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SOME JOBSEEKERS HAVE been referred to JobPath for a fourth time – having already completed the scheme.
Despite the Secretary General of the Department of Social Protection John McKeon stating that it was not possible for someone to be referred onto the programme for a fourth time, it has emerged that between July 2015 and the end of October 2019, 14 people were sent to do the programme for a fourth time having not gained employment.
JobPath is an employment activation service provided to people who have been on the live register for more than 12 months and are trying to secure and sustain full-time paid employment or self-employment.
Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane raised concerns this week about the statement made by the secretary general to the Dáil Public Accounts Committee.
When asked about the multiple referrals and if people can be sent to JobPath for a fourth time, McKeon said:
“I doubt it, I do not think so. Most people are referred once. A small number of people, around 30,000 or fewer, have been referred for a second time. A total of 1,000 people have been referred for a third time but within the year, they will not get an opportunity to go again.”
At this week’s PAC meeting, Cullinane highlighted that each client referral means the two private companies tasked to operate JobPath get paid repeated registration fees.
€207 million paid to date
The two private companies employed by the State, Turas Nua and Seetec, to operate the scheme have received €207 million to date to carry out its work.
The two contractors are paid to work with both the jobseekers and employers to identify employment opportunities. They receive payments when someone who has taken part in the scheme gains proven employment.
If someone completes the JobPath programme four times a referral fee of €311 is paid in respect of the same person four times. That is a total of €1,244 in referral fees for the same person.
Four registration payments for each of the 14 unique clients amounts to €17,416.
The latest figures, released to Sinn Féin’s John Brady, shows that 56 registration fees were paid to the two private companies for the fourth time.
“There is a cost involved every time somebody is referred…We are spending significant amounts of money on this and if it is the case that somebody is being placed for a third or fourth time, something is not working,” said Cullinane.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Brady said:
Every time we get updated figures on JobPath, they get worse and worse. JobPath has failed – it has not provided jobseekers with sustainable employment and for some, they are being referred over and over again.
Of the 207,769 jobseekers who engaged with JobPath between July 2015 and 2018 just 8.6% of them found employment which lasted one year.
This Government is handing over millions of taxpayers’ money to private companies when private companies should have no role in job activation in this State.
Sustainment payments are also made to the companies over the course of a year for each person who gets employed after the JobPath process.
TheJournal.ie revealed last year that the private companies contracted by the State to run the scheme are entitled to €3,718 for every jobseeker that gains sustained employment for one year through JobPath.
The latest JobPath figures show that the total number of people to engage with the programme between July 2015 and the end of October is 247,296.
Keeping down a job
However, for the same period, just 17,859 people have sustained employment after the programme for 52 weeks.
Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty has repeatedly defended the scheme. She extended the programme by 12 months despite the Dáil voting to end referrals of jobseekers to the JobPath scheme earlier this year.
Controversy has overshadowed the scheme over the years due to complaints from users of the service.
Earlier this year an Oireachtas committee was told that “a traveller was enrolled on a course that required reasonable levels of literacy despite having low levels of literacy and also had his CV amended against his wishes to conceal his ethnicity”.
Other examples highlighted at the committee meeting included an aspiring architect being directed to reduce her expectations and accept other work at their local employment office. A pregnant woman was also directed to accept work at a call centre in a location some distance away which had no suitable transport options.
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Farcical, how in God’s name can a person be referred four times and only 8.6% found employment which lasted a year, private companies on the gravy train.
@Honeybee: Those who are able to work but choose not to receive far too much support from the taxpayer. Dole should be cut by 50% after 18 months for those who choose it as a career.
@Melissa Mahony: if long term dole recipients were the only problem in this country itd be grand, far more taxpayers money is spent on corporate welfare and unvouched expenses
@Melissa Mahony: ..sure why not hang them all at dawn and be done with it ..??? …Social Welfare bashing in now a keyboard sport in Ireland.
@Melissa Mahony: I think it’s important to know that you & people with your views have no say in the running of the finances of the country because you have no serious solutions to the situation we find ourselves in. Blaming a tiny minority of people drawing social welfare has no bearing on an economy wasting huge sums on basic needs like printers.
@Melissa Mahony: Vast majority of unemployed are in that position because closure of the companies that they worked for. As for the use of taxpayers money you seem to have no problem with the banks who created this mess now in a position that they PAY NO TAX on their profits for the next 20years all with the blessing of the FFG government. Amazing how unemployed people become the target of those people who perceive taxpayers money being wasted yet see no problem in billions of taxpayers money being wasted on banks, Irish Water, and defending corporations from paying their fair of tax.
@Mjhint: ..well said
@CJ Stewart: Can’t say I’m a fan of the hanging at dawn bit, but if it was later in the day I might be persuaded; could we say … after lunchtime?
