‘HSE Decided At A National Level To Use JobBridge’

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Yesterday’s Sunday Business Post

Since 2011, there have been around 46,000 users of JobBridge placements.

Further to this…

Yesterday, the Sunday Business Post reported:

…the largest user of the [JobBridge] scheme over its five-year lifetime is the Health Service Executive (HSE), which used it a total of 399 times. The HSE used the scheme to fill 67 assistant psychologist positions, a grade which the Psychological Society of Ireland is demanding be established by the HSE as a full grade of paid employment.

The HSE was followed by the GAA (249 interns); Teagasc (184); UCD (184); computing giant Hewlett-Packard (176); SuperValu (161) and the ESB (157). There is no implication of wrongdoing on behalf of any of these companies.

…The scheme was also heavily used by a wide range of state bodies amid a hiring moratorium imposed during the economic downturn, with state bodies accounting for eight of the top 20 users of the scheme.

All employers contacted said that they stood by their use of the scheme and praised its usefulness.

In a statement, the largest user, the HSE, defended its use of the scheme.

It said that it made a decision at a national level to use the programme to support government policies around unemployment and job creation.

Due to the moratorium on recruitment, services such as psychology and speech and language therapy were diminished during this period. The scheme provided an opportunity for graduates to gain valuable clinical experience in their chosen fields, while at the same time delivering much-needed services to service users during the period of the JobBridge internship,” it said.

The Department of Social Protection is undertaking a review of JobBridge, but it is understood to be advancing plans to name and shame those found abusing the programme.

There you go now.

A full Sunday Business Post database of the companies which offered 46,000 JobBridge placements can be accessed here

JobBridge Uncovered: Intern labour staffed tech giants, HSE, supermarkets (The Sunday Business Post, behind paywall)

Previously: JobBridge on Broadsheet

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34 thoughts on “‘HSE Decided At A National Level To Use JobBridge’

  1. Supercrazyprices

    An exploitation of vulnerable people.

    No less.

    And I know a woman who worked for an international finance company in Limerick who wholesale abused the JB system and forced interns to work long hours without extra pay. I think there’s a newspaper about to expose that company.

    1. Abbey

      People used to give out about “brass neck” politicians holding onto their positions. Yet here we have our very own Joan and the New Ireland media simply let her off the hook.

      It’s appears Joan is above criticism because she’s a woman and a left-winger. If it was a man and a right-winger, he’d be hung out to dry by the Twitterati.

      What’s shocking for me is the number of state-funded organisations using job bridge: HSE, UCD, Teagasc, ESB. Then there are all the charities who avail of huge tax discounts as well as government funding. They’d chance JobBridge Gardai too if they thought they could get away with it. Then again, given the new entrant pay rates for the Guards, they’re not far off it.

      Pope’s children and younger have two choices: leave or stay. If you leave, you will breath again. If you stay, take what is rightfully yours. Paying 2k a month for a 2-bed in Sandyford is giving away all your blood, sweat and tears for nothing. If you choose to stay, you have to change things or you’ll still be paying 2k a month at 35, find yourself too old for a mortgage and those who went on the housing list aged 20 are sitting pretty while you’re still working 60 hours a week, are childless and have a net worth of zero. I’ve seen it happen and it ain’t pretty. The scale at which people allow this to happen to themselves is quite staggering.

    1. Supercrazyprices

      Absolutely.

      It’s a cynical scheme pushed by employer lobby groups such as IBEC and ISME to create a downward pressure on wages and conditions. It had nothing to do with getting people back to work. 1000s of people in full time employment were illegally replaced by interns, thereby debasing the workforce and increasing profits for companies without those companies increasing or improving their output.

    2. DubLoony

      Why couldn’t people obtain these facts before?
      Instead we have ridiculous name calling that doesn’t actually diagnose a problem and offer any solutions.
      No-wonder we’re stuck without a government.

  2. kingo

    my employer used jobbridge people twice. they were effectively doing the same job as other employees but being paid far less. they did get jobs with other newspapers when they left but they were exploited.

  3. Clampers Outside!

    “advancing plans to name” Oh FFS…..

