Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 31 May 2017
29. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Social Protection if his attention has been drawn to the detrimental effect the Turas Nua scheme is having on participants, community employment schemes, Tús and other job placement schemes which have been the bedrock of communities over the years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26226/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraI too wish the Minister well in his efforts and travails to become party leader. I hope he took the advice of the Taoiseach this morning. They were very wise words.
As I understand it, once a person signs on with Turas Nua, he or she is prohibited from doing anything else for at least one year. This forces people to engage with Turas Nua or face a cut in their social welfare payments. As someone who has been involved in community employment since 1988 and knows the valuable work being done, I note that schemes are now finding it difficult to find participants. Once they go into Turas Nua which I call Turas Uafásach, they cannot get out. They are locked in for 12 months.
I thank the Deputy. I always listen to the advice of the Taoiseach and sincerely hope it will continue to be available to the Government and whoever takes up his position in the coming weeks.
The Minister was not always listening.
I always listen, although I may not necessarily always take advice.
The Minister is eating into his time.
The Minister has had his moments.
I am sure there are people whose advice is valued and listened to by the Deputy, although he may not necessarily always accept it.
Of course.
That is not related to the question.
I apologise.
Turas Nua Limited is one of two companies which my Department contracted for the delivery of JobPath services. Turas Nua is headquartered in Roscrea, County Tipperary, where it employs 39 people. The aim of the service is to assist jobseekers in finding sustainable full-time employment. This is in contrast to the community employment schemes which provide part-time employment and training opportunities in local communities as a stepping stone back to employment for people on a range of social welfare payments, including the long-term unemployed, those who are parenting alone or who are in receipt of other social welfare payments. The Deputy will appreciate that the welcome reduction in the unemployment rate is a factor in recruitment to all programmes. However, the data available to my Department show that the number of people who have participated in the various schemes since the introduction of JobPath in 2015 has been relatively stable.
I recently announced changes to the terms and conditions for participation in community employment schemes. The main purpose of the changes is to broaden the availability of the programme to a greater number of people on the live register and standardise other conditions around the length of time a person can participate in the programme. Among the changes I plan to introduce next month will be a reduction in the general qualifying age for those on the live register from 25 years to 21. This will give more young people the opportunity to participate in community employment schemes. In addition, I have agreed to review the current participation limits for older people and a decision will be made in this regard in the summer. As part of the implementation of the new measures, my Department is consulting with key stakeholders across the country. If any scheme is experiencing particular difficulties, it should contact the local Intreo office for assistance.
An analysis of employment outcomes for JobPath participants shows that they have a higher chance of securing and remaining in a job than others with a similar duration of unemployment. The complete details are available on the Department's website. Given that only a small number of people have completed their full engagement with JobPath, these results can only be treated as indicative at this stage. Nevertheless, they are very encouraging. My Department will be publishing similar performance reports for each successive quarter as jobseekers complete their 12-month engagement period, with the next results to be published in the coming weeks. In addition, my Department will have an econometric review of the JobPath service which will commence later this year when participant numbers will have reached a level to support a robust review.
I hope the Minister's engagement with schemes like mine and those of other Deputies will continue. He has said he will look at those aged over 55 years by the summer. I hope the new goodwill will still be shown, in whatever capacity the Minister is acting. There is a deeply frustrating inflexibility built into the system and we can only guess at whether it is by accident or design. If it is by accident, we must address the issue. I have said the following to the Minister on a number of times, as have others. I have been chairman of a scheme since 1998 which should have 17 participants. We are now short five and cannot find them, despite having approached the Intreo office and everybody else. They are all being sucked into Turas Nua which is aggressive in recruiting people because it is paid according to the number of participants in a scheme. It is deeply damaging to community employment schemes which are the backbone of many communities, urban and rural, from Tidy Towns to social care, visits to the elderly and community alert schemes. They are great schemes and I have been calling for years for a national audit of their value.
They are being undermined by Turas Nua. It needs to be looked at again because people are being brought in who are not suitable. They would much prefer to be out working in their communities. They are better equipped to do a variety of work in the community rather than sitting in an office in front of a computer. Many of them do not have the literary skillset or the passion for it. They like what they do.
We must observe the time.
I ask the Minister to review the scheme.
All schemes and services, whether community employment, Tús or JobPath, are paid by participant. The payment model may be different, but they are all paid by participant. We do not allow in any case people to chop and change from one programme to another while on it. We can imagine how difficult it would be to organise services if people could chop and change from one to the next two or three months into it.
I am not saying that.
People are expected to be on it for its entirety.
As I mentioned, a review is under way and it should be completed later this year. The results so far are very good and we must bear in mind what Turas Nua and Seetec aim to do. They aim to provide people with a system to get into full-time paid employment of 30 hours a week, which they sustain for more than three months. The results so far are very good. What we now see are many people who have spent a year on JobPath and who have not found full-time employment. Those people are all eligible for community employment. A greater effort needs to be made by the Department and community employment supervisors to identify the JobPath returnees. There are now tens of thousands of them who have been on JobPath for a year but have not found a full-time job. Surely they are ideal candidates for community employment. I would like to see them filling the vacancies.
Our supervisor is doing a great job, but he is ringing social welfare offices and everybody else but cannot get them. There is a huge logjam. The spirit of what is supposed to be done by JobPath is fine, but it involves private companies. It is regressive. The forerunner of one of the companies had difficulties in England.
My colleague, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, wanted to ask this question but could not get to it. He and other colleagues from throughout the country know of awful cases where people have to walk or cycle miles because they do not have transport to go to an office in a town. They would love to be at home in their village or community doing work on a community employment scheme. This would be meaningful work, which is very badly needed and which local authorities and the HSE have abandoned. I ask the Minister to look at this. It is regressive. It involves private companies and I do not like this aspect of it.
What I meant about getting paid is that the people are paid by the Department of Social Protection but the company gets paid based on the number of participants that come through the door and are signed up. This is what I meant. I do not mean people jumping from scheme to scheme. I ask for fair play for community employment, Tús and other schemes, which provide huge necessary work that is not being done at present, and cannot be done because people are being sucked into JobPath, or Turas Nua as it is called, and it is not satisfactory. There are problems and I hope the Minister, and his successor if he leaves, will look at this.
The funding model is a registration fee of approximately €1,000 for each participant, and any payment that follows only arises if somebody finds full-time employment and stays in it for more than three months. Certainly if there are community employment schemes and local employment services which want to move to the JobPath model of funding I will be happy to entertain it.
I am not saying that.
I have not come across any yet which would like to give up its block grant and move to that level of funding.
I am not saying that. The Minister is being mischievous now.
I have been in Turas Nua and Seetec officers in various parts of the country. At a time when Government offices and post offices are closing down throughout the country Seetec and Turas Nua are opening offices all over the place, often in very rural locations. This should be noted and regarded as a positive. I accept there is an issue with transport costs, and it is something the Department is working on, recognising that where there is no public transport in place travelling to the office can be a very high cost to bear. This is something we have under examination.