@Thomas Maher: How can you defend this?
@Melissa Mahony: who defended anything? Youre the kind of person that if a guy in a tracksuit stole 50c from you and a guy in a suit stole €50 youd chase the guy in the tracksuit
@Melissa Mahony: whats your opinion on Dara Murphy by the way? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/fg-s-dara-murphy-based-in-brussels-for-two-years-but-claiming-4-300-monthly-d%25C3%25A1il-allowance-1.4098598%3fmode=amp
@Melissa Mahony: I have worked all my life until laid off 3 years ago, now on my 2nd placement with these people I will be 62 next month and they want me to take a 3 year course in carpentry to increase my job skills. absolute madness. we are not all scroungers.
.
@Fachtna Roe: I hear your favorite sport is knuckle shuffling..your very good at it..
@Melissa Mahony: Melissa you really need to take a realty check lady.. you live in a world of pink fluffy clouds and flying pigs…You seem to have a very high opinion up on that high horse..thank god you only have this avenue to vomit your arrogant opinions in.. You probably blame the homeless, the poverty stricken, the jobless and every other poor bugger who doesn’t match your high standards as being lazy good-for-nothings.. Take a day off and play darts, or watch birds rather than comment..give us all a break
@Michael Bardon: well what would you like to do???
@Donal Desmond: the banks aren’t paying tax because tax law allows them to offset their losses.
You can’t just move the goal posts to suit yourself!
@Melissa Mahony: People like you and your sense of entitlement and your antipathy towards the less well off are the real spongers in this country.
Seetec which was introduced to Ireland by FFG’s Regina Doherty have been embroiled in scandal both here and in the UK and should be shut down immediately.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/dail-hears-fraud-concerns-connected-to-two-companies-467453.html
@joe: Off set their losses that cost the taxpayers billions and yet the banks continued their gangsterism with the tracker mortgages scandal and selling viable mortgages to vulture companies. All banks reported billions in profits in the last few years A.I.B.over one billion last year. These are the career sponges who blead this country dry with the blessing of the FFG government
@Patrick O Connell: I worked in retail since taking summer jobs at 16 then moved on to sound and lighting in the entertainment industry. I was laid off due to health issues after I suffered a heart attack 3 years ago and to cover my health insurance was unsubstainable as my job involved a lot of travel to the USA. I have my own house fully paid for and in negative equity I only claim basic jobseekers allowance which I am entitled to. My guess is I have probebly contributed more to the economy then you ever will
@Patrick O Connell: By the way at one interaction with these idiots I was advised to move house because I could not afford to live in my area as the rents were too high. This was from a 21 year old who was probably on A 1st trip to the big smoke.
I wonder who’s the only people gaining from this exploitation of our young people.
@Michael Mulcahy: FG and employment figures…
@MickN: the shinners would rather they stay at home and do nothing. Shinners = Welfare state
@Patrick O Connell: it’d cost less to let them stay at home blue shirts throwing away taxpayers money to their buddies and companies
Fg= corporate welfare
@Thomas Maher: let’s see how many shinners up north are caught up with the RHI scandal along with the DUP
@Patrick O Connell: yeah… because that’s exactly what this article is about.
@Thomas Maher: do you have a link that shows a link between FG and the companies that run Jobpath????
@Patrick O Connell: are you ok?
@Patrick O Connell: In case it has escaped your memory it was the taxpayers who were forced through austerity measures to repay for the gangsterism of the banks and developers facilitated by politicians. Our grandchildren will also be paying for this gangsterism. Think the banks and the concessions given to multi national’s by this government are the welfare sponges. Crumbling health service, Homelessness, Housing crisis, don’t think social welfare recipients are the cause .
And again Regina Doherty ploughs on with this scam.they were suppose to do away with this and yet the government snuck it back in quietly
@dick dastardly: Can someone please show me anything that she has not royally made a mess of? Anything?
@Shakka1244: her re-election lol
Best way to encourage work is do what most other countries do and have welfare as time limited with payments decreasing year on year. Welfare is afterall supposed to be a temporary safety net between jobs, not permanent way of life. At a time of virtually full employment there is no reason why any able bodied person cant get employment after a few months
@Stephen Kearon: Have a look around rural Ireland and tell me there is full employment.. ?… people in rural Ireland that do work commute anything up to 3hrs and need a car..Now consider the minimum wage, then consider travel expenses, childcare etc and then do your maths…… so, rather than decrease welfare as you suggest, which would drive up poverty, homelessness and suicides, surely making work pay for ordinary families should be more important.. As I said before, social welfare bashing is a keyboard sport these days in Ireland, but put yourself in those peoples shoes for a second and tell me how you would make it pay, especially if you have children to feed and look after…Not everyone is on 50+ pensionable salaries…
@CJ Stewart: many people live in rural Ireland and commute to work. Put yourself in the shoes of those who spend hours commuting to work and pay for everything themselves. Often they are worse off than those who refuse to work. Our welfare system needs a total reform
@Stephen Kearon: A large majority dont refuse to work, stop generalizing and making assumptions.
