Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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76. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her views regarding the level of abuse by employers of the Work Placement Experience Programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5469/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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WPEP is a key policy initiative under the Government's national employment services strategy; Pathways to Work 2021-2025. It is a funded work placement scheme to provide work experience for 10,000 jobseekers who have been unemployed for more than six months, including time spent on the pandemic unemployment payment (PUP). Participation on WPEP is entirely voluntary. All participants are paid €311 per week plus any social welfare increases for qualified adults and children.

All host organisations and individual placements are checked for compliance and quality assurance purposes prior to being advertised on the Department’s recruitment website, JobsIreland.ie. A placement is not approved or published if the placement does not meet the stringent criteria set for the programme.

During placements there is close monitoring of participants and host organisations to ensure all the conditions of the scheme are being met, thereby ensuring that any potential difficulties are identified and resolved. Host organisations must complete monthly compliance checklists for all placements and return the completed checklists to my Department. My Department also undertakes two monitoring meetings to ensure that the terms and conditions of the programme are being fulfilled by both host organisations and participants.

Any issues relating to participation on the WPEP are dealt by the Department’s case officers as part of the ongoing monitoring of the programme and the individual placement.

Since the programme was launched July 2021, these arrangements have been working very well for the benefit of unemployed persons gaining valuable work experience which have been demonstrated to improve their long term employment prospects. Where issues arise, I am satisfied that there are procedures in place to deal with and resolve these issues quickly. To date, there is no evidence of any level of abuse by employers of the programme.

I trust this clarifies matters for the Deputy.