Department.

It is important to point out that JobPath is not a work scheme. There is a misapprehension about that. Some people think it is a work scheme like JobBridge, Tús, Gateway, community employment, CE, or the rural social scheme, RSS. It is not. It is a recruitment service that tries to match jobseekers to real jobs. The initial results from it are very good but they are not ready to be published yet. It is important to point out that a jobseeker's allowance is conditional on a person seeking employment and being willing to take up employment. It is not the case that one can draw down the allowance every week and not take up employment. It is a requirement that one seeks a job and takes it up if one is offered one.

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