@Stephen Kearon: Stephen, first things first..Bread on the table, clothes on the children’s back, shoes on their wee feet.. as a parent it’s ones responsibility to do this and provide the BEST they can to provide this..for people like you who moralize over other peoples actions let me remind you that you can’t eat morals ! …Most families work within very well defined financial limits and the bottom line is that minimum wage, expensive commutes and one of the most expensive economies in Europe does not lend itself to providing the BEST one can for a family who’s parents work in and around minimum wage..you need to look at realty before your moralize people..If a family for instance works just above Social housing limits and is forced to pay exorbitant rent on a run down, overcrowded property on top of everything else, are those parents providing the BEST..????..or would that families BEST be better served on Social Housing, affordable rents and thus able to put food on the table and clothes on the kids backs..you need to wise up fella !
@Diogenes: if you bothered to read what i actually said you’ll find words “a large majority” were not said. Regardless of where its 10 or 10 thousand, its not right to reward an able bodied person with a bonus for not working. Far better the resources are solely aimed at pensioners, carers and genuinely disabled
@CJ Stewart: I agree with you, conversation was about bonus for those on dole, not people who work and are struggling. As I said on air last night Revenue should be issuing PAYE credits so that working people get a bonus at Christmas
@CJ Stewart: Exactly, the rates for lone parents are impossible to live on.Especially since we are not considered lone parents anymore.
FFG massaging figures .
No way…
@Willy Mc Bride: I just can’t believe it. :-(
@David Corrigan: just like the shinners telling everyone before the last election that each member takes home the average industrial wage, yet Ellis and a couple of more had ‘a special deal’.
@Patrick O Connell: Deflect much Paddy?
No thank jobpath like slave not enough wage
200 for jsa and do nothing
250 and work 40hours on jobbridge
340 work 40hrs at min wage
Which one do you think people will choose min wage full time work doesnt pay much more than the basic jsa does
@Karl Charlie:
It pays 70% more.
There’s also the sense of pride & accomplishment.
@Sequoia: despite what you like to believe and peddle the problem isnt long term dole recipients, its fg/ff creating a low wage economy, it doesnt pay for these people to work, cost of living has risen dramatically and wages are down
@Sequoia: it pays 70% more than what? Jobbridge pays €52.50 on top of your current jsa according to the welfare and citizens info websites thats a 25% increase, a 70% increase would bring it to 340 a week which is the same as 37.5 hrs work on min wage after tax
@Thomas Maher: the cost of living has not risen. Inflation is at less than 1%
@joe: The cost of living has not risen? What planet are you on?
@joe: good man joe
@Karl Charlie: I’m on a TUS scheme and I work very hard for the €225 a week I am being paid every week.
Ah more great news, 270 million, small money for hardy anything at all, well done FFG, keep supporting them and voting for them, they are doing great throwing billion away, sure what else would you be doing with that small amount of cash,
We have a real fetished Catholic view towards punishing the unemployed in this country, I’m miserable in my work so let’s punish people trying to find work even though Seetec has been proven to totally ineffective.
Without anyone biting my head off, do we have a reason why people aren’t getting employed? If you have a skill and experience either through job path or past experience then why no job?
@Louise Tracey: This lady was getting 55,000 per year in benefits. Why would she work Louise? She even had a savings account.
@Louise Tracey: Because they don’t want to work. There’s a certain cohort of people who believe everyone else should pay for their rent/socialising/food/esb etc. They believe work & contributing their fair share is beneath them.
@David Corrigan: thanks but let’s say someone who is under 25, college graduate etc why aren’t they getting a job?
@Louise Tracey: Gaps in the CV, good things to do would be Volunteering according to your skills and interests, it’s a better way of networking for jobs, there’s more effective approaches than sitting out a computer cranking CVs can be soul destroying, especially with rejections, with volunteering people in that company can get to know you and see your value up front.
@Melissa Mahony: thanks you will always have a number of those but surely most on job seekers aren’t those?
@Louise Tracey: I never get called for interviews. According to seetec (which I’m on for a second time), I have an excellent CV. I have noticed that the majority of jobs on indeed.com, Irishjobs.ie, jobs.ie and monster.ie
@The only INFP in Ireland: (continued) only look for staff who already have a good bit of experience. Employers don’t seem to be willing to train their staff anymore. Jobs Ireland isn’t great as it’s mostly just CE schemes.
@Louise Tracey: I am not sure to be honest Louise. I put out the resume now and then and rarely get any replies. I have over 20 years experience in electronic engineering and wouldn’t even get an interview.
