Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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767. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons on the live register who are currently contracted to SEETEC; the hourly rate paid to SEETEC for providing assessment and training, per person, for the long-term unemployed; the types of training provided by SEETEC; the success rates of SEETEC to date; and the number of long-term unemployed persons who have gained employment as a result of their time with SEETEC. [25693/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, JobPath is an employment activation service that supports people who are long-term unemployed and those most at risk of becoming long-term unemployed to secure and sustain paid employment.

Participants on JobPath receive intensive individual support to help them tackle barriers to employment and to assist them in finding jobs. Each person is assigned to a personal adviser who assesses a person’s skills, experience, challenges and work goals. The personal adviser works with the jobseeker to agree a personal progression plan that includes a schedule of activities, actions and job focused targets.

Participants are provided with a range of training and development supports in-house and via online modules. These include such things as confidence building, career advice, CV preparation and interview skills. Participants may also be referred to external training providers including Education and Training Boards.

Participants receive the JobPath service for a period of 12 months (which can be extended by up to six months to facilitate the jobseeker completing training programmes) or until such time as they find employment whichever is the soonest. If the jobseeker secures employment during this period they will continue to receive support for at least three months and up to twelve months while in employment.

Some 28,000 jobseekers have been referred to Seetec to date. Only a small number of clients have completed their engagement with the service so far. It is thus too soon to generate meaningful performance statistics. Initial JobPath performance statistics will be published before the end of the year.

It is not intended to publish the individual payments to the JobPath companies as these are commercially sensitive and to do so would place the State at a disadvantage both in terms of the contracts now in place and any future procurement that may be undertaken.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.