Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for taking this matter, as I know she and her Department are focused on reforming this area. The Pathways to Work scheme will do much to provide focus and a plan of action for helping people get training and advice for getting back to employment. I regularly encounter people who fall through the gaps in the system of labour activation, as they are not eligible for some types of training. The recession has greatly changed the composition of those on the dole and people who have never relied on social security or protection are now finding it difficult to navigate the system. I am worried about many stories I have heard about people working for many years, contributing to the State through taxes and PRSI, suddenly finding themselves in part-time work for a period and later becoming unemployed. They are often married or in long-term partnerships. Initially people are eligible for jobseeker's allowance but they can fall through the gaps as they would not be entirely reliant on social welfare. If there is another income in the household, it may not be enough once mortgages, bills and college fees for upskilling are paid. This often means that when an entitlement expires, these people can no longer access community employment schemes, re-training or upskilling programmes run by the Department.

I will cite a recent example of such a case, which involves a woman who worked in the same company for 20 years. When her employer experienced trading difficulty, the woman took a pay cut and moved to a three day week for a period. She signed on for a social welfare payment as a part-time employee but was later made redundant and was paid the full rate of jobseeker's allowance. She went through the national employment action plan process and sought to access training. However, she became ineligible for community employment, upskilling or retraining when her entitlement to jobseeker's allowance expired. I regularly receive queries from people who have fallen into the same trap and do not qualify for training or upskilling programmes that would enable them to return to work because they no longer receive a social welfare benefit.

The individuals affected by this problem belong to the coping classes, in other words, those who have worked throughout their lives to put their children through college. Having reached their late 40s or early 50s, they are being thrown on the scrap heap because the current rules prevent them from accessing training programmes that are offered to many other people. The shortest period that any of the individuals who have contacted me has been in full employment and paying tax and PRSI is 23 years. Despite being in full-time employment for 30 or 35 years, the individuals in question find they are not entitled to back to education allowances or to participate in upskilling or training courses because their partner is working. I ask the Minister to ensure this issue is examined in her Department and look forward to her reply.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I thank Deputy Humphreys for raising this issue. The Department of Social Protection operates a range of activation measures which aim to assist and support social welfare recipients of working age to engage and re-engage with education, training and work experience with a view to reducing their dependency on social welfare and ultimately to assist them in gaining employment. The Department has estimated expenditure of €970 million on employment supports in 2012, up from €861 million in 2011. This increase in spending of €109 million against a backdrop of significant fiscal consolidation underlines the Government's commitment to enhancing support for employment. Overall, the Department will offer 85,650 job placement, work experience and education initiatives in 2012.

The Pathways to Work policy, which was launched by the Government on 23 February, incorporates the establishment of the new national employment and entitlements service and commits to a new approach to the provision of services for unemployed people. The objective is to reduce the level of long-term unemployment and ensure those who are unemployed will be provided with appropriate advice, support, education and training to take advantage of new job opportunities as the economy recovers. This reform will give effect to the policy principle that people have both rights and responsibilities as part of the activation agenda.

Activation interventions under the Pathways to Work approach will be based on client profiling. The key benefit of the profiling approach is that it will identify those who are most likely to fall into long-term unemployment at an early stage. This will enable early intervention and intensive engagement with those individuals who demonstrate characteristics that suggest they may move into long-term unemployment. The profiling system will facilitate differentiation in the services provided so that each customer receives the level of support and intervention that is appropriate to his or her needs.

A high level policy review of certain activation measures is nearing conclusion. The review examines, among other matters, the eligibility criteria, payment rates and duration of participation of certain activation schemes, while also examining the interaction of the schemes with a view to concluding if the current suite of measures can satisfy the current and future activation needs of the Department and its customers. It encompasses work programme and placement schemes such as the community employment scheme, rural social scheme, Tús and JobBridge, while also examining measures that support education, training and self-employment, such as the back to education allowance, technical assistance and training scheme, technical employment support grant and both the back to work enterprise and short-term enterprise allowance schemes.

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for her reply and welcome her statement that a badly needed review of the system is under way. We have created a poverty trap by precluding those who are not in receipt of payments from the State from accessing training and education supports. Having committed to considerable expenditure, for example, meeting the costs of college for their children or repaying large mortgages, the families in question are struggling. They are falling through a gap because they do not receive State benefits.

Many of those who have been made redundant after 25 or 30 years in employment have skills that are outdated and are no longer required in the current market. They are anxious to be retrained but when they present themselves at the offices of what used to be known as FÁS to avail of retraining opportunities, they are refused assistance. This group is growing larger by the month. It is unacceptable to refuse people training and upskilling opportunities or back to education allowances because they are not in receipt of a State payment. The individuals in question have paid high rates of tax for the past 25 or 30 years and have probably never been unemployed. This anomaly in the social protection system is being ignored. It is, however, probably close to the Minister's heart because she, like many other Deputies, will have encountered similar cases in her constituency. I ask her to take a special interest in this group which has been discriminated against in recent years and ensure the matter is redressed in the review.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I share the concerns expressed by Deputy Humphreys. We are trying to recast the social welfare system to change it from a system that has been largely passive to one that becomes active. Among the key issues in the type of scenario the Deputy describes is to ensure early intervention and early access to information and knowledge about how one qualifies for a placement and to secure for the individuals in question a placement, training, work experience or educational opportunities. I note the cases raised by the Deputy probably refer to people who are married to partners who are in work. For this reason, they become dependants, as it were, when their benefit expires, even though, as the Deputy noted, they have been working for the past 20 or 25 years.

It is important to ensure an early response in such cases. We are trying to do this and have brought into the Department the former FÁS employment services which generally handle opportunities for the type of person Deputy Humphreys describes. We should be able to build up a profile and picture of what we can do to help those in this position much earlier than is the case at present. Losing one's job after 20 years is often a disaster for the individual concerned. It is difficult for persons in this position to find that, having paid into the system throughout their employment, the system does not respond to their needs. I will revert to the Deputy as we complete the review and roll out reform in the Department.