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

Obviously, the Deputy is right when she says everybody presents voluntarily. Nobody is made to stay or coerced to sign anything. Nobody can sign anything on behalf of anybody else. Whoever told the person who contacted the Deputy that his personal progression plan had been signed on his behalf was inaccurate. It cannot be signed by anybody. If someone does not sign up to his or her personal progression plan, it is not worth the paper on which it is written. It lists the activities on which someone and the person assigned to him or her will work to try to find work. In January the Department published a cohort performance report for the service which showed that 25% of jobseekers who had begun to engage with it in the first four quarters after its commencement had obtained work, 18% of whom had found full-time work and 4% part-time work, while 3% had started up their own jobs. After someone involved in the service finds a job, there is a six-month period of contact between him or her and the new employer. Obviously, it has to be voluntary. It is not something that can be forced on somebody. The reason for the contact with the person being employed over the six-month period is to support him or her in his or her new employment. It is not a case of big brother looking over people's shoulders. We have to remember that the individuals in these cases were out of work for more than 12 months in a single period before they were sent to JobPath. There is a reason they were out of work. In many cases, they were out of work because there was no work available in recent years, which is fair enough. Others may have been out of work for more than 12 months for other reasons. Many of the people concerned value and genuinely appreciate the relationships they build with their sponsors over a 12-month period. In many cases, they want to keep these relationships going to maintain their new found levels of confidence. In others they do not want to do so, which is fine too.

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