Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Seanadóir. I am taking this question on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection. The Department of Social Protection, through its Intreo service, provides a range of employment supports to assist individuals, including women returning to work, to gain and sustain employment. Intreo's teams of case officers and job coaches across the country provide a one-to-one career advice service and tailored employment supports for all jobseekers, including those who wish to return to work. These supports include the community employment scheme, which aims to provide work experience and targeted training interventions for long-term unemployed people within their communities. The programme is designed to help break the cycle of unemployment and improve a person's chances of returning to the labour market.

Community employment is open to women who want to return to work after a break, provided they meet the standard eligibility criteria. In order to qualify, a number of conditions must be met, including being in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment for a specific period. In addition to the supports currently provided by Intreo, the Government is supporting a range of further initiatives and measures to assist people in their journey back to employment under the economic recovery plan and the forthcoming Pathways to Work 2021-2025 strategy. As set out under the Government's economic recovery plan, which was launched on 1 June 2021, a central focus of the recovery process will be supporting people back into employment, with an overall ambition of exceeding pre-crisis employment levels by reaching 2.5 million people in work by the end of 2024. It is important, as the Senator outlined, that people have quality employment and pay equality.

Central to achieving this ambition will be the forthcoming national employment services strategy, Pathways to Work 2021-2025. By increasing labour market supports and providing employment support, activation and skill opportunities, the Pathways to Work strategy will act as a key delivery mechanism of the economic recovery plan's second pillar, Helping People Back into Work. Pathways to Work will outline how the public employment service will work with people through its existing and expanded capacity to deliver job support services in a post-Covid labour market. Measures under this new strategy will include provision of an additional 50,000 education and training places and a new work placement experience programme. This new programme will be open to all jobseekers, including women who have been out of work for at least six months. That might offer some support in respect of the case the Senator outlined.

As part of its work for those seeking to return to the workforce, Intreo hosted the first Career Pathways for Returners event in Trinity College Dublin in March 2020. The event provided jobseekers with information on work placements and opportunities to upskill or retrain and offered them the opportunity to take the next step in their careers. The event including testimonials from people who had re-launched their careers and the supports that assisted them on their journey. Attendees also had an opportunity to meet and speak with employers, some of whom had dedicated returner initiatives. The Department of Social Protection plans to build on these kinds of initiatives under the new Pathways to Work strategy, which the Minister for Social Protection hopes to launch alongside the new work placement experience programme later this month. These are worthwhile initiatives.

Post Covid, many people, and many women in particular, are thinking about going in a whole new direction in their lives and careers and we want to provide the opportunities for them to do that. The gender pay gap Bill that was introduced by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is another supporting mechanism, as is the work being done around community development by the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien. Community development pilot projects could provide an opportunity for women who have a valuable set of skills to offer a community to find work.