John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The only review that has been carried out so far was useless. The review relates to the first three months of the operation of JobPath, from July to September 2015. This review was not published until January of this year.

I am sure other Deputies have similar experiences of constituents coming through their doors outlining many concerns. That report is not a true reflection of the scheme and the jobs in which the scheme is placing jobseekers, the questionable quality of the jobs being sourced for jobseekers and how the vulnerable jobseekers are treated. What we have is two private companies making money on the back of jobseekers. We have no figures. We have no costs. We have no review. We have no idea of the impact the scheme is having on jobseekers or its success rate. We have a situation where JobPath will not engage with public representatives or deal with third-party queries in any way, which is a serious problem. The Minister stated there would be some sort of a review later in the year. It needs to be a root-and-branch review of the total operation of the scheme. I again ask the Minister whether that is something to which he will commit.

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