Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 November 2017
596. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to set out the number of persons who have had sanctions imposed on their payments in the context of the JobPath scheme since inception to date in 2017; the number of persons disqualified from receiving payments for the same period; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [49258/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Deputy will be aware, JobPath is a service that supports people who are long-term unemployed and those most at risk of becoming long-term unemployed to secure and sustain paid employment.
The service commenced operations in mid-2015, and reached full State-wide delivery of the service in July 2016.
In order to qualify for a jobseeker payment, a person must meet certain conditions, including the requirement to be available for, capable of and genuinely seeking full-time work. A range of sanctions, including disqualification, closure or disallowance of the jobseeker claim, may be imposed where a client fails to meet the stated conditions. A jobseeker claim may be reviewed at any time in order to establish continued entitlement.
Additionally, in relation to activation services, legislation provides that further sanctions/penalties in the form of reduced payments may be imposed by a Deciding Officer where clients fail, without good cause, to comply with activation measures. Activation measures include the requirement to attend group or individual meetings with case officers and/or avail of suitable education, training or development opportunities, or specified employment programmes, which are considered appropriate to a person’s circumstances.
Where a person continues to fail, without good cause, to comply with activation measures, while on a penalty rate, he/she may be disqualified from receiving the personal rate of payment. The normal rate of payment may be reinstated at any time, if the jobseeker complies, as requested, with activation measures.
It is important to note that the rules and processes for the application of a reduced rate of payment are the same across all of the Department’s activation services, whether they are delivered directly by the Department’s own Intreo service or through its contracted services such as the Local Employment Service (LES) or JobPath service.
Only a departmental official - and not contractor’s staff - can make a decision to apply a reduced rate of payment. Contractors have no role in the decision making process. The process with regard to such decisions includes written/verbal warnings from a departmental official and an opportunity for the jobseeker to re-engage with the services prior to the application of a reduced payment rate.
Up to the end of October 2017 approximately 9,000, or 6.9% of the total 129,000 clients who engaged with the JobPath service between July 2015 and October 2017 have had, at some point, a penalty rate applied to their payment: some of these clients may have had the penalty rate applied after finishing their engagement period with the JobPath service, so the actual numbers who have had a penalty rate applied while with the JobPath service will be lower.
To be clear, the application of penalty rates is entirely a matter for my department and officials involved will take into account all relevant factors including where appropriate non-engagement with externally provided activation services. In this regard, while I am happy to advise the Deputy on penalty rates applied to those who have engaged with the JobPath service, the factors to be considered in applying a penalty rate precludes me from making a definitive statement that the sole context involved would have been non engagement with JobPath.
I hope this clarifies the matter for the deputy.
