Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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502. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of unemployed persons who exited the live register to a long-term labour activation programme including community employment, Tús - the work placement initiative, back to work, back to education, JobBridge or a programme run by Solas; the programme to which they exited; and the percentages of those participants withdrawing who were short-term unemployed and who were long-term unemployed by programme and by quarter for 2014 and for 2015. [9815/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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In the first instance, the Government’s primary strategy to tackle unemployment is to create the environment for a strong economic recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity. Economic recovery will underpin jobs growth. However, the Government also recognises the need for additional measures to address unemployment in the interim while the economy recovers. This is the rationale behind the Government’s Pathways to Work Strategy which is being led by the Department of Social Protection.

Job activation programmes are an important part of these additional measures. Data on the number of participants in job activation programmes is reported monthly by programme by the Central Statistics Office. The following Table 1 shows quarterly average participation for 2014 and 2015.

Data on detailed movements from the Live Register to individual programmes are not readily available. However, “Took up Educational, Training or Employment Placement” is noted as a possible destination when a claim for Jobseeker’s Benefit or Jobseekers’ Assistance is closed. Table 2 shows the number of closures to this destination category by quarter for 2014 and 2015, as well as the percentage of short and long term registrants.

Table 1Live Register Activation Programmes (average number of participants) by Type of Activation Programme and Quarter

Table 2: Closures of jobseekers claims to Educational, Training or Employment Placements by quarter and duration