Claire Kerrane
Question:77. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will carry out a review of the JobPath scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15344/23]
Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions
Job Creation
Does the Minister intend to carry out a review of the JobPath scheme now that referrals to that scheme have ceased? Given the amount of taxpayers’ money that has been spent on JobPath, it is very important that the scheme be reviewed now that referrals have ceased or else to have a guarantee that such a review will take place once it is fully finished.
As the Deputy will be aware, referrals to the JobPath service have now ceased and the service is in a run-off phase, with only clients referred up to June 2022 remaining engaged with the service. Research into JobPath, including by the OECD, indicates that the programme led to positive employment and earnings outcomes across a variety of hard-to-reach groups.
As part of a restructuring of employment services, my Department has increased its employment service capacity delivered through Intreo and has expanded employment services in some areas of the State where there were no local employment services with the introduction of the new Intreo partners model - the Intreo partners local area employment service and the Intreo partners national employment service. Continuous stakeholder engagement with both local and national service providers has been key to both the development and successful implementation of this new employment services delivery model.
A distinctive client journey has been embedded into the employment services process whereby jobseekers on the live register, after engaging with Intreo in the first 12 months, are referred first to the Intreo partners national employment service, and after 24 months to the Intreo partners local area employment service, which is designed to engage with those with greater barriers to the labour market. In this way, the client is referred to the most appropriate service at each point in time on their client journey.
Employment is now at among the highest levels in the history of the State, with over 2.55 million people in employment. Notwithstanding this, my Department keeps all employment services and supports under review so they continue to meet the needs of our clients. A mid-term review of the actions and commitments in the Pathways to Work strategy is under way at present to ensure they remain relevant and effective in improving the employment prospects and outcomes for people under-represented in the labour market. A public consultation is ongoing with a closing date of this Friday, 31 March. I hope this answers the matter for the Deputy.
I thank the Minister for the reply. The JobPath scheme has cost over €322 million of taxpayers’ money. Any time I hear a Government representative speaking about JobPath, they speak of it as a success. However, I cannot understand how 350,488 people were referred to JobPath, some twice, some three times and a very few a fourth time, and then that was stopped. Some 29,041 people have found work that has been sustained for one year, which is 8% of total referrals finding a job for one year. At the committee in February, the Minister said some 32,000 people remain on the scheme. That leaves 318,000, and as 29,000 have got a job, it means some 289,000 people were referred to a scheme that cost over €300 million of taxpayers’ money and got nothing at the end of it. In light of that and of the fact that this is taxpayers’ money going to private companies, will the scheme be reviewed once it finishes?
As the Deputy knows, JobPath is being wound down. No new referrals are being made but existing participants are being allowed to finish their engagements, which is fair enough. With regard to a review, we already did a comprehensive review in conjunction with the OECD back in 2019. As the Deputy well knows, we have been through the findings many times before. In short, the OECD found that people who engaged with JobPath had a better chance of getting a job and were also more likely to have higher earnings than those who did not engage with the service. My focus is now very much on the future. JobPath was of its time. It was there at a time when we had high levels of unemployment. Thankfully, we are not in that space any more. The Government can be accused of a lot of things but the one thing we cannot be accused of is not helping people into work. We have record levels of employment in the country. More than 2.57 million people are at work. More people are working than ever before.
To be fair, I am not actually accusing the Government of anything but the figures speak for themselves. Some 350,000 people were referred to a scheme and 29,000 secured work that lasted for a year. It should also be borne in mind that referral fees of €311 were paid to private companies, in some instances two, three or four times in respect of the same person. Over €300 million of taxpayers' money was paid to private companies. We had great difficulty in getting information about the many fees involved in JobPath. We ended up getting it through the Committee of Public Accounts a number of years ago. I do not believe that review of 2019 is sufficient when we are talking about these amounts of taxpayers' money being paid out for a scheme that has not worked. Anyone in this House who would say that a success rate of 8% of people securing employment is value for money is joking. Given the level of taxpayers' money involved and the involvement of private companies, I again ask the Minister for the scheme to be reviewed with regard to the number of people who sourced employment. It is a very reasonable ask given the amount of money concerned.
