Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have had a few constituents giving me their experience on JobPath. One was working in a primary school, providing a breakfast club service. Due to cuts, she became unemployed. She was randomly chosen by the Department to go on the JobPath scheme with Seetec. She ideally wanted to go back to working in a school environment but was barred from applying for a suitable CE scheme due to being on the JobPath scheme. She was offered opportunities for jobs but with a low number of guaranteed hours or no guaranteed hours. She was told she would have to go into training for dealing with care of the elderly, which would cost her €700.

Anecdotally, it seems Seetec puts many people forward for these types of job and the receiving company not only gets a worker on low wages with no full-time hours, but a kickback from the training company. The constituent in question felt she was effectively owned by Seetec and had to do what it said, even though she had interests in other areas for which it was not giving her any option.

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