The Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, has decided to extend the three-year-old Jobs Initiative Programme by six months. This has been welcomed by the INOU.
The JIP was introduced in 1996 to provide full-time employment for 1,000 long term unemployed people aged 35 or older. It has been extended to cover almost 3,000 people since.
Most of them worked in projects sponsored by "not for profit" agencies funded by FAS. The JIP has received a generally favourable review in a report completed by Deloitte and Touche for the Minister last month, and released last night.
She added that other recommendations in the report aimed at improving the effectiveness of the JIP in securing permanent jobs for participants, "will be the subject of consultations with the social partners over the coming weeks".
This is a clear reference to the talks on a successor to Partnership 2000 and suggests that the Tanaiste does not intend attempting to unilaterally cut such initiatives as happened last summer. On that occasion she rowed back on a decision, endorsed by the Cabinet, to cut 4,000 Community Employment places this year.
