I call Deputy Catherine Murphy on behalf of the Social Democrats.

Yesterday, while speaking on the Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill, I raised serious concerns regarding the so-called activation programme, JobPath. The company which has the contract to run JobPath is Seetec. In the United Kingdom, the same company, Seetec, has been the subject of a fraud investigation following its actions while contracted to the UK Department of Work and Pensions.

The case I raised yesterday referred to a father of two who had some casual employment which was being supplemented by a payment from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. In order to keep that payment, he was obliged to participate in the JobPath scheme, despite the fact that the nature of his casual work made him an unsuitable candidate, which was acknowledged by all sides at the time. As a result of the JobPath obligations, he lost the small amount of casual work he had and he became fully reliant on a social protection payment, which is the opposite of what the Taoiseach is trying to achieve. He claims he was repeatedly asked to sign documents verifying attendance at sessions he had not in fact attended and was threatened with his payment being cut off if he refused to sign. He was refused a training course of his choosing and instead given one he had no interest in but with the promise that there would be a job at the end of it, but there was no job at the end of it. He was prohibited from accepting any other external offers of employment during the training time and threatened with sanctions if he accepted work outside of the JobPath scenario. Eventually he could no longer refuse work and he took a job. It was at that point that Seetec really showed its teeth. He and his new employer became absolutely pestered by Seetec to fill in forms, fraudulently stating that JobPath had actually secured the employment for him, which it had not. When he refused to do so he was cajoled, shouted at, threatened and harassed. The same happened to his employer, so much so that eventually the employer signed the forms.

This man came to see me because he felt he had to highlight what appears to be, to all intents and purposes, systematic fraud occurring under the auspices of a Department. In the UK, Seetec was accused of artificially inflating the number of jobs it claimed it was finding people. It appears not much has changed. Was the Department aware of the very serious issues in the UK and the investigation of the UK Public Accounts Committee regarding the issues with Seetec before the JobPath contract was awarded. What due diligence was involved? If I were to read back over all the parliamentary replies from Deputy Joan Burton when she was Minister, I note that one of the point she made was that the potential for inflating figures has been taken into consideration when designing JobPath. Does that comment suggest there was an acceptance by the Department that fraudulent practices were unavoidable?

Given the Taoiseach's former role in the Department of Social Protection, as it was then titled, is he aware of similar complaints and concerns that were raised regarding JobPath or, indeed, Turas Nua and, if so, what has been done about it?

This, perhaps, would be a question better put to the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection who would be more up to date on these details than I would be but I will try to answer the Deputy as best I can. First, there are two companies that have contracts under JobPath, one is Seetec and the other is Turas Nua. I am not sure what the UK company to which the Deputy referred is. Perhaps it is a company that is part of Seetec or part of the conglomeration, or whatever the term is, that forms Seetec, but it is would not be Seetec itself; it would be a different legal entity, as far as I recall. So far JobPath has been a very successful programme. It was originally introduced by the then Minister of State, the former Deputy Kevin Humphreys, and the then Minister, Deputy Burton, and it now continues. We see that from the fact that unemployment is now at 6.1% and, long-term unemployment, which other countries have struggled to get down, is now down around 3%. That is in large part due to the intensive one-to-one work that the JobPath companies do with people.

I cannot comment on an individual case, even if I had the details, which I do not, as there would of course be issues of confidentiality and privacy. What I can say is that there is a quarterly survey done of clients' satisfaction with Seetec and Turas Nua and the vast majority of individuals who interact with Seetec and Turas Nua, the JobPath companies, report very high satisfaction levels. When dealing with hundreds of thousands of clients, there will always be a number who will have had a bad experience, for one reason or another. We should not base any policy on an individual case, rather they all have to be taken in the round.

There is a complaints mechanism and a person can complain to the company. If he or she is not satisfied with how the complaint is being dealt with, a complaint can be made to the Department. I assume that has happened in this case, but, again, as it is an individual case, I do not know the details of it.

In terms of payment, I think the Deputy may misunderstand the contract. The way it works is that the JobPath companies receive an initial registration fee when someone is referred to them. They are only paid if someone is given a full-time job and holds onto it for more than 13 weeks. It is not that Seetec or Turas Nua have to find a job for the person concerned. They may do, but they do not have to. The key test for payment is whether the person has found a job for himself or herself, perhaps with the help of Seetec or Turas Nua, and holding onto it.

Since I raised the issue, a range of people have come forward with similar scenarios and the same complaint has been made to the Committee of Public Accounts by way of letter, as I discovered this morning. It will be included in the correspondence to be dealt with. I hear from people that no referrals are happening. It appears that it is just about keeping people on the books for Turas Nua. I am not prepared to dismiss complaints made to me by members of the public who, at the end of the day, are the end-users of the service. When they come with convincing stories about their treatment, the Department has an obligation to follow up on them. There appears to be too many of them to ignore the issue, as appears to be the case from even a cursory glance of some of the things on the Internet.

I have absolutely no doubt that there are individuals who have had bad experiences of these companies and that many of the complaints are genuine. Complaints are welcome and should be made. There is a system by which people can make them about issues to the companies and the Department after that. It is a couple of months since I was in the Department with responsibility for social protection issues. However, if I recall correctly, out of 200,000 or 300,000 referrals, there were perhaps 100 or 200 complaints, which is in the 0.1% category. However, complaints should, of course, be taken seriously. They should be made and welcomed as they are often a good way to improve services. That applies to public services also, whether those provided by Intreo, health services or the education system, but the fact that there are complaints should not form the basis for bringing down a whole programme or service.