Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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73. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons this year to date who have had their jobseeker's benefit or allowance reduced or suspended for refusing to engage with labour activation schemes. [19740/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Legislation provides that penalties in the form of reduced payments may be imposed by a Deciding Officer where clients fail, without good cause, to comply with activation measures.

Activation measures include the requirement to attend group or individual meetings, and/or avail of suitable education, training or development opportunities, or specified employment programmes ( e.g. Community Employment), which are considered appropriate to a person’s circumstances.

A total of 1,113 penalty rates were applied in 2014, to end March.

Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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74. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons who have had their jobseeker's benefit or allowance reduced or suspended for refusing to engage with labour activation schemes in the first half of 2013; and the number in the second half of 2013. [19741/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Legislation provides that penalties in the form of reduced payments may be imposed by a Deciding Officer where clients fail, without good cause, to comply with activation measures.

Activation measures include the requirement to attend group or individual meetings, and/or avail of suitable education, training or development opportunities, or specified employment programmes, which are considered appropriate to a person’s circumstances. A total of 3,395 penalties were applied during 2013.

Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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75. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons who have had their jobseeker's benefit or allowance reduced or suspended this year to date for refusing to take part in JobBridge under the youth guarantee. [19742/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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JobBridge is a voluntary scheme and sanctions are not applicable where a jobseeker decides not to avail of it. Therefore, no penalty rates or reductions have applied to date for failure to avail of the scheme.

Under the Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan, the Department is developing a variant of the JobBridge scheme for the most disadvantaged young people.

Under this variant, employers will be asked to make work experience places available for young people aged 18 to 25 who have low levels of educational attainment, long periods of unemployment and other social barriers to employment. It is proposed that, at any one time, 1,500 young people will have access to this variant of the JobBridge internship. Places will be ring-fenced for this group of clients and the internships will not be advertised for general availability.

Candidates will be selected and referred to the scheme by the Department and will receive, or will have already completed, work preparation courses prior to commencement. The Department will work extensively with Job Clubs, Local Employment Services and Education and Training Boards to prepare the candidates for the work experience prior to starting their internship.

The participation of clients, once referred, will be non-discretionary and penalty rate sanctions will apply to a jobseeker who fails, without good cause, to participate in this variant of the scheme.

Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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76. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons who have had their jobseeker's benefit or allowance reduced or suspended for refusing to take part in the gateway scheme. [19743/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Gateway is a work placement initiative for county and city councils. The initiative aims to improve the employability and maintain the work readiness of those who have been unemployed for 24 months or more. Similar to Tús, participants are selected by a random process conducted by the Department from those persons in receipt of a jobseekers allowance payment for 24 months or more. Responsibility for delivery of this initiative rests with each county and city council.

As of 28th April, 177 participants were working on and in receipt of a Gateway payment.

To date, some 3,550 jobseekers have been invited to participate on Gateway. Of these, a total of 32 jobseekers to date have had their jobseekers allowance claim closed on grounds of non-entitlement and a further 4 jobseekers were subject of a disqualification of payment of up to 9 weeks for failure to engage with an employment activation scheme.