Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein)
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3. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the details of the funding, from the Government and the European Union, allocated to the JobBridge scheme, in tabular form. [9106/16]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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JobBridge was introduced in July 2011 in response to the sharp increase in unemployment resulting from the unprecedented collapse in the economy. Since then over 18,500 Host Organisations have provided internship opportunities to over 46,500 unemployed jobseekers. Independent research indicates that circa 60% of jobseekers who participated in JobBridge progressed into paid employment within a short period (5 months) of completing the internship.

One of the objectives of JobBridge was to address the situation whereby unemployed people in receipt of a jobseeker payment who took up an unpaid work experience opportunity lost entitlement to their jobseeker payment. Under JobBridge unemployed jobseekers who take up a work experience opportunity retain their jobseeker payment and, in addition, receive a sum of €52.50 per week towards the cost of taking up the opportunity

Total expenditure on JobBridge is set out in Table 1. It should be noted that these amounts include, and consist primarily of, the underlying jobseeker payment.

As part of the EU Youth Guarantee initiative some expenditure relating to interns under 25 years of age may, in future, be reclaimed under the European Social Fund (ESF) and Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) as part of the ESF Operational Programme 2014-2020.

Table 1

The estimated expenditure for 2016 is €51.98m.