Siptu calls for publication of critical JobBridge audit

SIPTU general president Jack O’Connor has called on the Department of Social Protection to make public an internal audit that raises concerns over the JobBridge internship scheme.

According to RTÉ's This Week, the department's auditors expressed concern over a lack of initial validation of the employers' eligibility and whether their use of interns could lead to the possible displacement of real jobs.

The report noted that under the system of initial self-declaration, “employers make a statement on their application that the intern is not displacing a job vacancy,” going on to add “it is not possible to verify whether or not the internship is displacing a potential job vacancy”.

The report also noted “no checks” are carried out against redundancy payments issued by companies who hire interns, meaning the company may have laid someone off in a position that they are now filling with an intern.

Calling for the report to be published, Mr O'Connor expressed concern that the Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar had said he will be announcing plans for a replacement for the JobBridge scheme shortly.

“There is no need for a free labour scheme any more. There was a case when we were in an economic emergency,” said Mr O’Connor.

“We didn’t go through all that to provide free labour for unscrupulous employers.”

It is understood that the internal audit came about following criticism of the scheme by the Minister for State for Skills and Innovation — Independent Alliance TD John Halligan — who said in early May it was time for JobBridge to be scrapped.

The internal audit examined 80 cases. This follows 13,000 random inspections over the five years of the scheme which facilitated more than 48,000 interns with 18,000 participating employers.

According to RTÉ, the auditors questioned the accuracy of data supplied by so-called “host organisations” — specifically in relation to the number of staff that they claimed to be employing.

“Of 80 cases examined, the number of employees listed when registering compared to the number of employees in the last P35 return on Central Records (CRS) agreed in only 14 cases. No checks are carried out... on this when validating an employer for JobBridge,” the report noted.