Tánaiste calls for proposals under €20 million Labour Market Activation

The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms. Mary Coughlan, T.D., today (Friday, 12 March 2010) launched a call for proposals to be funded under the new €20 million Labour Market Activation Fund. The Tánaiste has put the €20 million fund in place to stimulate innovation in the provision of training and activation measures for jobseekers. The call for proposals is open to all providers, including those in the public, private, community and voluntary sectors and is targeted at assisting some 3,500 jobseekers this year. The places to be made available through successful applicant providers are to be in addition to the 145,000 training and activation places already being funded this year through the Tánaiste’s Department.

The Tánaiste remarked that, “The establishment of this €20 million Labour Market Activation Fund is about leveraging the market’s capacity to deliver substantial training and education programmes targeting specific priority groups among the unemployed. It is intended that the call for proposals will stimulate innovative new approaches from across a spectrum of providers to assist our unemployed up-skill and get back into work. The priority groups we have targeted among the unemployed include the low skilled, and those formerly employed in declining sectors – such as construction, retail and manufacturing sectors, with particular emphasis on the under 35s and the long-term unemployed.”

“Our approach here is two-pronged”, the Tánaiste said. “Firstly, we want to ensure that unemployed people with low levels of education are given the chance to gain qualifications bringing them up to at least Leaving Certificate level, and thus to instil in them the confidence that they too will be better able to benefit from labour market opportunities as they return. Secondly, we recognise that those with higher-level qualifications need to be assisted to re-skill and prepare themselves for occupations in new and different sectors of the economy, where their skills will be in demand as economic recovery gets underway”.

Tenders for the Labour Market Activation Fund must be returned to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment by Thursday 8 April 2010 and it is expected that contracts will be awarded by the end of that month.

Full information on the tender requirements has been published electronically on the E-Tenders Public Procurement Website, www.etenders.gov.ie.