Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank Senator O'Brien for her comments. I will specifically ask for the point she raises to be addressed in the evaluation. As she noted, the embargo makes it difficult in the context of public sector placements for interns to immediately secure employment in a public organisation. Nevertheless, there is a certain placement rate because opportunities also arise in the public sector.

At the end of May we secured an additional 1,000 places on the scheme, which will increase the number of placements to 6,000. The purpose of the increase is to make provision for potential applications from lone parents and people with a disability. Some people may not be interested in the community and voluntary sector, which is where activation schemes have tended to be available for lone parents and people with a disability. However, many lone parents who became aware of opportunities in small and medium sized businesses contacted me to express an interest in pitching for such opportunities. For this reason, we opened up the scheme at the end of last month. We will find out over the summer if this decision has resulted in lone parents and people with disabilities benefiting from many of the interesting opportunities to emerge in the small and medium sized business sector. I expect a significant number of entrepreneurs to emerge from this process as people avail of opportunities to work with others in the development phase of a business. There is nothing to compare with acquiring experience in the business environment and using it later in one's own business, if one is so inclined.