Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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406. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the measures he will introduce to ensure that companies do not exploit college graduates as interns to generate profits for their business; his plans to introduce protection for interns, including a minimum wage for intern work; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13167/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware I have already announced that I plan to replace JobBridge with a more targeted scheme later this year. I believe that economic and labour market conditions have changed for the better since the scheme was introduced in 2011 and that the time may now be right for a more targeted scheme.

JobBridge was developed in 2011 in response to the unemployment crisis to serve a dual purpose. First, to help jobseekers to secure the work experience vital to enhancing their employment prospects and break the vicious circle of ‘no experience no work but no work no experience’. And second to support employers in taking the first step in recruitment at a time when access to finance was very limited and business risk was very high. JobBridge also addressed the anomaly in the social welfare code whereby unemployed jobseekers who voluntarily undertook unpaid work experience or internships lost their entitlement to a jobseeker payment. Under JobBridge participants retain their jobseeker payment and in addition receive a top up towards the cost of work of €52.50 per week.

JobBridge has been very successful in meeting its objectives over the past five years. It has helped about 19,000 mainly small employers to provide valuable work experience to nearly 48,000 unemployed jobseekers. An independent evaluation of JobBridge published in 2013 found that overall satisfaction levels with the scheme were very high. Two thirds of participants would recommend the scheme to a friend or family member, and levels of abuse of the scheme by employers were very low. Most notably the evaluation found that about 61% of participants progressed into paid employment within a short period of about completing their internship. This is a very high progression rate and suggests that JobBridge has been instrumental in helping about 30,000 jobseekers to secure employment.

JobBridge is giving opportunities to jobseekers across the spectrum of qualifications. Participation on the scheme is voluntary.

Given the numbers of unemployed jobseekers holding graduate and post-graduate qualifications, it is obviously necessary that JobBridge is in a position to offer them an internship that reflects their abilities, aspirations and qualifications. In this regard a previous criticism directed at the Department was that the terms of its jobseeker payments prevented jobseekers, including graduate jobseekers, from taking up internship opportunities as a route into employment, JobBridge addresses this issue.

The Department has a number of controls in place to prevent abuse of the scheme. These include requirements on host organisations to provide a mentor to the intern, to sign and operate a standard agreement, to submit regular monitoring reports to the Department and to co-operate with random monitoring visits. There are also limits placed on the number of internships that can be offered by any one organisation related to the number of staff employed by the company and there are restrictions on the repeat or sequential use of internships. I am satisfied based on the Department’s own monitoring visits and the report of the independent evaluation that these controls are working effectively.

Notwithstanding these achievements JobBridge has been subject to a high level of criticism much of which is based on anecdote or very small scale surveys by various interest groups. I intend to respond to these criticisms in the design of a new scheme. It is however important that the design of a new scheme be informed by the best evidence possible.

It is for this reason that I intend to await the results of a second large scale evaluation of JobBridge currently underway. The results of this evaluation, which is again being undertaken by Indecon, are expected in September and I will announce my proposals for a new scheme shortly thereafter.