Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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155. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the arrangements she has put in place to address the issue of long-term unemployment; the extent to which she expects such measures to impact on the live register in the current year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19402/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The unemployment rate is currently 14.0% and while it has begun to fall after several years of increases, the rate remains unacceptably high. It is of additional concern that long-term unemployment (defined as being unemployed for a year or more) accounted for 60% (176,500) of total unemployment in Q4 2012, and for almost half of all unemployment among young people.

In the first instance, the Government's primary strategy to tackle long-term unemployment is to create the environment for a strong economy recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity through the Action Plan for Jobs. Economic recovery will underpin jobs growth and thus reduce unemployment and long-term unemployment.

In addition to promoting economic recovery, the Government recognises the need for measures to support the long-term unemployed and keep jobseekers close to the labour market. Past experience suggests that, without such measures, long-term unemployment may fall more slowly than overall unemployment when strong economic growth returns.

Given the scale of the unemployment crisis, the key objective of labour market policy is to keep those on the Live Register close to the labour market and prevent the drift into long-term unemployment. Persons from the Live Register availing of activation measures will get an opportunity to engage in employment, training and work experience and so be in a position to avail of employment opportunities as the economy improves. As such, the policy objective is to prioritise scarce resources on those on the Live Register so as to increase their chances of leaving it thereby ensuring a reduction in Exchequer costs over time.

In this context, the major elements of the Government's response are set out in the Pathways to Work policy which is aimed at ensuring that as many as possible of the job vacancies that are created are filled by people from the Live Register, with a particular focus on those who are long term unemployed or at risk of long-term unemployment.

The Pathways to Work policy and the establishment of the new integrated INTREO service will transform the nature and level of engagement between our employment and income support services and the unemployed. The policy is underpinned by five core strands which reflect the new integrated employment and income support services which are currently being established. Each of these strands places the customer at the centre of all the service's activities, recognising their individual and specific needs. The strands provide for:

- Transforming and reforming the employment and income support services institutions to deliver better services to the unemployed through an integrated approach.

- More regular and on-going engagement with people who are unemployed through active case management and profiling. There were almost 130,000 referrals of unemployed welfare recipients to the employment service in 2012.

- Greater targeting of activation places and opportunities by providing for over 85,000 places on initiatives such as Job Bridge - the National Internship Scheme, Tús, the Rural Social Scheme and the Jobs Initiative.

- Incentivising the take up of opportunities by the unemployed.

- Creating and enhancing relations with employers through incentivising the provision of opportunities for people who are unemployed. A major initiative planned for 2013 will be JobPlus, which will streamline the existing Revenue Job Assist and Employer PRSI schemes into a single easy to administer scheme that offers an attractive incentive to employers recruiting people who are long-term unemployed.

The Pathways to Work policy sets very ambitious targets for the long-term unemployed to be achieved over the next three years.

- To ensure that 75,000 of those long term unemployed in 2012 will move into employment by 2015.

- To reduce the average time spent on the live register from 21 months to less than 12 months.

- To ensure that employers have access to and are offered suitable candidate to fill full time vacancies and that the proportion of vacancies filled by the Department's employment services from the Live Register is at least to 40% by 2015.

- To ensure that each person in receipt of a jobseeker payment fulfils their personal responsibility to engage fully with the employment and training supports provided by the State as a pre-condition for recipe of their welfare payments.

In addition to the initiatives announced under the Pathways to Work programme, the Department also manages a number of schemes providing temporary employment for the long-term unemployed on works and services of value to the community. There are currently 26,000 people participating on Community Employment and Tús. As part of Budget 2013, the Government approved 10,000 new places across CE, TÚS, JobBridge and a new social employment scheme with the Local Authorities.

The Department also supports long-term unemployed people who create jobs through self-employment. Currently, about 12,000 people are being supported under the Back to Work Allowance scheme and the Short-term Enterprise Allowance scheme.

Education & Training

The Department of Social Protection also provides income support for long-term unemployment persons returning to education via Back to Education Allowance and the Springboard Scheme. There are almost 26,000 participants in receipt of Back to Education Allowance in the current academic year. Springboard offers a choice of free courses in higher education from certificate, to degree, to post-graduate level. All courses lead to qualifications in enterprise sectors which are growing and need skilled personnel. Participants on Springboard courses retain their social welfare payments. Sixty-per cent of Springboard participants have been unemployed for more than twelve months and one third of those for more than 24 months. Over 3,500 people graduated from the first round of Springboard programmes, which were put in place in 2011, and an additional 6,000 places were made available for this academic year.

Policy Impact:

The additional places being provided on a range of employment and education measures in 2013 will have a direct impact in providing opportunities for people who are currently long-term unemployed.

While there should be an impact in improving people's probability of sustainable exit from the Live Register as a result of these measures, the impact is not immediately quantifiable. However, we do have some preliminary evaluation of a significant component of Pathways to Work - the JobBridge Internship Scheme. The findings of the interim evaluation of JobBridge, the National Internship Scheme by Indecon International Economic Consultants, published in October 2012, found that 61% of finishers secured employment within five months of completing their internship. These progression rates compare favourably with European averages in this area and represent very significant progress in a short period of time. Long-term unemployed made up 38% of participants covered by the evaluation.

More generally, while it is clear that long-term unemployment remains stubbornly high, there was a noticeable reduction in the inflow into long-term duration on the live register in the 2012. For example, the number of people unemployed for between one and two years fell from almost 80,000 in early 2011 to 55,000 at the end of 2012 (which is just under 13% of the total on the Live Register). This downward trend has continued in the first quarter of 2013, so that the size of this group looks set to fall below 50,000 by the end of the year. However, many of those who became unemployed at the height of the jobs crisis in 2009 & 2010 have found it particularly difficult to find employment, with those on the Live Register for more than two years accounting for 32% (135,000) of all live registrants in March 2013. They are now a priority group for activation measures.