Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection in view of an announcement in Budget 2013 regarding extra jobbridge places, if further applications for internships will be accepted under the educational sector; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [56351/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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JobBridge, the National Internship Scheme was launched on 1^s July 2011. It provides internship opportunities of either 6 or 9 months for unemployed individuals on the Live Register, in organisations in the private, public and community voluntary sectors

The Scheme has made significant progress to-date. Over 13,000 interns have commenced placements on the scheme to-date including a significant number in the Education sector.

The increase in JobBridge places announced in the budget is not earmarked for any particular sector and all eligible organisations will be able to advertise for and select interns in line with the standard JobBridge procedures.

In the case of internships within the education sector there was no overall limit placed on the number of internships per se, rather the Department set a cut-off date for applications aligned with the academic year given that the minimum duration of an internship is six months and the maximum duration is nine months.

In this regard the deadline for applications for 9 month internships in the education sector was 14^th September 2012 and 7^th December 2012 for 6 month internships. This is in line with the ending of the academic year in June 2013. This has been clearly advertised on the Home Page of the JobBridge website since August of this year. As such, every effort was made to provide reasonable notice of this arrangement.

It is proposed to repeat this procedure in 2013; host organisations, within the education sector, may submit applications up to December 2013 for placements for the academic year 2013/14.

It is important to note that an independent evaluation of the Scheme is currently being finalised by Indecon International Economic Consultants and is anticipated that a final report will be published in the coming weeks. The Department will consider the report and may amend the terms and conditions of the scheme to take account of recommendations contained therein. Any such amendments to the scheme will be notified via the website.