Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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261. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of community employment participants that have been referred to Tús in County Kildare in each of the years 2017 to 2018 and to date in 2019; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41508/19]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department provides a range of activation supports for long-term unemployed jobseekers and those most distant from the labour market. These supports include employment programmes such as Community Employment (CE) schemes and Tús.

Tús commenced operation in 2011 as a response to the high level of unemployment and the large numbers on the Live Register. It is a community work placement initiative which aims to provide short-term work opportunities for those who are unemployed for more than a year.

Unlike the Community Employment (CE) programme which has its main focus on training, Tús focuses on long-term fully unemployed people, and is specifically designed to break the cycle of unemployment.

The eligibility criteria for Tús were set to reflect a number of inter-related elements. These include the need to ensure that limited numbers of placements available are open to those on the live register and that such customers have not already had an opportunity to engage in other activation programmes, the only exception being the JobPath programme.

This ensures that as many people who are fully unemployed for more than 12 months and who have not benefited from other activation measures are able to benefit from the Tús initiative. For this reason, persons who have engaged in CE are not eligible for Tús unless they have returned to the live register and been in receipt of a Jobseekers Allowance payment for at least 12 months.

The following table shows the number of participants in County Kildare that commenced on Tús in each of the years requested 2017, 2018 and to-date in 2019.

Table 1