Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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856. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if a person in receipt of a jobseeker's payment who has applied for and been accepted for a community employment scheme can and should be pursued by Turas Nua simultaneously so as to be removed from social protection payments of any kind and return to work; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32572/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware the primary goal of my Department’s activation services including the JobPath service, is to move people from full-time and part-time unemployment to full-time and sustained employment.

Once a jobseeker is referred to JobPath, they must complete the requisite time with the service. This is necessary to allow the jobseeker to get the optimum benefit and it allows the JobPath service providers sufficient time to work with the jobseeker to develop skills and competencies.

From the 1st June 2018, persons availing of the JobPath service may also participle on CE or Tús Schemes, thus facilitating the combination of the strengths of the two programmes. In particular, it enables those people with the JobPath service to not only continue to receive the personalised employment counselling and job search support provided by their JobPath personal advisors but also to avail of a CE or Tús placement which provides valuable occupational activity and work experience.

This facilitates the combination of the strengths of the two programmes - by enabling those people with the JobPath service who also avail of a CE or Tús placement to benefit from the job-seeking support of their JobPath personal advisor while also availing of a part-time work placement provided by Tús, or a quality training and development opportunity provided by a CE scheme.

The JobPath service is adapted to cater for those who opt to take up CE or Tús schemes and all meetings and activities are scheduled to take account of the Scheme commitments. For example if a person is committed to participate in the employment scheme for 5 mornings, any JobPath meetings and other interventions will be scheduled for the afternoons. The JobPath companies will continue to provide all the supports which it currently provides. CE and Tús providers do not have to make any changes to their operations.