‘Real dangers’ if US firms take over local employment services, TD Smith says

Reacting to the news that several US based companies have expressed interests in running Local Employment Services (LES) in Ireland, Dublin South-Central TD Bríd Smith said there are “real dangers” in handing over vital social services to for-profit firms.

Speaking today, Deputy Smith said “not only are we facing the prospect of workers who have provided the local service for decades loosing their jobs, and with that the community loosing the skills and understanding they have, but we now face the real danger that US firms with often appalling records of mistreatment, fraud and poor employment practices could win the tender for these services.”

She said the awarding of unemployment services under Jobpath to Turas Nua and SeeTec had been a “disaster with no visible benefit for the unemployed or the state but with a clear policy that their aim was to hound the unemployed into low paid poor jobs available.”

The People Before Profit TD criticised the Government decision to pursue the tendering out of the LES services saying it was in line with “pure Thatcherite ideology.

“This has been planned for years now and we have constantly warned about the aim of turning unemployment services which help very vulnerable people into a profit making opportunity; The movie I, Daniel Blake captured where this leads to in Britain some years ago , it is shameful that Minister Humphreys and the department seem determined to drive our welfare system into the same direction.”

The department admitted in a parliamentary question reply to Deputy Smith that its officials had met with representatives of Maximus, Capita and Fed Cap in relation to possible tendering for the LES schemes.