As I said, we have been through this on a number of occasions. The Deputy has one view and I have a set of figures. JobPath is a mechanism through which support is provided to long-term unemployed jobseekers through access to employment assistance and advice for a period of 12 months. It follows a payment-by-results model and is associated with day-to-day operational costs. The risks were borne by the contractors. They are paid on the basis of performance and, with the exception of the initial registration fee, payments are made only when a client achieves sustained full-time employment. Job sustainment fees are payable for each of the 13-week periods of sustained employment, up to a maximum of 52 weeks. As of the end of January, some 351,273 jobseekers had commenced engagement with the JobPath service. In the same period, 87,528 jobseekers had commenced employment during their engagement with JobPath. As I said, my Department is currently doing a full review of the national employment strategy, Pathways to Work, because that strategy was launched during the pandemic when we thought we were going to have high levels of unemployment. We are in a different landscape now so we need to review Pathways to Work in the context of an economy that is at full employment.
Deputy Bríd Smith sends her apologies.
Question No. 78 taken with Written Answers.
Community Employment Schemes
Claire Kerrane
Question:79. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will consider extending the reduced qualifying period for community employment, CE, schemes from 12 months on the live register to nine months for all qualifying social welfare payments, in view of the recent announcement made regarding Ukrainian nationals; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15345/23]
I welcome the recently announced changes to CE schemes. However, I do not believe they go far enough. With regard to the reduction of the qualifying period from 12 months to nine months in respect of Ukrainian refugees, will the Minister of State consider extending that reduction across the board given the high and growing number of vacancies on CE schemes?
CE schemes across the country play a vital role in providing essential services to local communities. Since December 2021, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and I have been pleased to announce a number of reforms and enhancements to the scheme including, most recently, the extension of the criteria of those who can participate on CE schemes to the adult dependents of those in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance and, in support of Ukrainian nationals living here, a reduction in the live register qualifying period from 12 to nine months. This reduction is designed to take into account the fact that many Ukrainian refugees spent a number of months on supplementary welfare allowance prior to transferring to their jobseeker's payments. As a consequence, if we had not reduced the qualifying period, many people who arrived last March would not be eligible for a CE placement until June 2023. This change enables the Department and CE sponsor organisations to work with and provide further support and assistance to Ukrainians to improve their language skills and integrate with their communities while also supporting those schemes in continuing to deliver vital local services.
CE is an active labour market programme designed to provide long-term unemployed people and other disadvantaged people with an opportunity to engage in useful work within their communities. It is important that the scheme continues to be available for those who would benefit most from their participation. This continues to be those who have been out of work for a year. There are no plans to change the 12-month eligibility rule at present. The eligibility criteria for CE continue to be kept under active review by my Department to ensure the best outcomes for individual participants, to support vital community services and to take account of changes to the labour market.
I thank the Minister of State for his response. I remember raising concerns with regard to CE and the number of vacancies when there were 1,200, 1,300 and 1,400 vacancies on CE schemes posted online. Today, there are more than 3,600. It is an excellent scheme, as the Minister of State knows. I know he engages with the organisers, which is really important, but, at the end of the day, what has been announced will not go far enough when we have more than 3,600 vacancies and that figure is rising. We really need to go further if those vacancies are to be filled. I met with representatives of a CE scheme last week. There should be 27 participants on the scheme. There are 16. If the rules in respect of eligibility in particular do not change, it will be left with nine. It is not getting referrals from the Department and it is struggling to fill its places. That is seen right across the board. There is also a major issue with Department referrals. In the previous announcement of changes, it was said that referrals would be ramped up. Will the Minister of State give us an update on referrals from the Department, because it is a really important issue?
