Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for taking the time to come in here to answer questions and wish him good luck over the coming days in his endeavours to become Taoiseach. I appreciate what he is saying. He talked about how when somebody starts on JobPath, there is that opportunity for them to move to community employment.

I will give an example of the type of problem that I face, or, more importantly, that my constituents face. As we know, there is a huge need for staff and skilled personnel in the child care sector. A young woman who has a skill-set in child care had been on JobPath, a position had come up in the community employment scheme and she would be eligible for that since she had the skill-set and qualifications, but she could not take up that place because of the restrictions around JobPath. I appreciate that the Minister is saying here today that new criteria are coming into place that might allow for that flexibility. I ask him to consider, in any criteria that he might bring forward, that there may be somebody on a JobPath scheme but, half-way through it, there may be something more appropriate for that person on the community employment scheme. As we know, these schemes are hugely important for all the different sectors, but particularly the child care sector, which depends on staff on those schemes. I would appreciate the Minister's comments on that.

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