David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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487. To ask the Minister for Social Protection his plans to scrap JobBridge; his plans in place to replace the scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13369/16]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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500. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if and how he will engage with stakeholders and interested parties in the development and delivery of a high quality and well regulated internship programme to replace JobBridge; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13409/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 487 and 500 together.

A commitment was given in Pathways to Work to develop and implement a programme of evaluations to assess the impact of Pathways to Work initiatives. One of the first schemes selected for evaluation was JobBridge.

The aim of the evaluation is to assess the effectiveness of the scheme in terms of its key objective of improving employment outcomes for unemployed jobseekers. The evaluation involves a number of elements including:

1. Surveys of host organisation and participants to capture their perspective on, and experience of, JobBridge.

2. An assessment of whether or not JobBridge may be displacing paid employment in the economy.

3. A comparison of employment outcomes of JobBridge participants to matched non-participants.

The JobBridge scheme has been an effective labour market intervention to date. It is estimated that some 15,000 interns went directly into paid employment immediately following a JobBridge internship. Independent research indicates that this rose to 29,000 interns, or 61% of all participants after five months, compared to an average of 34% for comparable programmes in other European countries.

I know people who took part in JobBridge and have benefitted from it. But it was very much a scheme for its time, and I’m planning to replace it with a more appropriate scheme. JobBridge was launched at a time of massive economic uncertainty and widespread unemployment. Companies were simply not hiring because they couldn’t afford to recruit, and in many cases insisted on a minimum level of experience. But large numbers of recent graduates and people who lost their jobs in the recession couldn’t get the relevant workplace experience they needed to get a first or a new job.

That crisis is now over, the economy is growing and employers are hiring again. The labour market has changed and new graduates are once again finding work.

Job creation was at the heart of the last Government with more than 125,000 jobs created, and we have a new target to create a further 200,000. Unemployment has fallen below 8% for the first time since the crash. Although the evidence is largely anecdotal, I am concerned at reports that some employers might be using JobBridge as an alternative to hiring new employees. On the other hand, I am very conscious that there are still many people who lost their jobs in the depth of the recession who are struggling to break back into the labour market and schemes like JobBridge can provide a valuable pathway to such citizens, in particular in instances where it is associated with a training programme.

In order that the design of a new scheme be informed by the best evidence possible and reflect the experience of stakeholders, I am awaiting the results of a second large scale evaluation of JobBridge. This evaluation is currently well advanced; an interim progress report is expected towards the end of June and the final report in September. This report will provide an evidential basis upon which to consider what changes should be made to improve outcomes for Jobseekers and value for money for the State.