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

I have heard the Minister of State's contribution here and heard the Minister's yesterday. I welcome that she will meet with a number of Fianna Fáil backbench Deputies about this because we are greatly concerned about it. My local employment service, as with many across the country, issued a press release last week stating that the Government was implementing a for-profit model that would reduce community services. I hear the Minister of State and he is saying that that is not true and that, when the tender comes out, that will not be the case. If the Minister of State knows many of these local employment services, they do not normally engage in that type of vocal political criticism of a Government. If they are doing so, it is because they are concerned. I ask the Minister of State to make sure that local focus happens. He referred to engagement and progression being important. Engagement is the more important of the two. We need to ensure that those local services remain.

I am concerned about the use of the term "regional employment services" as opposed to "local employment services". That comes back to the lot numbers. How many lots will there be in Dublin? With the previous SICAP model, Ballymun lost its local partnership. It did not lose the service. A neighbouring partnership took over that contract and delivered the service but we lost the local focus. We want to make sure that does not happen and that something that is not intended, which the Government does not want, which is the progression of a for-profit model, does not happen by accident because we issued the wrong number of lots and end up with different local organisations competing with each other. I ask the Minister of State to impress on the Minister for Social Protection the concerns raised here tonight. I raised them with her directly. She has been forthcoming and has given us many assurances. Tender processes are rigid and sometimes have unintended consequences and outcomes.

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