The Government decided on 29 March 1999 to put in place new organisational arrangements for the management, development and operation of the public employment services. In essence, these involve the assimilation of the local employment service (LES) under FAS, as a discrete component of a more integrated, dual-stranded National Employment Service, the other component being the existing FAS employment service.
To oversee the new arrangements, an employment service advisory committee will be established within FÁS which will have responsibility for advising on the operation and development of all components of the national employment service function, including the LES. The overall objective of this is to give the best possible service to job seekers The advisory committee will comprise representatives from my Department, the Department of Finance, the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs, the Department of Education and Science, IBEC, ICTU, a FÁS worker director, together with a representative each from INOU, PLANET, the representative body of the Partnerships, ADM and the LES co-ordinators.
My priority is to achieve greater co-ordination and complementarity between the two strands of our employment services. Now that a clear decision has been made to bring the services together, my Department is considering the operational and management issues which need to be resolved.