As the Deputy is aware, I monitor the figures closely. We have changed eligibility criteria and the pool of eligible people twice in the past 12 months. That has allowed us to stay static in the last 12 months, which has been an achievement in itself. There is a constant flow in. The number of starters on CE schemes last month, 594, was high when compared to previous months. In previous months, the number was around the 500 mark. There were 800 in September last year. Obviously, people are also leaving. We are in a static state, which is why we have brought in two new additional measures. The qualified adult measure will broaden the pool by a good few thousand people. Ukrainian refugees are now eligible. The number of these eligible will ramp up in April and May, the months in which the number of people coming to the country peaked. Before we look at further policy changes, we first need to see the impact of this one.
Going on that, perhaps a broadening of that reduction from 12 to nine months beyond just those from our new communities could be looked at later in the year or even after the summer because, at the end of the day, there is a very high number of vacancies. The Minister of State will have been told the same thing I have been, which is that projects are not getting referrals and are struggling to fill places, which is putting really important community services on the line in an awful lot of areas where those services would simply not exist without CE schemes. Scheme supervisors in particular are being put under great pressure. They are not getting referrals from the Department. That needs to be looked at. It has been an issue for a very long time. Schemes are not getting people through and not filling their places. Alarm bells should be ringing when there are 3,600 vacancies and that number is increasing. A very close eye needs to be kept on that. As I have said, I welcome the changes that have been announced. I believe they will make a difference but they need to go further.
The number of vacancies is largely stable, although that is, of course, not good enough. We want to push the number down further. With regard to changes to policy and eligibility, we are open to looking at a lot of them and have made quite a few over the past 12 months, as I have said. On the 12-month rule, I am reluctant to go there because the scheme is designed for a cohort of people who generally find it difficult to get employment and our general marker for that is 12 months' unemployment. I am not ruling it out but it is not the first change we think of with regard to broadening the eligible pool. The Deputy will see a change in the next few months.
I could be proven wrong when we come back here. In terms of the eligible pool of people, it will increase significantly, particularly in April and May.
As always, we will monitor. We will see how the policy changes impact the referral rates.
I should say as well that there are increased intensive efforts on the referral side from officials around the country and there has been a new structure to bump up the referrals.
Departmental Offices
Peadar Tóibín
Question:80. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will reopen a full-time social protection office in Castlepollard, County Meath. [15407/23]
Castlepollard is a vibrant, strong rural town. It has a hinterland that stretches for miles. Like many other rural towns, it has been devastated in recent years by the closure of a number of key businesses and services within that town. It lost banks, it has lost shops, etc. The latest blow to Castlepollard has been the closure by Fine Gael of the full-time social welfare office in the region. It is nearly a year since the Minister closed that office. Will the Minister give some hope to the people in the region that this office will be opened again on a full-time basis?
I thank the Deputy for raising this. First, we did not close the branch office.
Branch offices are privately run small offices that, in the main, accept and validate applications for jobseeker and one-parent family payments and then pass them on to the Department's national processing team for processing and payment. They can also provide public service card registrations and act as outreach offices for other services, including employment and community welfare services on a part-time basis.
Castlepollard branch office closed on 8 April 2022 at the request of the then branch office manager who, unfortunately, had to retire due to ill health. Since then, an outreach service continues to be provided in the county council offices, Mullingar Road, Castlepollard every Tuesday and Wednesday each week.
My Department closely monitors all relevant data in regard to the service provision in this and all other localities. A total of 366 new claims, or approximately seven per week, across all schemes were registered in Castlepollard in the last year. This level of activity would not justify the opening of a full-time social welfare office but the situation will be kept under review.
In addition, we have maintained an outreach service there. There has been no reduction in service levels by the Department in relation to activation measures, community welfare support or inspector activities. Customer claims can also be taken and validated, as before, in the outreach centre.
People in the Castlepollard area are also fully supported by Mullingar Intreo Centre where customers are welcome to conduct their business by attending in person, emailing mullingar@welfare.ie or via the dedicated phone line. The Department's services are also available through digital and online channels at MyWelfare.ie.
