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

This, perhaps, would be a question better put to the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection who would be more up to date on these details than I would be but I will try to answer the Deputy as best I can. First, there are two companies that have contracts under JobPath, one is Seetec and the other is Turas Nua. I am not sure what the UK company to which the Deputy referred is. Perhaps it is a company that is part of Seetec or part of the conglomeration, or whatever the term is, that forms Seetec, but it is would not be Seetec itself; it would be a different legal entity, as far as I recall. So far JobPath has been a very successful programme. It was originally introduced by the then Minister of State, the former Deputy Kevin Humphreys, and the then Minister, Deputy Burton, and it now continues. We see that from the fact that unemployment is now at 6.1% and, long-term unemployment, which other countries have struggled to get down, is now down around 3%. That is in large part due to the intensive one-to-one work that the JobPath companies do with people.

I cannot comment on an individual case, even if I had the details, which I do not, as there would of course be issues of confidentiality and privacy. What I can say is that there is a quarterly survey done of clients' satisfaction with Seetec and Turas Nua and the vast majority of individuals who interact with Seetec and Turas Nua, the JobPath companies, report very high satisfaction levels. When dealing with hundreds of thousands of clients, there will always be a number who will have had a bad experience, for one reason or another. We should not base any policy on an individual case, rather they all have to be taken in the round.

There is a complaints mechanism and a person can complain to the company. If he or she is not satisfied with how the complaint is being dealt with, a complaint can be made to the Department. I assume that has happened in this case, but, again, as it is an individual case, I do not know the details of it.

In terms of payment, I think the Deputy may misunderstand the contract. The way it works is that the JobPath companies receive an initial registration fee when someone is referred to them. They are only paid if someone is given a full-time job and holds onto it for more than 13 weeks. It is not that Seetec or Turas Nua have to find a job for the person concerned. They may do, but they do not have to. The key test for payment is whether the person has found a job for himself or herself, perhaps with the help of Seetec or Turas Nua, and holding onto it.

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