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

To be fair, I am not actually accusing the Government of anything but the figures speak for themselves. Some 350,000 people were referred to a scheme and 29,000 secured work that lasted for a year. It should also be borne in mind that referral fees of €311 were paid to private companies, in some instances two, three or four times in respect of the same person. Over €300 million of taxpayers' money was paid to private companies. We had great difficulty in getting information about the many fees involved in JobPath. We ended up getting it through the Committee of Public Accounts a number of years ago. I do not believe that review of 2019 is sufficient when we are talking about these amounts of taxpayers' money being paid out for a scheme that has not worked. Anyone in this House who would say that a success rate of 8% of people securing employment is value for money is joking. Given the level of taxpayers' money involved and the involvement of private companies, I again ask the Minister for the scheme to be reviewed with regard to the number of people who sourced employment. It is a very reasonable ask given the amount of money concerned.

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