Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Will the Minister confirm that the referral fee of €311 is paid twice if a person is referred to the scheme twice, that is, in the case of more than 33,000 people who have been referred to the scheme twice? If they are getting the referral fee twice for those same people, that is a cost of more than €10 million. I ask the Minister again if she believes that is value for money? Does she know how many of the 283,826 people who have been referred to JobPath are engaged with the scheme today? Also, the success rate so far for those sustaining employment for 12 months or more is approximately 7% of the total referred. Again, that is not value for money.

Will the Minister examine the impact JobPath is having on other schemes? There are community employment schemes that do so much work without which work in communities simply would not be done. They cannot find people to fill places on community employment schemes because there is a preference in the Minister's Department to refer jobseekers to JobPath only.

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