Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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143. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the position regarding the JobBridge scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7297/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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JobBridge is focused on providing unemployed people with high quality real workplace experience. JobBridge is a voluntary scheme where interns choose the internship best suited to their needs. Potential interns cover the spectrum of needs, qualifications and experiences. Therefore, it is necessary that JobBridge provides real opportunities with real potential employers across that spectrum of qualifications and experiences, including the lower skilled and inexperienced as well as graduates. It is important to highlight that individuals at all skill and educational levels have an equal right to this activation measure.

The Department has a number of controls in place to prevent abuse of the scheme. Over 4,400 monitoring visits have been conducted to date, 98% of which were found to be satisfactory. There are also limits placed on the number of internships that can be offered by any one organisation related to the number of staff employed by the company and there are restrictions on the repeat or sequential use of internships.

A total of 35 companies have been disqualified from participating in the scheme due to breaches of the terms and conditions. However, it is worth highlighting that over 11,600 companies have participated in the scheme across all sectors and the overwhelming majority of companies are providing quality internships for jobseekers.

On average, a JobBridge internship costs the Exchequer €238 per week, inclusive of the €50 top-up. However, the independent evaluation has shown that the scheme has been good value for money through high rates of progression into employment.