Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 May 1996

Vol. 147 No. 2

Adjournment Matters. - Local Employment Service.

Ms O'Sullivan

As the Minister is aware, the proposals for a local employment service arise from the main recommendation of the NESF Report No. 4 on ending long-term unemployment, which was published in June 1994. The main tool in this is the use of mediators who will be based in communities and who will advise and guide the unemployed through the various routes to gaining employment. I welcome the fact that the Government responded positively to the NESF report by announcing in March 1995 the setting up of the local employment service and by allocating £6 million in that year, which included £1 million for local training and education funds, with the other £5 million coming from the Department.

However, reading the Revised Estimates for the Public Service, I am disappointed to note that only £1.37 million was spent in 1995, not even one-third of the allocation. Why was this the case? Were there problems in setting up the service and have they been overcome?

I welcome the progress that has been made in the 14 areas where the scheme has been set up. I also welcome the allocation of ongoing funding for 1996. Two of these areas are in my part of the country — one is in County Clare and the other in County Limerick. The scheme in County Clare is significant because it is one of only two that have been established in non-partnership areas.

I am pleased the County Limerick scheme has been setting a lead in many ways in the operation of the local employment service. It was launched by the Taoiseach approximately one month ago and is operating in association with the Paul Partnership, one of the partnership companies. It has already appointed six mediators and contact points have been established from where the mediators will operate.

The work of the mediators is the most important development in this proposal. An unemployed person can approach a mediator for help. Such people, especially if long-term unemployed, face a jungle of schemes, programmes courses and various routes back to work. Much of the time their self-esteem, interview skills, work experience and the kind of personal contacts they have are low and they have great difficulty dealing with the problem of getting back to work.

The job of the local employment scheme mediator is specifically to help people address these problems and anxieties. They must provide an all round package of support addressed to the individual's needs rather than simply putting the menu and options on the table. The important thing about the service is that it is tailor made, geared and targeted towards the individual's needs rather than simply providing a supply led or a demand led scheme. It, therefore, has much potential in this area.

This outreach work is an important new development. I ask the Minister to ensure it gets the full support and the kind of back up that will be needed. I welcome the detailed references to the local employment service in the new document from his Department, Growing and Sharing our Employment. There is a strong commitment to giving it the necessary support.

It is especially important that early school leavers are given special attention. There are very high levels of unemployment, especially for those who leave school without either a high level of education in terms of the length of time they spend in education or obtaining accreditation or qualification. In consequence, many such young people face a lifetime of unemployment if there is not positive intervention.

Their needs are varied, for example, they may require specific training. In view of this, it is important the Government monitors the scheme with regard to those aged 18 and 19 years so that gaps can be filled where they arise. At this stage we probably do not know what the needs of young people will be, and it will be necessary, therefore, to continue to monitor it on a long-term basis. There is also the danger that these young people fall into the trap of low wage jobs where, in many cases, they can be exploited because they do not have high levels of skills or qualifications. This is something that will have to be monitored also.

The local employment service will not in itself solve our unemployment problems but it can make a fundamental difference to the prospects of the long-term unemployed and to vulnerable young people. Our record on job creation has been good in relative terms, despite the problems about which we are aware today in Packard Electric Ireland Limited. However, even though we have made progress in terms of job creation, the rising tide does not lift all boats. Much of the good work that has been done has not made any material difference to long-term unemployed people. It is important, therefore, that we have a targeted scheme, such as the local employment service, which will deal with the problems in a practical way. I am anxious that it should be supported and monitored effectively.

I welcome the Minister's commitment to the service. I hope he will be able to reassure me that the scheme will be supported and continue to be implemented in the future.

Minister for Enterprise and Employment (Mr. R. Bruton)

I thank the Senator for raising this issue. I understand the frustration at the speed of getting a service of this kind into operation. However, the difficulty with such a service is that the core of it provides that proper plans be put together at local level, that they be based on proper consultation with all of the interest groups involved and that there be a careful working through of the priority groups. This would include the kind of people they would wish to serve, how they would best see a tailor made service developed in their area, the identification of the contact, the physical locations and the recruitment of staff, including trained staff.

Much time, more than was expected, had to be devoted to getting plans that were seen to be sufficiently focused. This involved working with a wide range of groups to achieve this consensus. The start up phase followed. This is why only £1.4 million was spent in 1995. While several plans had been approved, only three were in a position to draw down cash with services on line. However, the position is continually improving. Eleven of the plans are now approved and we expect that they will be operational in these 11 areas by the end of this month.

