FAS

A training programme designed to get the long-term unemployed back to work cost the state almost €900,000 for every participant and not a single one of them found a job afterwards, the Sunday Business Post reports.

The Job Training Initiative had a budget of €39m in 2008 and 46 people completed it. A new report by Forfás, the state advisory board, is recommending a massive overhaul of this and other employment schemes to ensure better value for money.

“It is considered that the employment programmes … are not well aligned to deliver the strategic policy response required for the new labour market environment,” according to Forfás.

In other words, they are a complete waste of time and taxpayers’ money.