Vol. 506 No. 5
21 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment when an announcement will be made on the future of the jobs initiative scheme; the future prospects of the 1,000 original participants; if, and when, it is intended to terminate their employment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15861/99]
Job initiative participants have access to three years temporary employment. The 1999 budget added an additional 875 places to job initiative provision, bringing the total number of places available to 2,875.
My Department has commissioned Deloitte & Touche to undertake a review of the programme and this is well under way. Its report is expected in July. In parallel, my Department has consulted job initiative stakeholders and this process, too, will help inform future policy.
The issue of a further extension for the current participants has also been raised with me but I do not wish to make further decisions until I have completed the evaluation.
Does the Tánaiste realise that a great many of those 2,875 people are seeking guidance from her on their future after the scheme concludes for them? Is she aware, despite her opening remark that these people are employed on schemes for three years, people have been told they will be disemployed after much less than three years and, in some cases, after two years? Is she aware FÁS told the participants in her constituency that the first 1,000 would be disemployed from November and that they would receive redundancy payments? Will she comment on that?
We have not fully filled the complement of 2,875 places – the last budget added 875 places but they have not all been taken up yet. As the Deputy is aware, when this initiative was first introduced it was done with a view to giving three years involvement in a programme of this kind to those who have been unemployed for more than five years. They were not intended to be full-time public sector jobs.
Having said that, I said to the Deputy on a previous occasion in this House that I want to adopt a flexible approach. People cannot stay on the programme forever because that would mean others could not have access to it. We cannot make it a permanent feature. However, we need some degree of flexibility in some cases, in terms both of individuals and the nature of the work being undertaken. I hope that when I receive the evaluation in July, in advance of when decisions have to be made in the autumn, we will be in a position to introduce that element of flexibility.
I am well aware of what is happening in my constituency. Anyone who was in any doubt was well reminded about it during the recent local elections.
What does that mean?
I do not know what the Tánaiste's last remark was about. I wish to ask her again if she knows that persons in her own constituency who are participating in the job initiative scheme have been told they will be let go after less than three years participation and, in some cases, after as little as two years participation. Am I interpreting her remarks correctly when I say the scheme itself will continue?
Is she aware, in regard to all the places not being taken up, that people are being offered contracts for only the duration of the scheme? In other words, where someone had served on the scheme for two and a half years, for example, someone else is being offered that job for only the remaining six months. Does she accept that offering someone a job for six months rather than three years is an entirely different proposal to what was intended under the scheme?
I am aware of what the Deputy is suggesting. That is not the intention. I envisage a continuing role for the job initiative programme. However, as the Deputy knows, we also have proposals for the social economy and community employment schemes. I am keen that everything should be reasonably well integrated so that there will be clarity as to what each programme is intended for. Many are targeted at the same people. What is important is not what the programmes are called but the useful work they do and the useful experience they give to people who have been long-term unemployed. We are virtually down to the core level of unemployment in our society. It is probably under 6 per cent taking into account the latest quarterly survey which was published recently. If that is factored into the way the live register is calculated, unemployment has probably gone below 6 per cent. We hope to reach a target of 5 per cent by the end of next year. We are now dealing with the very hard cases and we need imaginative responses to those cases if we are to access opportunities for them. It is not intended that this programme should end. It is intended that whatever reform takes place, it should be subject to some degree of flexibility both in terms of the programmes themselves and the individuals who participate in them. As soon as I conclude my deliberations on the evaluation, which will be while the Dáil is in recess, I will revert to the Deputy.
I take it from what the Minister has said that the programme will continue. Do I also take it that she is expressing disapproval of the practice of offering people six or nine months' participation, as is happening currently? Does she acknowledge the difference between those participating in the social economy and those participating in useful community work? For example, how does she purport to deal with the situation where a small number of workers have been involved in, say, a co-operative project and have really put in the hours above and beyond the call of duty to try to make that co-operative viable? Can it be proposed that, having the prospect of turning the corner after three years, those people will be disemployed? Does she accept it would be entirely impractical to say that the 15 current workers would be out and 15 new ones brought in to do the jobs the previous workers built up?
The time for that question is now up. We must proceed to Question No. 22.
Can I get an answer?
Unfortunately the time is up. We cannot exceed the time limit.
The Deputy may get an answer on the next question.
This is an absurdity that we have inflicted on ourselves.
