Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2016, published 106th ILC session (2017)

Employment Service Convention, 1948 (No. 88) - Ireland (Ratification: 1969)

Articles 1 and 3. Organization of the public employment service. The Committee notes the information provided in the Government’s report, particularly the most recent Government strategy and action plan on labour market activation, Pathways to Work 2016–20, published in January 2016. The document indicates that the country’s unemployment rate dropped from 15 per cent at the height of the jobs crisis to a current overall unemployment rate of 8.8 per cent, and attributes a key role in this progress to the 2012–15 Pathways to Work strategy. According to information available on the Pathways to Work web page, employment is anticipated to grow by 80,000 jobs between 2015 and 2017 and the unemployment rate is predicted to fall to 8 per cent by 2017. The 2016 Pathways to Work strategy and action plan builds on the five strands of the policy set out in the Government’s 2012 Pathways to Work policy document, and adds a sixth strand: (1) enhanced engagement with unemployed people of working age; (2) increase the employment focus of activation programmes and opportunities; (3) making work pay – incentivize the take-up of opportunities; (4) incentivizing employers to offer jobs and opportunities to unemployed people; (5) building organization capability to deliver enhanced services to people who are unemployed; and (6) building workforce skills. The 2016 Pathways to Work document indicates that Strand 6 aims to ensure that large-scale and comprehensive reforms under way in the education and training sectors since the 2012 Pathways to Work, are closely aligned with the needs of employers, workers and jobseekers, to provide them with the skills, knowledge and competencies required to find and sustain employment. In this context, the Government refers to the Further Education and Training (FET) strategy (May 2014) and to the development of a new National Skills Strategy to be published in 2016, which will aim to identify and align the needs of industry with the skills of potential employees. The Committee notes that a number of actions have been taken or are envisaged to improve the provision of employment services, including Intreo, a service launched in 2012 by the Department of Social Protection, which aims to provide a single point of contact for all employment and income supports and offers services for both employers and jobseekers. There are 58 centres located throughout the country and three additional centres will open in 2016. The 2016 Pathways to Work also refers to measures to implement the strategy, including: efforts to improve schemes such as JobBridge and JobPath; a review of the EmployAbility scheme to increase uptake of services by persons with disabilities and the level of placements; and provision of employment, education and training programmes for long-term unemployed persons that are aligned to labour market needs. The Committee invites the Government to continue to provide information on the measures adopted by the public employment service to achieve the best possible organization of the employment market and to meet the needs of the economy and the active population and to provide information in its next report on the impact of such measures.

Article 4. Cooperation with the social partners. In response to the Committee’s request that the Government indicate the manner in which the representatives of employers’ and workers’ organizations are consulted with respect to the implementation of employment service measures, the Government refers to the Labour Market Council, an independent group of industry leaders and labour market experts appointed by the Minister for Social Protection, to oversee the effective delivery of the Pathways to Work strategy. The Committee notes from the Council’s Interim Report that its purpose is to support the Government’s efforts to tackle unemployment and encourage employers to hire workers from the Live Register. The Committee invites the Government to continue to provide information on the manner in which the employers’ and workers’ organizations are consulted in relation to the development and implementation of employment service measures under the Convention.

Application of the Convention in practice. The Committee further notes the information provided by the Government in response to its request for practical information on the application of the Convention. The Government indicates that, in 2015, the Irish Government’s Public Employment Portal advertised 123,751 job vacancies. While employers advertise vacancies on the Portal, the number of applications they receive and the number of positions filled as a result of such advertisements is not known. Given that in many cases employers use more than one channel to advertise vacancies, the Government indicates that it is not possible to determine the number of applications and candidates placed that are due to advertisements placed on the Portal. The Committee requests the Government to continue to provide practical information on the application of the Convention, including up-to-date statistical information on the number and location of public employment offices established and operating in the country, the number of applications for employment received, the number of vacancies notified, and the number of persons placed in employment by these offices.