Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Gremlins at work. I thank the Ceann Comhairle. A few weeks ago, I participated in a protest of local employment service workers at the Department of Finance and around to the front of the Dáil. They were protesting against the proposal, which the Government is pushing ahead with, for the outsourcing or tendering of their work. They were able to tell stories of how they help the long-term unemployed. They work alongside them to try to get jobs that would be suitable for them. They rightly pointed out that the drive of the Government would turn this from a useful service that helps people into a JobPath 2, where the service is outsourced to private companies that have horrific records in Britain and here, put pressure on people and are just interested in ticking boxes that maximise their profit. They are not interested in helping people to get out of unemployment and into quality, decent jobs. In doing this, the Government will ironically make a bunch of people unemployed and create further unemployment when it is meant to be addressing the unemployment crisis. Will the Government back off on this proposal to effectively outsource these vital services and this important work done by local employment service workers?

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