Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What the Senator is saying just does not make sense. No person who works in the Department of Social Protection will send someone on work experience if they are fully qualified for that role. A chef, for example, might lose his or her job for whatever reason and go into the social welfare office to look for guidance and to engage with social protection on how he or she should go forward and on what he or she should do. No-one in the social protection office will say that a fully qualified chef should be sent on work experience to be a chef. Work experience is there if you want to deviate into another role or go into another profession. If you want to continue being a chef, you apply for chef positions that are available. That is the point of it. Anyone working on this scheme under work experience is not doing the exact same work as someone who is fully qualified.