Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, while speaking on the Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill, I raised serious concerns regarding the so-called activation programme, JobPath. The company which has the contract to run JobPath is Seetec. In the United Kingdom, the same company, Seetec, has been the subject of a fraud investigation following its actions while contracted to the UK Department of Work and Pensions.

The case I raised yesterday referred to a father of two who had some casual employment which was being supplemented by a payment from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. In order to keep that payment, he was obliged to participate in the JobPath scheme, despite the fact that the nature of his casual work made him an unsuitable candidate, which was acknowledged by all sides at the time. As a result of the JobPath obligations, he lost the small amount of casual work he had and he became fully reliant on a social protection payment, which is the opposite of what the Taoiseach is trying to achieve. He claims he was repeatedly asked to sign documents verifying attendance at sessions he had not in fact attended and was threatened with his payment being cut off if he refused to sign. He was refused a training course of his choosing and instead given one he had no interest in but with the promise that there would be a job at the end of it, but there was no job at the end of it. He was prohibited from accepting any other external offers of employment during the training time and threatened with sanctions if he accepted work outside of the JobPath scenario. Eventually he could no longer refuse work and he took a job. It was at that point that Seetec really showed its teeth. He and his new employer became absolutely pestered by Seetec to fill in forms, fraudulently stating that JobPath had actually secured the employment for him, which it had not. When he refused to do so he was cajoled, shouted at, threatened and harassed. The same happened to his employer, so much so that eventually the employer signed the forms.

This man came to see me because he felt he had to highlight what appears to be, to all intents and purposes, systematic fraud occurring under the auspices of a Government Department. In the UK, Seetec was accused of artificially inflating the number of jobs it claimed it was finding people. It appears not much has changed. Was the Department aware of the very serious issues in the UK and the investigation of the UK Public Accounts Committee regarding the issues with Seetec before the JobPath contract was awarded. What due diligence was involved? If I were to read back over all the parliamentary replies from Deputy Joan Burton when she was Minister, I note that one of the point she made was that the potential for inflating figures has been taken into considering when designing JobPath. Does that comment suggest there was an acceptance by the Department that fraudulent practices were unavoidable?

Given the Taoiseach's former role in the Department of Social Protection, as it was then titled, is he aware of similar complaints and concerns that were raised regarding JobPath or, indeed, Turas Nua and, if so, what has been done about it?

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