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

Given the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the potential - God forbid - for losing 40,000 or 50,000 jobs, the Department triggered an extension to the provisions of the existing contract and agreement was reached with the JobPath providers to extend the existing contracts by one year, with referrals on that JobPath programme up until 2020. It is not a renewal of the JobPath contracts but an execution of the extension clause that was already in the contract. The extension is important, given that we face an uncertain year next year and the need for scalable activation, which I hope we do not need.

Penalties only come at the very last resort of deciding officers in the Department and there is only a marginal difference between 0.6% on the JobPath programme and 0.5% on the live register. There is no difference in the application of deciding officers.

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