Vol. 476 No. 1
50 Mr. Andrews asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment if he intends to modify the employment schemes to suit the needs of the tourism industry; if he will extend the qualifying period for employment schemes, which now exclude seasonal tourism enterprises, to include such enterprises; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6003/97]
I take it the Deputy is referring to Jobstart which was introduced in 1996.
Jobstart is a recruitment subsidy scheme, aimed at enticing employers to fill new or existing vacancies with long-term unemployed persons. The overall thrust of the scheme is to increase the proportion of jobs in the economy filled by those unemployed for three years or more against a background where such persons are often by-passed in job selection.
In designing the scheme discussions took place between IBEC, ICTU, INOU and other interested parties. All of these bodies considered it important that State subsidies should go towards on-going job opportunities for the long-term unemployed in order to avoid potential abuse through the use of the subsidy by some employers as a stop gap measure. Hence the programme is targeted at full-time employment, including such employment in the tourism industry.
In addition, continuity of employment is required since the aim of the programme is to reintegrate long-term persons back into the labour force. A season of work followed by a return to the live register is not seen as achieving this objective.
For these reasons I have no plans at present to modify the programme to include seasonal employment.
