Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleagues in Sinn Féin, who are not here today, on their colleague Deputy John Brady's questioning of the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection on JobPath. It is quite shocking that out of 206,000 JobPath applicants, only 11,333 remained in sustainable employment. Many colleagues in this House have raised issues with JobPath. We are aware that, to date, Turas Nua and Seetec have each been paid more than €70 million. It is now time that the Minister accepted that this labour activation programme is not working and must be changed. She needs to move back to the old community employment schemes. It is staggering that, for each placement, the private contractor gets up to €3,700. It seems to be another rip-off of taxpayers, and the State seems to be happy to spend it without any thought or consequence whatsoever.

The second issue I would like to raise concerns the use of wet wipes. Ms Deirdre Clune, MEP, has expressed her disgust over their use. Many of us use them. They are disposable wipes but many of us do not realise how dangerous they are to the environment. Ms Clune has asked that they come with a warning sign. They are not flushable but we are aware that they appear on our seashores. We need to ban them or sell them with express warnings because they present a great threat to our environment.