A new Government job scheme is "just JobBridge all over again", according to People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy.
Ministers announced the new Work Placement Experience Programme as part of their post-pandemic plan to get people back to work.
The scheme is open to people who've been employed for six months or longer, with a weekly rate of payment of €306.
The six-month programme is a 30-hour per week placement, with the Government saying it's a way to "provide 10,000 paid, quality placements".
However, opponents of the scheme have quickly compared it to the controversial JobBridge internship scheme, which was scrapped back in 2016.
Deputy Murphy told The Pat Kenny Show the previous scheme was "effectively a free labour scheme" - and that this new programme is "JobBridge 2.0".
He explained: "This scheme is just JobBridge all over again: they’ve tweaked it slightly, but the essentials are the same.
"Employers can get workers for free - employers pay nothing, despite the fact that that was a core recommendation of the Government’s own independently-commissioned report after the last scheme.
“That means this scheme will operate to exploit people who are unemployed, displace actual job creation… and depress wages across the labour market.”
Deputy Murphy said people who avail of the scheme are getting an extra €103 compared to the standard unemployment rate, noting that extra payment "works out at €3.43 an hour".
Those critical of JobBridge claimed the system was being exploited and being used to fill positions that would have otherwise been normal, paid jobs.
Deputy Murphy claimed he's already seeing similar jobs being advertised this time around.
He said: “It wasn’t a week after this new scheme had been announced that the same old usual suspects of jobs began appearing on the JobsIreland website: ads for deli assistants… car wash assistants… an office assistant… a number of early year support assistants...
“These are jobs, and if this scheme didn’t exist, it's quite likely somebody would actually be employed.”
He suggested that employers who take advantage of the scheme can have a "knock-on effect", as other employers might be inclined to do the same to remain competitive.
Deputy Murphy argued that the State should instead be directly hiring unemployed people for high-quality “green jobs”, to help achieve long-term climate objectives such as re-wetting bogs and retrofitting homes.