I have before me a rough outline of the details of what is in place. There are seven outlets ready for business. These are the local employment centres, which would have intensive guidance available to them. A further four are in preparation and temporary accommodation is being put in place for a further five. In the first ten of 11 areas, 58 staff have been appointed, In addition, 11 contact points are ready for business and another 44 specific contact points are in preparation. A great deal of work has advanced and we are in a position to have a good start up by the end of the month.

It took time because we were not willing to commit to something that was going to be half baked without being properly thought through at local level. We also wished it to be satisfactory from our perspective in that we wish to see this as an effective mechanism for tackling long-term unemployment. This means that there had to be interaction between my Department and those who were going to put the service in place.

The other element has been to secure co-ordination, co-operation and the necessary secondment across all State agencies. The key issue is to achieve greater co-ordination and co-operation in the delivery of services, and the preparation of the plans in different areas has already contributed to this. There is greater co-operation among the main service providers and that has helped to ensure that this will be a successful initiative.

The principle is to move from providing programmes and expecting people to slot in with them, even if they are square pegs in round holes, towards basing programmes on the needs of clients by developing a profile or career path tailored to the person's needs. That is a dramatic change in approach and requires intensive counselling levels. The ratio between counsellors or mediators and clients will be about 1:125. The service will therefore have to be developed slowly. However, when the service is fully operational in the 14 areas, I expect it to impact on thousands of people each year.

The Senator is also correct in pointing out that an effective guidance and counselling service that will bring people to a point where they are ready for employment and will lead them into jobs is not in itself an answer to long-term unemployment. We must also pursue other measures, some of which are outlined in the paper to which the Senator referred. The paper looks at specific impediments in the labour market which are holding back access to employment, reducing incentives to take up work and reducing incentives for employers to create employment. There is an ongoing programme by Government to continue the process of reducing the cost of creating employment and to make it more rewarding for those who take up employment.

In the paper we have also outlined certain areas where there are serious problems to be overcome, such as the case of single people who often find it difficult to get onto the bottom rung to work their way up because of the low rewards at that stage. We are looking at the possibility of introducing an income supplement for single people at the entry point to work. The idea would be to get more people in at the entry point and to help them work up the employment ladder. There are obviously concerns that it might create a low wage sub-culture, but getting into employment and working one's way up is important so we are keen to pilot this in unemployment blackspots.

There will also be a need to look at other aspects of how we address unemployment. The budget, for example, has introduced the concept of targeted subsidies for the long-term unemployed. Those types of subsidies will primarily be sold through the local employment service in the key 14 areas and it will be one of the measures the services will have at their disposal to advance their clients.

I am confident we will have an effective programme in place this year in each area. It will not be a quick fix. We must recognise that tackling long-term unemployment, which has grown continuously during recent years of strong economic performance, will be a slow job. We have halted the growth in long-term unemployment but we must bring the graph line back down and that will require work over a long period. I am convinced we can do it. We must address it. Otherwise we would rule out a large portion of our people from realistic participation in the economy.

The Government announced in the budget that measures would be introduced aimed at 18 and 19 year olds who are not in education, training or employment. We are working on the detail of that initiative with the Department of Social Welfare and FÁS. Important elements will have to be put in place before it can be effectively implemented. Having an adequate data base and information technology to set up an effective register would be an important first step. The aim of the programme will be to provide opportunities for 500 young unemployed people at any one time. After six months unemployment it would be a requirement that they register with FÁS. We will then move to provide them with realistic options as to how they can advance their employment opportunities.

It is crucial that we start to address the problems of 18 and 19 year olds who leave school without adequate qualifications and who, if they do not get into employment rapidly, can slip into a very interim relationship with the labour market and are at serious risk of disadvantage and becoming long-term unemployed. The key is to try to head off entry to long-term unemployment before the corrosive effects of a long period out of work take hold. That will be an important element of this programme and it will be built on the same principle of the LES — trying to create a programme that is well tuned to the needs of the client.

It is a new departure in policy and the NESF, rightly, recommended it. Senators will have to be patient in seeing it get off the ground and becoming effective. However, in the long term it is one of the means of ensuring that the substantial moneys we devote to training and employment schemes is really impacting for the long-term good of the people rather than providing a type of treadmill which they get onto for a while before leaving without permanent improvement. The approach is right. We want to ensure that when we put it in place it will have the confidence of the public. That is why it is taking longer than I and the Senator would have liked. Nonetheless, the time that has been devoted to preparing the ground work has been well used and will repay itself in the long-term impact of the programme.

The Seanad adjourned at 8.50 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 2 May 1996.