Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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91. To ask the Minister for Social Protection for an update on the First Steps youth developmental internship, including the number of participants who have commenced the programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5938/16]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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94. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons under 25 years of age who have or are participating in the JobBridge scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5941/16]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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95. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of monitoring visits which have been conducted in respect of the JobBridge scheme in each of the years 2011 to 2016 to date; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5942/16]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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96. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of complaints received concerning the JobBridge scheme since its introduction; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5943/16]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 91 and 94 to 96, inclusive, together.

A total of 12,770 jobseekers under 25 years of age have commenced JobBridge since the scheme was launched in July 2011. There are currently 962 under 25 year olds participating on the scheme.

The requirement for monitoring was introduced in January 2012 and since then the number of visits each year is as follows;

2012: 992 monitoring visits,

2013: 3,406 monitoring visits,

2014: 4,662 monitoring visits,

2015: 3,651 monitoring visits,

2016: 722 monitoring visits were conducted to date.

On average, 98% of internships are found to be fully compliant at a monitoring visit.

A total of 672 complaints have been received by the Department about the operation of JobBridge since the scheme commenced. This represents about 1.4% of all internships. All complaints are investigated.

First Steps is a variant of the JobBridge Scheme which is targeted specifically at 18-24 year olds who have been identified as facing significant barriers to gaining employment. The programme was launched in February 2015 with the aim of bringing these young people closer to the labour market by providing them with a quality work placement experience.

To date 120 companies have registered for First Steps offering 176 placements. A total of 121 placements have commenced, with 55 people currently on the programme. A number of changes were recently introduced to the scheme to incentivise uptake, including the provision of additional support to host organisations and participants.