The Department of Education and Skills released the following statement:
The Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan TD yesterday announced that some 6,589 training places will be made available to the unemployed under the Labour Market Activation Fund, 2010.
Some €20million has been ring-fenced to provide the courses in a range of different locations targeting the less-skilled, and those formerly employed in declining sectors such as construction, retail and manufacturing, with particular emphasis on the under 35s and the long-term unemployed.
Following an open tender competition in which 370 tenders were received, the contracts are being awarded to organisations across the private, not-for-profit and public sectors to support specific training and education programmes for priority groups of the unemployed.
Making the announcement the Tánaiste said: “We put the Activation Fund in place to stimulate innovation in the provision of training and activation measures for jobseekers seeking to up-skill and get back into work. The response to the call for proposals for fund support exceeded the most optimistic expectations”, she said, “and the overall high standard of tenders received made the task of se