Cork County Council has hired 121 interns via JobBridge

Cork County Council has already employed 121 interns on the JobBridge scheme and aims to employ a further 215 people through the Gateway scheme by the end of the year.

The information was released by council officials a fortnight before councillors debate a motion to discontinue the use of both schemes, as those on them will never have a hope of a council job due to a recruitment embargo placed on local authorities.

In a report to councillors, officials said the county council currently has nine interns working with it via the JobBridge scheme. It has given those on the placements opportunities to work within the council in marketing and PR, as tourism guides, arts events co-ordinators, and in the engineering, genealogy, ecology, and energy management departments.

Those involved in that scheme include a number of graduates.

The Gateway scheme is mainly designed for “short-term work opportunities for longer-term unemployed while undertaking work for the benefit of the country” who will mainly take up “outdoor, unskilled” work.

The Government has set a target of signing up 3,000 Gateway applicants with local authorities by the end of this year and 215 are to be allocated to Cork County Council.

They are to be employed within the council to carry out minor road drainage works, ditch-clearing, cemetery tidying, sign cleaning/painting, minor landscaping, flower planting, and clean-ups at parks, towns, and beaches.

However, the council says it also has specific projects on which some applicants will work.

These include general maintenance and assistance in restoration work at Fort Meagher (Fort Camden) in Crosshaven and landscape maintenance and improvements in the grounds of Mallow Castle.

Both are projects which the council hopes will turn these venues into major tourism hubs in the future.

The report states that the council is currently recruiting from a list of names provided by the Department of Social Protection “with a view to achieving its target by the end of the year”.

Sinn Féin councillor Kieran McCarthy lodged the motion to discontinue the council’s participation in both schemes, which he describes as “cheap labour” and giving those on them no chance of employment with the council.

In the meantime, the council has admitted that it has been given permission to break the recruitment embargo by the Department of Finance for certain positions.

The council was required to put a business case to the department showing that the filling of such posts was “critical for the continuity of business of the local authority”.

Since March 2009, the council said it received approval to fill 15 posts for fire brigade personnel and a further 216 contract positions, which included beach lifeguards and franchise field workers.