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

We all agree that activation is essential, but we disagree on whether jobseekers might be coerced into unsuitable or inappropriate employment. It must be recognised that people who have been out of the workforce for a long time often have issues that make it difficult for them to re-enter it.

I am staggered by the Minister's reference to there only being 145 complaints. With as much certainty as I can have short of counting, I have received that many complaints from different parts of the country. A woman from County Wicklow rang me last night. She was obviously in distress because of her initial interaction with JobPath. I have received complaints from people in my constituency who were invited into a relatively small room and while sitting cheek by jowl with their neighbours - it is a small city - asked questions about whether they had a new suit of clothes for interviews, whether they had ever committed a crime and whether they intended to commit a crime in the future. Who dreamed up these questions? Last June the Minister told me that the Department intended to commission customer satisfaction surveys. Has this been done and have the surveys been conducted? If so, what was the outcome? As the Minister will be aware, a number of studies of JobBridge have been conducted. When will there be a study of JobPath?

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