Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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374. To ask the Minister for Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No. 531 of 21 March 2017, the commercial sensitivities preventing the publication of individual payments to the JobPath companies Turas Nua and Seetec; and his views on the appropriateness of channelling public moneys to these companies without public transparency as to the sums involved. [18021/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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JobPath is a payment by results model and all initial costs and the ongoing operational costs are borne by the companies.

Payments made to the service providers are only in respect of registration fees, for persons engaging with the service, and fees for sustained employment outcomes.

My Department does not publish the individual fees to providers because of commercial sensitivity. This commercial sensitivity is specifically in relation to the release of the information having the potential to influence the pricing of future contracts providing a similar service and thereby having the potential to confer commercial advantage on one bidder over another.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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375. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if his Department is given a detailed accounting by Seetec and Turas Nua, respectively, of the way the €25.2 million of public money given to those two companies in 2016 was spent. [18022/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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JobPath is a payment by results model. All initial set up costs and the ongoing running costs are borne by the companies.

The companies are paid registration fees and job sustainment fees.

A registration fee may be claimed only when a jobseeker has developed a personal progression plan. Job sustainment fees are payable for each 13-week period of sustained employment, up to a maximum of 52 weeks. The jobs must be full time, that is, more than 30 hours a week, with some exceptions. This means JobPath companies are incentivised financially to assist people to find full-time jobs that they are likely to hold down and are therefore suited to. My Department verifies each individual job sustainment fee claim before payment, confirming that the customer is in employment and no longer on the Live Register.

The monies referred to by the Deputy are solely in respect of fees claimed by the service providers for registration and job sustainment fees.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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376. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the fee paid to a company (details supplied) to conduct the customer satisfaction survey published in the January 2017 JobPath performance report. [18024/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The survey of JobPath candidates formed part of a single contract covering a 2016 customer satisfaction survey of both JobPath candidates and of jobseeker users of standard Intreo services.

Taking account of the numbers surveyed in the different respondent categories, the amount of the contract charge attributable to the JobPath element of the survey was €58,500 before VAT, or €71,900 inclusive of VAT.