Sinn Féin spokesperson for Social Protection John Brady TD has said Minister Regina Doherty is ‘alarmingly clueless’ on JobPath and clearly has no idea what is going on within the scheme.
Speaking during Priority Questions with Minister Doherty this afternoon, Teachta Brady said:
“Today, I raised a number of issues around JobPath and the fact that they have gone beyond what they were initially set up to do.
“JobPath was set up to engage with the long term unemployed and assist them in returning to work. Instead, JobPath is hounding people who are either recently unemployed or are engaged in part-time work and are not unemployed at all.
“Minister Doherty has refuted these claims and insisted that JobPath is only engaging the long term unemployed and anything beyond that would be in breach of their contract with the Department of Social Protection.
“Over the past three months, I have conducted a JobPath Exposed campaign with a ‘Tell Your Story’ element listening to the actual reality on the ground from those who know it best – the participants.
“Through this process, I have ample evidence of people who are only unemployed for a number of weeks or days in some cases, teachers who are subbing, people who have just left college being 'invited' to engage with JobPath. These people are not long term unemployed.
“In the case of teachers who are subbing, they are not unemployed. Some people are in part-time work and this suits them as they can work around raising children, again they are not unemployed yet JobPath is hounding them.
“It is beyond alarming that Minister Doherty has absolutely no idea what Turas Nua and Seetec, who are delivering JobPath are doing. I will be publishing my report on JobPath next week and I expect urgent action to be taken on these private companies.”
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