Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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43. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if his attention has been drawn to the criticisms being levelled at JobPath; if so, the way he plans to address these criticisms; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36085/16]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I am raising this question because of the large volume of complaints that not only I am receiving but also other colleagues on all sides of the House about the operation of the JobPath scheme.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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JobPath is a relatively new approach whereby the Department has procured additional resources under contract to enable us to provide high-quality case managed employment support services for people who are long-term unemployed. JobPath supplements the internal case management capacity of the Department's Intreo service and the local employment service. In the past year this additional capacity has enabled the Department to provide an intensive employment support and advisory service for some 60,000 long-term unemployed persons who would otherwise not have received such a service owing to Intreo's capacity limitations. While some observers have raised questions about the use of contractors to procure this additional capacity, the number of complaints from participants has been relatively low. To date, we have received only 145 complaints. This is 0.2% of the total number of people who have engaged with the service. The majority of the complaints were about people's initial reluctance to engage with the service having been unemployed for some time. All complaints are taken seriously and have been resolved or are in the process of being resolved, where possible.

Other issues that have been raised with my Department concern such matters as people wanting to take part in community employment,CE, schemes in preference to JobPath, the application of reduced payment rates to people who refuse to participate in the service and data security. All of these issues are being resolved. For example, a protocol is now in place to enable people to take up CE placements rather than commence on JobPath where a placement is available to them. The rules for the application of reduced payment rates are identical to those that apply in the case of all other activation services and any decision on reduced payment rates is taken by officials of my Department and never by the JobPath service providers.

As is the case with other contractors such as post offices, branch offices and CE scheme sponsors, the JobPath service providers may only use jobseekers' data for the purposes of delivering the services contracted by my Department. Both providers are registered with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner and subject to the provisions of data protection legislation.

On service quality generally, the contract provides for the delivery of a specified standard of service. Payments to contractors are contingent on the providers satisfying inspectors from my Department that they are meeting this service standard. In addition, the providers must attain a satisfactory customer rating in independent customer satisfaction research.

While the contract is at an early stage of implementation, feedback to date has been positive and initial indications in terms of employment outcomes are encouraging.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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We all agree that activation is essential, but we disagree on whether jobseekers might be coerced into unsuitable or inappropriate employment. It must be recognised that people who have been out of the workforce for a long time often have issues that make it difficult for them to re-enter it.

I am staggered by the Minister's reference to there only being 145 complaints. With as much certainty as I can have short of counting, I have received that many complaints from different parts of the country. A woman from County Wicklow rang me last night. She was obviously in distress because of her initial interaction with JobPath. I have received complaints from people in my constituency who were invited into a relatively small room and while sitting cheek by jowl with their neighbours - it is a small city - asked questions about whether they had a new suit of clothes for interviews, whether they had ever committed a crime and whether they intended to commit a crime in the future. Who dreamed up these questions? Last June the Minister told me that the Department intended to commission customer satisfaction surveys. Has this been done and have the surveys been conducted? If so, what was the outcome? As the Minister will be aware, a number of studies of JobBridge have been conducted. When will there be a study of JobPath?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The complaints process is as follows: a person initially makes a complaint to the service provider and if he or she is not happy with the outcome, he or she can make a further complaint to my Department. That is the number of 145 to which I referred. It is possible that many of those who have contacted the Deputy have not made a complaint to the Department or JobPath, but they can do so, if they wish. If they are not happy with how things go, they can also complain to the Ombudsman.

The independent customer satisfaction survey is under way and we expect results before the end of the year. As the Deputy will be aware, if the providers fail to secure a score of three or more on a scale of one to five, the payments made to the contractors will be reduced by up to 15%. There is a penalty for providers should they perform poorly in the customer satisfaction survey.

The condition to be met to receive jobseeker's allowance is that a person must be actively seeking full-time work. It may not necessarily be the job he or she wants, but it is a requirement that a person take up employment, if he or she can. If he or she does not wish to do so, he or she can sign off.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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We must avoid going down the punitive road. Time will not permit me to read all of the e-mails, letters and other correspondence I have received on this issue, but a person from the Minister's constituency e-mailed me after finding the JobPath experience humiliating, stressful and demoralising. I have received a number of other e-mails. One person's connection with JobPath had accentuated their anxiety owing to the behaviour of some of the staff. Another person stated no benefit or job opportunities had been presented since they were coerced into attending Turas Nua. Yet another person told me about receiving advice from staff who had received a paltry three months of training and many of whom did not have a background in human resources. Perhaps this explains the reason the number of complaints is so small. Some 90% of the people who have complained to me have begged me to keep their names out of it because they felt threatened. That is sinister. I can meet the Minister and show him some of the e-mails I have received. The people who sent them did not want their names to be mentioned because they feared retaliation. That is unacceptable.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am unsure what the Deputy means by "retaliation". If people are concerned that their payments will be reduced, that cannot be done. Neither of the JobPath providers has the authority to do so. It can only be done by my officials. Sometimes people who attend social welfare offices and Intreo centres have complaints. This may be down to personal interactions, for example, how they have been treated by individual staff members, or their interpretation of what was said to them. However, personal questions sometimes require to be asked in one-to-one engagements. Asking someone whether he or she has a suit in order that he or s he can appear well at an interview is reasonable. Some of the questions people might be asked in interviews are also asked in-----

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Surely not in front of their neighbours.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that. That may be an issue particular to the office involved, for example, and may be due to its size. That is the type of complaint - about the quality of the service provided, respecting people's privacy and so on - that we want to hear because we might be able to act and make improvements to the office, etc.