Journalist's first-hand experience on JobPath

PARTING COMPANY WITH TURAS NUA

- "Potentially, I was a poster boy for their endeavours"

BY BEN PANTER

What is it like to spend a year on JobPath? 

We recognise the importance of hearing from people experiencing disadvantage or discrimination.
Many have no doubt found JobPath worked for them, but despite statistics that point to low levels of complaints, the 'labour activation' programme seems to dissatisfy many. 

It has been debated at the highest levels in the Dáil, however nobody in that chamber has the first hand experience that Ben Panter was able to bring to the table. 

- Editor

FULL TEXT OF BEN PANTER'S ARTICLE, as published in the current edition of 'Changing Ireland' (available through Easons):

Jon was ecstatic – The Community Employment (CE) Scheme had offered him a role as a carer, enabling him to achieve his lifelong vocation, after a period of unemployment. Days later his tone had changed.

“Because I am with Turas Nua, I am not allowed to take the job,” he said.

I thought he was joking, but alas no. A place on a CE scheme is not a job.

Unpaid mentors support unemployed women in Mayo

Conor Hogan reports

Conor Hogan

By March of this year, there were 4,680 women on the live register in Mayo, up from 3,315 two years earlier. 

In fact, Mayo has the highest rural unemployment rate in the country with CSO figures showing the rate among women in the county has risen by over 40% in the  last two years.

“Many small businesses are making attempts at rationalising cuts,” Breda Murray of South West Mayo Development Company’s (SWMDC) told us, “and secretaries seem to be the first people they will lay off.”

This led the SWMDC to join up with Tacu Family Resource Centre (FRC) in Ballinrobe and Claremorris FRC to provide a support programme called ‘Revival’. It has been run twice, so far, and could become a blueprint for a national strategy if the course leaders make a successful case.

The aim is to improve people’s educational qualifications, as well as helping them to develop social skills – making a return to the labour market that bit easier.

It isn’t just women on the live register that are eligible, however, but the underemployed and unregistered too. Each woman on the course works one-on-one with a mentor who themselves is unpaid and values gaining experience.

“We hoped to get 30 people on the course," Ms Murray told us, "but had to accommodate nine more.”