Vol. 465 No. 4
167 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the measures, if any, he has considered introducing to address the problem of escalating unemployment figures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9833/96]
A part from the ongoing activities of the agencies, FAS, Forbairt, IDA Ireland, SFADCo and the county enterprise boards, the Government has been responding to the particular problem of long-term unemployment through a variety of targeted measures. These include the development of more employment friendly taxation and social welfare regimes and the introduction in this year's budget of a series of precisely targeted employment measures: the splitting of the community employment, CE, programme into two distinct options — a part-time integration option and a part-time jobs option — and the better targeting of the programme at the long-term unemployed; the introduction of a new pilot whole-time jobs option; the introduction of a new recruitment subsidy scheme called Jobstart; the introduction of a new work experience programme called Work-Place; the introduction of special measures for 18-19 year olds; the extension of the back to work allowance scheme; and the retention of certain benefits for those returning to work.
The establishment of the local employment service represents an important component of the Government's response to tackling long-term unemployment. The distinctive additional elements of this service, in providing an individually tailored progression path towards employment for its clients and ensuring that there is well co-ordinated employment service delivery at local level, should yield real benefits in terms of securing employment for long-term unemployed persons, as the service develops. The fact that it is initially launched in 14 areas, including the major unemployment black spots in the country, means that it is first being targeted where it is most crucially needed.
My plans for 1996 are that the local employment service should be consolidated in these 14 areas and subject to an initial evaluation before the service is expanded on a planned basis to other areas. In this way we can ensure that the service is developed to maximum effect for its client population.
Training is an another important component in any measure of active labour market interventions aimed at addressing the problems of long-term unemployment, given the strong link between low levels of education attainment and long-term unemployment. I will be addressing this problem in the White Paper on Human Resource Development which I will be submitting to the Government shortly for consideration.
I have already published a strategy paper on the labour market and this will be followed by papers later this year on enterprise strategy, services and longer-term planning.
