Written answers

Tuesday, 24 November 2009

Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment

Departmental Staff

9:00 pm

Photo of Brian HayesBrian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 105: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if additional staff from her Department have been deployed since December 2008 to increase job search supports capacity under the national employment action plan; if additional staff within FÁS have similarly been redeployed as outlined in Building Ireland's Smart Economy: A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal report; and if direct referrals to local employment services have been established. [43122/09]

Photo of Mary CoughlanMary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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In response to the economic downturn and the resulting rapid rise in unemployment, FÁS has, within its existing staff allocation, increased the number of staff in front line Employment Services. The totality of people interviewed has expanded considerably and it was essential that FÁS provided enough front-line staff in the National Employment Service to provide for a major increase in NEAP referrals from the Department of Social and Family Affairs in 2009. This was achieved largely through the voluntary redeployment of staff from other areas of FÁS to Employment Services. Appropriate training and development has been arranged for these staff to equip them for their new responsibilities.

In addition FÁS has agreed with the Local Employment Service that it will provide a large-scale direct referral capacity for NEAP clients. This process commenced early in 2009 and there is currently a capacity for approximately 38,000 NEAP interview slots per year throughout the LES network. This brings the total FÁS/LES NEAP capacity to 147,000.

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