Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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77. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of employers taking part in the JobBridge scheme that have been given a warning for giving participants in the scheme allowances for travel or food or any other expenses. [19744/14]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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96. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her views on extending the timeframe for internships under the JobBridge scheme to more than the maximum of nine months in order that persons on the scheme can receive additional experience; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19882/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 77 and 96 together.

A host organisation is permitted to reimburse an intern for out of pocket expenses incurred as part of the internship. However, expenses should not be provided for normal activities such as travel to and from the intern's base and normal personal expenditure. Payments other than out of pocket expenses by a host organisation are likely to have potential Benefit in Kind impacts and may also affect an individual’s social welfare status. To date, the Department has not issued any formal warnings to individual host organisations for payment of travel, food or normal personal expenditure.

JobBridge is a tailored labour market intervention for facilitating jobseekers in gaining skills and real workplace experience to increase their employability. The Department considers the maximum 9 month duration of a single internship necessary to prevent displacement of employees and to give the intern a broad range of experiences, possibly in the same sector but in a range of working environments. In September, 2013, the scheme was amended to allow individuals avail of a maximum of three JobBridge internships. However, the total cumulative time spent on the scheme cannot exceed 18 months and the intern is not permitted to do more than one internship with the same company.

Government initiatives such as Jobs Plus are in place to incentivise employers to take on jobseekers who have been on the Live Register for at least 1 year. JobBridge interns who complete a 9 month internship are eligible for this initiative.