Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is interesting to note that the personal progression plan does not belong to Seetec. Whenever we have conversations in here on such plans, nobody every complains about them in the context of Turas Nua or Intreo offices. The personal progression plan belongs to the Intreo service in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. When individuals present as jobseekers, that is, as people who are seeking work, they enter into arrangements with my Department through which we will help them to find work and part of those arrangements is the personal progression plan. When jobseekers get that plan, they sign it and they sign up to working with their individual agent, who may be in an Intreo office, a Turas Nua office or a Seetec office.

If Deputy Daly knows of genuine cases where people feel they are being coerced, she should forward the details to me. Coerced is an awful word to use because nobody is being made to be a jobseeker. If people want to be jobseekers, they present to that part of our Department that will assist them willingly and they seek our help. If they do not want us to help them to find work, they do not have to stay. Nobody is being made to sign a personal progression plan; it is something to which people willingly sign up in the context of being helped to find work. The language the Deputy uses worries me. If she genuinely has specific cases that justify the language she uses, I ask her to bring them to me. I will make sure they are investigated and will revert to the Deputy on them.

I reiterate that the personal progression plan belongs to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. It is fed through our Intreo offices and is not the property of any agency working on our behalf. It is a directive from the Intreo service and forms part of the engagement we have with people who present voluntarily to the Department who are actively looking for work and who want our help.

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