Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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7. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will provide an update on the replacement of the JobBridge scheme; the safeguards to defend the rights of participants that are envisaged; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28793/16]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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Will the Minister provide an update on his plans for JobBridge 2.0, the replacement of the JobBridge scheme? In particular, will he take into account the findings of the internal audit of his Department, which were absolutely damning and paint a picture of a scheme characterised by exploitation and abuse in its very design. The system is described as being based on self-declaration by the companies. Will that be taken into account in the scheme the Minister is now cooking up?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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JobBridge was introduced in 2011 in response to the unprecedented collapse in the economy, particularly the sharp increase in unemployment. Since then, it has enabled over 19,000 employers, mainly small ones, to provide work experience and job opportunities to over 48,000 jobseekers. Independent research suggests it has helped about 30,000 of these jobseekers to secure paid employment.

Since JobBridge was introduced, labour market conditions have improved significantly, with unemployment down from over 15% to under 8% and the live register figure falling to below 300,000 for the first time since 2008. Given these improvements, I have already announced that I plan to discontinue the scheme with a view to replacing it with a new one better suited to the economy as it is now.

It is important that the design of any new scheme be informed by the best available evidence. That is why I intend to wait for the results a second independent evaluation of JobBridge before finalising the design of any replacement scheme. The evaluation is being undertaken by Indecon International Economic Consultants in association with London Economics. It includes a detailed econometric counterfactual analysis, a cost-benefit evaluation and a large-scale survey of jobseeker and employer opinions. The results of this evaluation will provide insights that are more reliable than the anecdotal opinions or small-sample surveys that have informed much of the debate so far.

I have also asked the Labour Market Council for its views on how a new scheme should be designed. The Labour Market Council includes representatives from the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Ibec, together with some distinguished labour market economics. Indecon is currently finalising its report on JobBridge. The Labour Market Council has met Indecon on a number of occasions to review its work and will submit its own observations on the Indecon report. I expect to receive the final version of the report within the next two weeks and will publish it, together with the Labour Market Council observations and my own proposals, very shortly thereafter.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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The Minister referred to a high level of criticism based on anecdote or very small-scale surveys by various interest groups. Leaked to RTE's "This Week" programme was an internal audit from the Minister's Department that is not based on small-scale surveys by various interest groups. It is an extensive audit and it paints a picture that blows a complete hole in all the spin of the Government and its predecessor on JobBridge. The most fundamental point is that "It is not possible to verify whether the internship is displacing a potential job vacancy". It refers to a nightmarish set of circumstances in which 15 schools have no special needs assistant, SNA, posts allocated but have SNA interns.

According to the report, "587 cases identified with graduate, intern or trainee in the title of the advertised position", despite the fact that it was against the rules. Did the Minister have the report in his possession when, on 31 May, he told me JobBridge was a highly successful scheme? On 18 February, the Secretary General of his Department had a report which said it was anything but a successful scheme and that all the spin the Minister has been trotting out about JobBridge was untrue.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I did not have it at that time. When the Deputy sees the Indecon report, he will see, if he is interested in the facts, that it has been a highly successful scheme, given that those who took part in it were much more likely to be in employment subsequently than a similar control group with the same sort of background and education who did not take part in it. I hope the Deputy will read the report with an open mind.

I am not sure if the Deputy knows how an audit cycle works or has ever been involved in doing one. In an internal audit, auditors go through a scheme or programme and raise questions. Then, the Department, corporation or NGO must respond to the questions raised. The auditors were satisfied with the responses they received to their questions. This is how an audit cycle works.

I am interested in asking the Deputy a question. It is interesting that he is already gearing up to oppose whatever scheme replaces JobBridge. He is already calling it "JobBridge 2.0", which is the rhetoric he intends to use. Will the Deputy automatically oppose any new work experience scheme, or is there any work experience scheme he could possibly support?

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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Did the Minister read the responses with which they defended JobBridge? Schools that did not have SNAs advertised for SNAs. It is impossible that those people will be properly trained as SNAs in those schools. The response was:

JobBridge guidelines do not indicate that a like for like job to internship must exist within any given sector. In relation specifically to the education sector it is felt that an SNA intern will be working with a teacher.

It is a joke of a response. The report is damning. I have read all the responses. The last time there was an Indecon report, the then Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, dressed it up and spun it around and got a magical figure of 61% success. However, if one excludes those who got a job via a PRSI scheme, the success rate is 17.6%. It is less than the 29% of employers who said to the first Indecon report that if JobBridge did not exist, they would have been highly likely or fairly likely to employ somebody.

The reason I will oppose any scheme which is about people working for free is because I am against the exploitation of people and because I know it results in job displacement, as indicated in the internal audit, and acts as a downward pressure. Based on the Minister's response to Deputy Collins earlier, I suspect he is in favour of those things.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Since taking up this post, I have gone around the country and spoken a lot to staff of my Department working in the Intreo centres with jobseekers. To my surprise, the vast majority of them, if not all of them, are enormous advocates of JobBridge and have asked me not to discontinue it.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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The Minister should talk to people who have done JobBridge.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Part of the Indecon report is a survey of people who have done it. While not everybody agrees, the vast majority of people had a favourable opinion on 18 of the 20 issues they were asked about in the survey. I know people who took part in JobBridge. We had some of them in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, and they are all in good jobs now. They may not be the people who are attending the Deputy's meetings or rallies or joining his party. They have taken part in JobBridge and have done well. However, the economy is in a different place and we no longer need JobBridge. However, we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of the opportunity for people to get work experience in the private sector with a real employer. There are not many opportunities to do so with the existing schemes.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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This is not dealing with the reality of what is in the internal audit. The internal audit is damning. It shows the rules that existed were not even being applied, that there was no way of working out whether job displacement was taking place, that when more than 500 companies were advertising in a way that was against the rules, nobody did anything about it. The scheme was designed to be exploited by companies. In his opening response, the Minister said 19,000 employers got the opportunity to take people on. It is great for the employers who get free labour. From the evidence that is publicly available so far - let us see the second Indecon report - there is no indication that JobBridge enables people to get real jobs as opposed to exploiting them.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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There will always be a degree of displacement and dead weight in any employment activation scheme. The same applies to the community employment, CE, scheme. It is an employment activation scheme which I thing the Deputy supports. I have never heard him calling for it to be shut down. It provides services such as meals on wheels and home helps. People on CE schemes do very good work with otherwise would probably have to be tendered for and paid for. Any scheme that gives people a degree of work experience will have a certain degree of displacement. Is the Deputy saying we should shut down all the schemes - Gateway, Tús and CE?

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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I am saying people should be paid for work.