Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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6. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if it is within the remit of the JobPath scheme to send persons forward for jobs that they are not legally qualified for, with the result that the JobPath participant will have to pay a substantial amount to gain the qualification and take up the job on offer. [28784/16]

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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18. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of complaints received by the companies running JobPath and by his Department. [28782/16]

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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151. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will ensure that those selected for JobPath are not denied other opportunities that may arise for them and, in particular, opportunities arising from the social inclusion clauses in State projects, for example, the construction of the national children's hospital. [28785/16]

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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Will the Minister give an overview of how JobPath operates?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 6, 18 and 151 together.

JobPath is a new approach to resourcing the delivery of employment services to people who are long-term unemployed. Two service providers, Turas Nua and Seetec, are contracted to work with people who are long-term unemployed. These contractors supplement the work of the Department’s own case officers and the local employment services. JobPath does not replace or substitute for these services. It provides additional capacity to the Department in order that it can extend the case management approach of delivering employment services to people who are long-term unemployed.

Participants on JobPath are not required to fund unreasonable training expenses to compete for jobs for which they are not qualified. On the contrary, participants are provided with a range of training and development supports, including career advice, CV preparation and interview skills. On a case-by-case basis, the service providers also provide funding for items such as personal protective equipment, tools, work clothing and Private Security Authority licences. It may also arrange specific skills training if required by a jobseeker to apply for particular types of jobs. All of these supports are designed to help the jobseeker compete for and secure appropriate employment. If the Deputy has a specific case in mind where a jobseeker was required to incur unreasonable expense, I will arrange to have it investigated by the Department.

To date, 62,000 people have been referred to JobPath. Up to 119 complaints have been recorded, less than 0.2% of referrals. Some 76 complaints have been finalised and 43 are still being processed.

Participants on JobPath have access to the same range of job opportunities as all other jobseekers, including those arising from social clauses in State contracts. Some JobPath participants have already been put forward for jobs on the national children’s hospital contract.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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I have had a few constituents giving me their experience on JobPath. One was working in a primary school, providing a breakfast club service. Due to cuts, she became unemployed. She was randomly chosen by the Department to go on the JobPath scheme with Seetec. She ideally wanted to go back to working in a school environment but was barred from applying for a suitable CE scheme due to being on the JobPath scheme. She was offered opportunities for jobs but with a low number of guaranteed hours or no guaranteed hours. She was told she would have to go into training for dealing with care of the elderly, which would cost her €700.

Anecdotally, it seems Seetec puts many people forward for these types of job and the receiving company not only gets a worker on low wages with no full-time hours, but a kickback from the training company. The constituent in question felt she was effectively owned by Seetec and had to do what it said, even though she had interests in other areas for which it was not giving her any option.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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If the Deputy gives me details of that complaint, I will certainly have it investigated.

I do not want to be speaking about an individual without knowing anything about his or her case. However, it is important to say that if one is in receipt of jobseeker's allowance, one is receiving a payment from the taxpayer. A condition of that payment is that one should seek and take up employment. The job may not and probably will not be a job forever or the job of one's choice but it is not the case that one can continue to draw a welfare payment at the expense of the rest of society until one finds the job of one's choice or the job one really wants. It is conditional. That is the basis of the payment. It is not that people are entitled to receive €180 or €200 per week until they find their perfect job.

Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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I apologise to Deputy Joan Collins. Since there are two questions in her name, she has extra time.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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The Minister's remark is terrible because people are not on jobseeker's payments because they want to be. People want to work and the girl in question wanted to do so. The only option she was given was a job for which she was told by the company at the interview she would have to be retrained at a cost of €700, and that this would have to come out of her own pocket.

This is not a question of people scamming the system. From the way the Minister put it, that is what he was trying to intimate. This issue is about people who want to get work. They want good work. The job in question had no guaranteed hours and the woman did not know whether she was going to get five hours, 20 hours or 15 hours with the company to which Seetec referred her.

I will certainly send the case, along with another two or three, to the Minister for him to investigate. Does he agree that the JobPath scheme is probably exploiting people? Will he investigate that? Why are these companies, Seetec and Turas Nua, dealing with the contracts when it should be the Department of Social Protection? Questions arise in this regard that we must ask and investigate.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The reason they do so is because they provide additional capacity. We have a limited number of staff. They are all tied up in Intreo offices and with their current work. We needed more capacity and the experience of companies involved in recruitment and successfully placing people in jobs. That is what they are doing.

I will definitely look into the issue of training costs. What happened certainly sounds like it should not have happened.

To return to what I said earlier, there are many people who may wish to work in a school but, for some reason, cannot do so and must work somewhere else. There are many people working hard and paying taxes who do not necessarily have the job of their choice or dreams. They are the ones who pay for the welfare system. It is not the case that somebody can continue to draw down a welfare payment and refuse employment. That is not an opinion; it is actually the law.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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What is the process for randomly choosing people for JobPath after they have been unemployed for a year? Do the authorities just pick a number or push a button? Are names put forward? How much have the companies operating the scheme received overall? How much did they receive to place individuals in employment?

People are not averse to work. Before the crash, there were high employment rates. People were working away and getting paid. It is because of the crash that people lost their jobs. It is those people who are trying to find jobs now. They are willing to work but if they must pay for training or if they are not given a job with proper hours, it is not satisfactory. Does the Minister agree with that? Does he agree with people being moved from the dole to a job for which there is no guarantee of one's hours? One might not know whether one will get 20 or 15 hours or what one will earn at the end of the week.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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A number of questions were asked and I will have to respond to the more detailed ones by correspondence because I do not have the relevant information in front of me. People are selected for JobPath by the Department based on their being long-term unemployed, or unemployed for more than a year. Essentially, they are with JobPath for a year. They are often people who have been on community employment schemes but did not manage to find a job afterwards. Some people still do not find a job even after their having been in JobPath for a year. They could go back into other options at that point.

The Deputy is absolutely correct that unemployment soared because of the collapse in the economy. The rate is now way down. The live register figures were published today. For the first time since 2008, the number on the live register is below 300,000 and the unemployment rate is below 8%. We are now setting a more ambitious target, to bring the rate of unemployment down to between 5% and 6% by the end of 2020 and the rate of long-term unemployment down to 2.5%. However, that will involve much more one-to-one engagement with jobseekers to help them to get into the workplace.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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If one makes a complaint, one must do so through Seetec, a private company. If one is not happy, one must go to the Department of Social Protection. Why can the person not go directly to the Department in this regard?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As part of any complaints procedure, the JobPath provider investigates and attempts to resolve the issue or complaint immediately in line with the customer complaints procedure. However, if that is not possible, it will record the details of the complaint and acknowledge it has received it. It will give the client a contact name and telephone number and, where it is at fault, apologise and correct the error as soon as possible, in addition to providing an explanation if for any reason the complaint cannot be resolved. If the client remains unsatisfied, he or she can request the Department to carry out a review. If he or she is not satisfied with the outcome of the Department's review, he or she can then refer the matter to the Ombudsman. That is the normal complaints procedure in most cases. One makes the complaint at the coalface first and if one is not happy, one can refer it to the next responsible body, which in this case is the Department, or, finally, to the Ombudsman.