    Naming should be automatic, and should have been built into the system that when a business gets caught abusing they are immediately banned, and named publicly with a list of the abuses, without exception.

    Having a system so clearly wide open for abuse and not have this was Joan’s legacy, she didn’t do much else on the magnitude or scale of this worth remembering – nothing I can recall anyway.

    Well done Joan…. ‘Joan the Abuser’ kinda has a nice ring to it.

  4. DubLoony

    Seriously out of control.
    It was brought in as an emergency measure to to get over the “can’t get a job without experience, can’t get experience without a job” hurdle.

    But this is a pisstake on a massive scale.
    This is corporate welfare, where taxpayers money is being used to exploit young people.
    It needs to go.

    1. Brian

      ” This is corporate welfare, where taxpayers money is being used to exploit young people.”

      That’s what politics has been all about since the 1980’s. Hear about the few people on the dole claiming wrongfully, there’s hundreds of companies evading paying billions in tax. Hearing about the civil servants being paid loads for doing nothing, look at the major multinationals getting huge grants for doing stuff they’d have to do anyway. Hear about the people who are “wasting” the water, look at the massively polluting companies who were given carbon credits far in excess of their needs for free, and then turned around and sold the off for a fat wedge on the market.

  5. bob

    This excel data only has data for the JB scheme. It doesn’t contain any data from the year or so previous to this. The WPP1 and WPP2 schemes which preceded the JB scam. I was part of the WPP scheme with company called Carl Stuart, who had work for me for the 9 months, but they hired a friend of a friend of the directors when the scheme ran out. Terrible treatment of their staff there.

    1. bob

      They also did the same with other techs there. kept them for 9 months let them finish up then applied for another tech under the scheme.

  6. Dόn 'The Unstoppable Force' Pídgéόní

    “The scheme provided an opportunity for graduates to gain valuable clinical experience in their chosen fields, while at the same time delivering much-needed services to service users”

    Surely psychologists already have clinical experience, it’s part of their degree to see actual people. I would question whether having someone on a job bridge scheme is better for patients than someone who was there permanently and able to be a stable point of contact for vulnerable people.

    I worked in the HSE about 5 years ago – it’s shocking that the moratorium is still going on! It costs more surely to hire contract staff across all levels than to employ people in actual jobs (not to mention effects in morale, team work etc as well as patient care).

    1. Ivor

      With regard to assitant psychologists – as oppossed to fully qualified psychologists – JB was an improvement. APs are typically psychology graduates or postgraduates who want to do Clinical Psychology. For years, the HSE has failed to recognise the role of a APs and refused to pay them – unlike in the UK. Few ever got on to a Clinical Psychology course without a minimum of 18 months of voluntary experience as an AP and you can’t get the dole in Ireland if you’re effectively volunteering full time.

    1. nellyb

      And neither will your fellow citizens. If businesses get used to it – it’ll become a new norm. And before you blink – some sort of “Law Of the Land” (Phil Hogan’s fav)

  7. bisted

    …it’s impossible to quantify but how many people involuntarily chose emmigration rather than participate in ScamBridge…

    1. DubLoony

      No / low pay, high rents, 20% deposits, 20% youth unemployment – I’d say there’s a strong push factor there alright.

  8. 15 cents

    jobsbridge was another way for FG to give to big business at the expense of the little guy. its all they ever do, it’s their prime objective. and when we complain about poor services and other areas they’ve neglected/dont care about, they reply with “the economy is doing great”.. meaning big businesses are thriving, completely oblivious to the fact that we dont share that view. that we want an equal country for all. they dont understand that, or have the capacity to understand that. theyre the most capitalist, right-wing party we’ve ever had in government. I think maybe alan kelly isnt the only politician hooked on house of cards.

    1. 15 cents

      yea.. seems supevalu are more irish than they claim. doin each other over is our main characteristic.

  9. Sheik Yahbouti

    Do you know what? I ‘m on the backslide and slippery slope of life. My principal emotions these days are shame and rage. Shame at what the much vaunted Republic is, as opposed to what it should be, and rage – do I really have to elaborate? I ‘m daily becoming closer to a “Falling Down” scenario. (Before I’m reported, I ‘ve no access to weapons, nor any desire to harm anybody) :-)

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