Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Senator Ruane has outlined this issue very clearly. The answers to the questions on work experience are particularly important. This is quite a shift in general policy compared to what we have seen in the past. I was a member of the social protection committee in the previous Oireachtas. On that committee, we saw a lot of the problems with the JobPath-type solutions put forward. We saw people being routed into inappropriate jobs and poor rates of retention in the employment opportunities provided because contractors were under pressure to put people anywhere. The results, which can be seen in the report of that committee, were very poor. The idea was that all of these measures, that is, JobPath and all of the intensified requirements prescribed to people, were going to deal with the problem of long-term unemployment. I do not know if they were the best tool for achieving that.

What we see now with this new payment scheme is that it only applies after 39 weeks, or 26 weeks in some cases. Therefore, in the immediate period after people have been made redundant, people will not have one, two or three months to identify their own best pathway forward. It has usually been the case that the interventionist approach under the social protection system comes through with voluntary supports that people can avail of if they wish to access them and that the stronger engagement only comes after six months or a year. That timeline has actually slipped backwards; it was after one year and then it was after six months. What we are now seeing is that people are being told in the very first number of months, even in the first month after being made unemployed, they have to go and work in a completely different area or job that is unsuitable to them. They will not even be given one, two or three months to identify their own best pathway forward, whether that is through education, retraining or increasing their skills.

This amendment is really important. It provides that people will participate in "a scheme or programme of employment or work experience" or "a course of education, training or development", rather than "any scheme" that is prescribed. Our next amendment will address this. Effectively, some caseworker, possibly from a private agency like Seetec, Turas Nua or one of the others, will decide to place 50 or 100 people in a factory or a job because it will take them. The caseworker will route everyone into that factory or job and tell them this is what they have to do.

One of the problems with the way activation supports were done in the past is that they ended working against people building on their skills. For example, for someone who was highly skilled, he or she was not given the period of time to wait until September to start a college course because that person was pretty much forced to agree to undertake a training scheme or a poor employment opportunity three or four months previously that might contraindicate doing a course because the caseworker wanted to deliver on his or her pile of cases.

This amendment is really important because it provides for people to be participating in "a scheme". It is combined with amendment No. 12, which we will speak to. Rather than a person having to basically do anything they are told to do according to what people working in the Department of Social Protection consider appropriate, people would actually be able to say they have a different scheme, programme of employment or course of education, training or development with which they wish to engage. People would be able to assert that, but that is not what is written currently. The Bill, as written now, is deeply prescriptive and narrow. It literally refers to schemes which are prescribed by any person. Let us think about this. This is one, two or three months immediately after someone becomes unemployed. People will not even have an opportunity to find and apply to other jobs off their own back before they find themselves having to work through this system, which, by the way, costs the State considerably.