Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Question 58: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the fact that the planned changes to FÁS mean that the Gateway community project in the north inner city, which offers FETAC-certified courses to young women recovering from drug addiction, will no longer be able to continue offering these courses in view of the fact that FÁS is no longer a registered provider with FETAC and FETAC will not accept new providers; and if she will recommend an alternative provider for this particular course. [30221/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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As part of the reorganisation of functions and services in support of people who are unemployed, the community and employment support services of FÁS are being transferred to the Department of Social Protection. The legislative changes to give effect to these changes have been put in place and FÁS staff will complete the transfer to my Department in January 2012. As a consequence of these changes, the current practice whereby the Training Standards Quality Assurance System of FÁS processes FETAC certificate requests on behalf of a small number of education and training providers, such as the Gateway project, will be discontinued on 5 December 2011.

The Gateway project has been advised of the changes and of the opportunities to source alternative arrangements for the processing of FETAC applications. My understanding is that Gateway is currently linking with other providers with a view to accessing FETAC certificates. FÁS is also actively engaged so as to ensure that the matter is resolved in a satisfactory manner.