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

I am not arguing that point. How much money will an LES or job club need in order to bid for the tender? What I am hearing is that it is a significant tender and the organisations will need some kind of tendering consultant to try to match it and put in an application in the first place. I am really concerned about this. It is fine to say they are well positioned to apply for it but it will be very interesting to see how many do so because what the Minister has outlined is not what I am hearing on the ground. I have met many LES staff and job clubs throughout the country in recent weeks and they believe they are not in a position to tender. To me, that is very serious.

I am concerned about the end of walk-ins. All present should be concerned about that. As regards the payment-by-results model, I ask the Minister to consider JobPath, with more than €93 million of taxpayers' money paid to Turas Nua and Seetec in referral fees just for getting a person to sign on. They received individual payments of €311, totalling €93 million. That is a significant amount of money. Today, 24,000 people out of nearly 300,000 people referred have maintained a job for more than a year. It has not worked.

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