Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This year, there will be two important developments for the jobs club networks and local employment service networks across the country. One is that we will have an extension of the services to those areas that are not currently covered, which I welcome. We have strong local employment services in our area and we greatly value the contribution they make. I can imagine the gap they would leave if communities did not have them, so I welcome that development.

We will also see the roll-out of a tender scheme for the rest of the country. While there has not been a tender scheme for the best part of 20 years, and I understand from speaking to the Minister that there is no other option but to tender for this service, I have real fears, as do the local employment service operators, that the model that is being used, and the lots that may be allocated, may mean that services are missing from our local communities.

Let me talk the Minister of State through that concern. The Dublin North West Area Partnership operates the local employment service in Rosehill House. People tell me that their fear under the new contract is that it is effectively an “in and out” payment process and it does not take into account the strong and quality work that is done with clients, particularly clients who might be experiencing addiction and who are working into recovery, people who have been long-term unemployed for many years and people who are changing career. A simple entry meeting, exit meeting progression tick is not the normal path for many of those clients.

If we only pay the local employment services based on that model, then we will not get the service that we currently have.

We have the Ballymun Job Club. It predates the local employment service. It was a co-operative established by the community to address some of the social needs in Ballymun many years ago. It has worked with different local partnership companies over the years but it has appeared independently. It is concerned about the lots that will be allocated. I understand that there are currently 11 lots. If there is a reduction in the number of those lots, it will effectively force different local employment services to compete against each other for existing territory. That is not what any of us want to see. We know these organisations are doing a good job and there are mechanisms to make sure that they are and that where organisations are falling down, that can be addressed. We are concerned about the model, the technical guidelines of how they will be paid and the number of lots. The fear is based on what happened with the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP. Everybody in this House knows that genuine mistakes were made with SICAP. Whether one believes that it was an attempt to privatise the service which failed because private operators could not deliver the same service that community operators could or whether one believes that the tender was allocated poorly, we have to learn from the mistake. We have to make sure that the local employment service contracts that are rolled out do not decrease the lots, and capture the quality of work needed from many of these agencies.

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