As a result of these options, the closure of the branch office has not impacted speed of claim processing. All new claims, whether received in the outreach centre or via other channels, are processed now, as before the branch office closure, by the Department's national processing team in a timely manner.
The Minister is saying on one level that she did not close it and on another level that it is only operational two days a week because there is not enough business to go through it.
I told the Deputy the position. That is not true.
The Minister is responsible for the delivery of that service in towns such as Castlepollard.
The Minister goes on to say people can travel down the road to Mullingar. The Minister may not be aware that in many regional rural towns there are difficulties with public transport. There are definitely difficulties with private transport currently for many people on lower incomes given the price of fuel as well.
Let me tell the Minister that the closure of this service has had an enormous impact on spend. It was nearly a Freudian slip from the Minister in relation to the effect of spend in the town. When you have a full-time service such as this one, it brings people in and when they are in the town of Castlepollard, they go about their daily business.
Castlepollard Local Development group has made numerous efforts to reach out to the Minister and ask her to talk to it about the future of this office to see whether the group can provide a location for it. There is the former Bank of Ireland location there, which has been turned into beautiful new offices, which would make a wonderful location for this and which would have the effect of revitalising Castlepollard. I would urge the Minister to meet with the Castlepollard Local Development group.
First, and I would like the Deputy to listen to this, I did not close this office. It was being run by a branch manager on a contract. Unfortunately, he got sick, he had to retire and that is why the office closed.
My Department acted quickly to put alternative arrangements in place to serve the people of Castlepollard. We keep this under review on an ongoing basis but we have to target resources where the demand is. If the claim load increases and we need to expand the services, we will do that.
There is a misunderstanding here. No payments are collected in the social welfare office. They are collected in the post office. People continue to collect their payments and the footfall is still there from people collecting their payments. Indeed, when Covid restrictions passed, I was the one who made the decision that people would go back and collect their money in the post office. When they do that, they are more likely to spend their money locally.
I want to see people spending their money locally, just as the Deputy does. I worked closely with Mr. Ned O'Hara and the Irish Postmasters' Union to make sure that people went back into the post office.
The Minister should not mention post offices because her party has closed hundreds of them over the past number of years.
The Deputy is talking nonsense.
In fairness, the Government's approach to rural Ireland is not about keeping key services functioning in those towns so that people will come into them and then spend and shop elsewhere, but is, as I stated previously, like a landlord of old, to throw money up in the air and let the peasants tip around the ground and see can they pick up those pennies. That is a culture of dependency. What I am talking about is different. It is about building towns and villages in rural Ireland and regional Ireland that can grow and prosper on their own basis. That is what we need.
We in Aontú have collected hundreds of petitions in Castlepollard and the surrounding area in an effort to reopen it.
The Minister was the first to give out about the banks when they closed the cash machines in areas saying that they should not have done so without negotiation with the local people. Here the Minister is closing this service as a full-time service without negotiation with people. If the Minister even looks at the Castlepollard Local Development group, it has managed to bring back an automated teller machine, ATM, into the area. There is an opportunity to reopen this service in the former Bank of Ireland offices. I would urge the Minister to sit down with the group and make sure that there is a future for that town.
My record, in terms of the investment that has gone into rural Ireland through the Rural Regeneration Fund and, indeed, a plethora of other funds, is second to none.
We are supporting the Castlepollard regeneration project with a grant of €3.8million. The project will have additional match funding from Westmeath County Council. It will bring the total amount of investment in Castlepollard to €4.7 million. I can tell the Deputy that is no pennies; that is €4.7 million of investment. It will refurbish the Market House, bringing vitality and viability to Castlepollard town centre.
It is fair to say that, in terms of rural Ireland, my Department has not been found wanting. As I said to the Deputy previously, we keep all of these issues under review in terms of the workload and the demand for services in particular areas.
Question No. 81 taken with Written Answers.