Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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156. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the funding that will be provided to deliver the 150 employment case officer job coaches during 2021 to conduct 1,600,000 one-to-one case worker and jobseeker meetings over a rolling 12-month period as outlined in the Economic Recovery Plan 2021. [32274/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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As outlined under the Government’s Economic Recovery Plan, which was launched on June 1st 2021, a central focus of the recovery process will be on helping people get back to work, through the provision of employment support, additional training and work placement opportunities.

Central to achieving this objective will be the Government’s forthcoming national employment services strategy, ‘Pathways to Work 2021-2025’, which is currently being finalised by my Department. By increasing labour market supports, and through the provision of employment support, activation and skills opportunities, the Pathways to Work strategy will act as a key delivery mechanism of the Economic Recovery Plan’s second pillar ‘Helping People Back into Work’.

In supporting people back into employment, the Pathways to Work 2021–2025 strategy will seek to minimise any long-term scarring effects of the pandemic on the labour force for those whose jobs are permanently lost while providing support to those unemployed pre-pandemic. The Strategy will also set out how an expanded Public Employment Service will utilise its existing and expanded capacity to deliver effective services in a post-COVID labour market with an overall target of increasing the caseload capacity by 100,000 per annum.

In expanding the capacity of the Public Employment Service and Intreo Centres, my Department committed, under the July Jobs Stimulus last year, to the assignment of 100 Job Coaches to provide enhanced employment services and supports. As part of the forthcoming Pathways to Work strategy, this has been increased to 150 Job Coaches, to further build on this capacity and what will be a crucial resource in assisting our recovery efforts. At present, 84 of these Job Coaches are currently in place.

The annual cost of the assignment of 150 Job Coaches is estimated at €7.1 million, based on relevant annual average salary.

I trust this clarifies matters for the Deputy.