The report in question, Labour Market Participation of the Over 55s in Ireland, was commissioned by Forfás on behalf of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs and the National Competitiveness Council. The report looks at ways of increasing the participation in the labour force of that group and makes a number of policy recommendations including: (1) measures to increase the awareness of the importance of older workers; (2) measures to facilitate flexible working practices; (3) identification and reduction of disincentives to gradual retirement that may be embedded in pension schemes or taxation arrangements; (4) measures to combat age discrimination.
The recommendations in the report require consideration across a number of areas of Government policy, including pensions, taxation, equality, promotion of employment and training. There are currently no plans for any pilot projects on foot of the findings of the Forfás report.
At present, FÁS engages directly with older unemployed persons that are referred by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs under the Government's employment action plan as they reach a nine-month duration of unemployment. The aim of this approach is to prevent the drift into long-term unemployment by providing suitable job opportunities, training or other employment supports.
With regard to Donegal, since 1998 FÁS has responded to factory closures by implementing a process of individual interaction with each interested worker who has been made redundant. This interaction takes the form of a quality registration interview. The process enables FÁS to carry out a skills and training needs analysis, which it uses to set up training initiatives that are matched to both the worker's needs and to the identified needs of local industry. The skills analysis produced by FÁS is made available to all the relevant bodies in Donegal to assist in the attraction of new industry. For the client, a dedicated employment services officer puts a personal action plan in place. This action plan takes the form of training, retraining, work practice; a job or other employability measures.