My advice to any new graduate would be to move to a real country where they would get real jobs and better prospects. Come back in ten years with a bank full of money if they want to.
@Louise Tracey: the story is about the government wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayers money
@Louise Tracey: Almost 50% of people who are “employed” in this town are on CE , GATEWAY or TUS. There is very few real jobs available wnd any jobs that show up have 10+ people show up for each available position. The same happens in waterford city and every town here in the south east. Not all towns or cities are dublin where theres plenty of jobs. It takes three hours to get from here to dublin via public transport too. I am not using excuses here , I am just pointing out the true reality which some people think don’t exist
@David Corrigan: Any single person on social welfare gets just under €10,000 a year and you pick one article where one persone who was riding the system making it out that most unemployed do the same.
Perhaps Distilled Media could hire one as a proofreader?
@Damien Mc Padden: they’d need a whole team…
Once FÁS poked its nose into the workings of the Local Employment Service Networks the problems began to escalate. The unemployed became a pawn in the justification for each’s existence. Numbers on the books was all that mattered. Each organisation perceived the success of the other as a threat. The LESN concept could succeed better on account of each network having a coordinator with mediators and office support staff backed by a Board made up of employer, employee and local input focusing on the longterm unemployed.
Loophole in the scheme. Why would they take a job that pays them less money than the pay they receive from social welfare.
@bombacho: its a legal requirement to be seeking work when in receipt of jobseekers allowance, which is supposed to be a temporary safety net between jobs, not a permanent way of life
Still floggin’ it…
Here are some key points on this issue:
1: Once a person is signed on to JobPath, they are there for 12 months and must seek employment or else their social welfare payment can be affected.
2: People who are on JobPath are not eligible for the TUS Scheme or Community Employment, and due to this there is a reduction in vital services in every community such as charitable organizations, Tidy Towns etc.
3: There are a lot of 50-62 year olds on JobPath that will struggle to gain sustainable employment and Community Employment would be such an addition to their lives and the communities they live in.
It is such a pity that the government cannot see the real people behind the numbers and actually add to the communities instead of taking away from it.
JobPath can work, if halved with CE.
@Shane McCormack: actually Shane since July last you can go on Tús whilst being on Jobpath only requirement is that you attend once a month to jobspath meeting but I agree with the rest of your statement Tús and CE are invaluable to community organisations.
This is a real sign of DSP kicking to touch. Why can’t they really challenge those seeking Social Protection money on a long term basis and not have other agencies do the dirty work for them. It should be easier for DSP now this the Live Register is down to 5%. By the way it’s down to 3% in NI.
@Irish big fellow: you didnt really grasp the point of the story did you, I’ll help you out, the story is about fg wasting millions of taxpayers money
@Irish big fellow: If you even knew the real figures not the padded figures you wouldn’t make such a comment. In august the government claimed unemployment was down to 4.4%. Then in the budget they announced it was 5.3%. They themselves don’t know what it really is because of schemes like TUS , CE and gateway along with people on courses. Everybody thats doing TUS , CE and gateway along with people on courses is still being paid by the department of social protection aka the dole but they are taken off the live register. I started a TUS Scheme two months ago and I am still being paid by the department of social protection / the dole but I am off the live register for the next 10 months and any course I done to upskill meant I was off the live register , when a person is forced to go to TUS or Seetec they are still getting dole money but are taken off the live register for 12 months too. I know because I was with Turas Nua for 12 months.
If people who are doing TUS , CE and gateway along with people on courses and the people on JobPath were still on the live register then the real unemployment figures would be above 10% but the government have people brainwashed thinking its much lower than that by padding the figures.
I have experienced this scheme and it is not the right way to get someone into suitable full-time employment. You are not encouraged to upskill and aspire to get better paid work through education. You are encouraged to “be realistic” and take whatever job is hiring because they get 3000 euro if they boot you off the dole.
Once a person is signed on the JobPath they are then ineligible to join the Tus Scheme or Community Employment programs.
This has in turn had a knock on affect in all communities around Ireland. The TUS and Community Employment support charitable organizations such as Tidy Towns etc. How much good community work could be done by people who want to be out there doing it?
Also, I am not saying all people on JobPath can go into Tus or CE schemes, but there are so many 55-62 year olds on JobPath at the moment and they have to do 12 months of it with the threat of losing their social welfare payment always reiterated to them.
This government needs to wake up and see the people behind the numbers and realize what these people can do for the community.
Agree or disagree?
Td in DAIL eirean and yet again can refuse to extend that scheme unless money those Co get is reduced abd capped. Stop always pointing gun in wrong direction the v same td that have pension fund paying for deficit that money and payments cause and min can’t touch a cent of that public fund also containing loan from EU without those td votes
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