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

I will say it again, it is the most successful activation programme that this State has ever had. He does not have to take my figures for it, he can take the CSO figures that were released today. We had the largest drop in long-term unemployment last year that we have had in years. That did not happen by magic. That happened because of all of our activation partners - Seetec, Turas Nua, all our Irish local development network, ILDN, partners, all my community employment host companies and all my Tús companies. They all work collectively and collaboratively with the State to ensure the people who are at risk of being long-term unemployed get the best services they can to get jobs. Despite the Deputy's best efforts, it is working and we are going to continue to do it. As I believe I have said to the Deputy previously, we are conducting a review of all of our activation services to make sure that the next generation of Ireland's unemployed get a tailor-made service. We will do that with our ILDN partners. A review of my community employment schemes is taking place, and we will do that for the rural social scheme, RSS, JobPath, Turas Nua and Seetec when the econometric review comes out.

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