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

I thank Deputy Griffin for raising this question at what is a very timely moment. What we have seen in recent years is a big expansion in the number of schemes. In addition to the extra CE schemes, Tús was added, Gateway was added on to that, JobBridge was added on to that and we now have JobPath as well. At the same time, we have seen a massive reduction in unemployment, which means many schemes, programmes and services are having difficulty filling vacancies, largely because of the mismatch that now exists between the number of placements and the number of people who are unemployed.

My officials are looking at some of the rules to see which ones can be relaxed. I hope to be able to bring proposals in that regard to the Cabinet sub-committee in the next couple of weeks for approval by Cabinet. I believe we need to be dynamic and to react and respond to changing economic conditions, so the rules should change depending on the economic conditions we face.

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