asked the Minister for Labour the criteria for Teamwork and other schemes operated in his Department; the way in which these are justified; whether the criteria involved pose any particular problems; the way in which the assertion that the people who are long-term unemployed are most in need can be justified without reference to other criteria; and if he will review the scheme so that people who are most entitled to the work and who are most capable of doing the work will get the jobs regardless of the length of time they have been out of work.
Written Answers. - Departmental Schemes Criteria.
93.
In brief, FÁS employment and training schemes assist early school leavers and the unemployed to obtain jobs and also assist the expansion of employment. In addition, the schemes have the objective of being cost effective to the Exchequer when account is taken of social welfare savings and other receipts to the State. The criteria for admission to a particular scheme reflects the objectives of that scheme and the needs of the group being catered for, e.g., early school leavers, other young people, long-term unemployed, etc.
The objective of Teamwork is to help young unemployed persons through assisting local voluntary organisations provide temporary community based employment for the mutual benefit of the young people and the communities. By way of comparison, the objective of the building on experience programme is to reintegrate the long term unemployed into the labour market. The objective of FÁS community training workshops and skills foundation programmes is to assist the early school leavers with little or no qualifications to make the difficult transition from the world of education to the world of work.
As regards questions over the criteria adopted for admission to schemes, the Deputy will be aware from answers I gave to questions earlier this year that claims are currently under examination within the employment equality area about the eligibility of married women for participation in schemes. FÁS or myself are, of course, prepared to examine any problems or difficulties identified by the Deputy.
With regard to the long-term unemployed, there are at present 109,000 persons who have been unemployed for more than a year and this represents 46 per cent of the total unemployed. The corresponding figures for 1979 were 30,000 and 34 per cent respectively.
The severe financial, social and other problems of the long-term unemployed have been pointed out by community and social workers and have also been well documented in research. In addition, the indications are that even with a pick-up in the economy the long-term unemployed have, for a number of reasons, difficulty in getting jobs and are last to be taken on by an employer. Against this background, my policy is to assist as many long-term unemployed by way of training and temporary work as I can within the resources available to me. In the present year, about 19,300 long-term unemployed persons will be assisted by employment and training programmes.