Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be clear, the JobPath scheme has been reviewed on a number of occasions. The OECD review showed that, overall, those who participate in JobPath have better employment outcomes and earnings than those who are not supported by JobPath. The total cost of JobPath services to date is €247.7 million. That is since 2015. The total number of people engaged to date is more than 280,000, giving a total cost per client of €873, and delivering 12 months of employment services for that cost.

We are facing record unemployment because of the pandemic. There are almost 200,000 people on the live register and approximately 350,000 on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. We hope that many of those people will be able to return to their jobs when restrictions ease, but the sad reality is that not everybody will be able to go back to the job they were doing previously. I do not believe that now is the time to cut employment services of any kind.

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