Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Just as the shocking unemployment figures, showing that 59.2% of young people now stand unemployed, have been revealed to us, the Government intends to contract out the local employment services many of which are run by local partnerships. When the Taoiseach was in opposition, I sat on the social protection committee chaired by a Fianna Fáil Deputy and well attended by Fianna Fáil Members, all of whom opposed the JobPath model mainly run by Seetec and Turas Nua which was basically a punitive model that chased the unemployed down, punished them and made them feel guilty for being unemployed as against the local employment services, LES, model which have local knowledge and encourage local development. They are big enough, small enough and compassionate enough. They understand and engage with people to the degree that 89% of those who go through their services found satisfactory decent jobs and 83% of employers found them as a recruitment mechanism very satisfactory to deal with.

Given the "I, Daniel Blake" phenomenon of the experience of JobPath, will the Government now abandon plans to privatise and tender out our local employment services and look to the partnerships that have been working? Their model has been up to standard in the local communities, both rural and urban. If they have been working, the Government does not need to try to fix them.

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