Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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574. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if a person has a right to refuse a place on JobPath in favour of a place on a community employment scheme; if there is an impediment that prevents a person from deciding to opt for a community employment scheme over a place on JobPath; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17860/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The primary goal of my Department’s activation services is to move people from full time and part time unemployment to full-time and sustained employment. A jobseeker who already has an offer of a placement on a Community Employment Scheme (CE) or Tús when they are referred to the JobPath service will be facilitated to take up the offer.

I also announced last week that customers of my Department who are currently engaged with the JobPath service and those who may be referred in future will from 1 June have the option of applying for CE and Tús placement while continuing to engage with JobPath. This will ensure that jobseekers can benefit from the job-seeking support of JobPath while also availing of a part-time work placement provided by Tús, or a quality training and development opportunity provided by a CE scheme .

This change announced last week combines the strengths of the two programmes - by enabling those who are on JobPath to also avail of a Tús or CE placements, jobseekers can benefit from the jobseeking support of JobPath while also availing of a part-time work placement provided by Tús, or a quality training and development opportunity provided by a CE scheme.

This will have a number of benefits both for the vital services provided at a local level by participants on CE and Tús programmes and directly for the Department’s customers.

From a labour market activation policy perspective the implementation of this option is timely given the significant improvement in the labour market and the requirement to ensure that those people who are long-term unemployed continue to be case-managed having commenced on a labour market activation programme such as CE/ Tús.

I trust this clarifies matters for the Deputy.