The Jobpath employment scheme being run by the Department which was devised as an employment support initiative to help unemployed people get a job with training, and advice on careers as well as CV and interview skills and which requires workers to attend once a week for nine weeks is costing communities and need to be reviewed. Workers who are engaged in valuable work on local projects on other schemes are involved and changes need to be made so that valuable local projects do not suffer.
In some cases workers who sign up for Jobpath are having difficulty getting in to attend once a week and in some cases workers who are on CE and TUS schemes as well as those who are long term unemployed are being asked to sign a form for Jobpath. Then they find that they are tied into it for a year which is unsuitable for many. There are now shortages of workers at local pitches, parks and in local Tidy Towns committees which affecting the valuable work that they do. I am proposing that we leave the people who are on these schemes where they are until we can get others to replace them. The Government and the Department need to seriously review how this Jobpath scheme is operating.There is not much point in creating a problem by solving another.
