People engaged as part of a controversial jobs scheme were “defrauding the taxpayer” by never showing up for work assigned to them, local councils have complained.

Councillors from four localities who spoke on condition of anonymity, said workers assigned to them through the scheme administered by a General Workers’ Union foundation were either never showing up for work, punching in and leaving after a few hours or else spending the day doing “close to nothing”.

“It is just ridiculous. These people – we have five assigned to us – are meant to be doing work at our locality. Instead, they spend the day at some club or whiling away the time,” one of the disgruntled councillors told this newspaper yesterday.

He said the bulk of the workers would sit at a bar across the road from the council offices and would even wave to councillors while smoking cigarettes and playing cards.

It is just ridiculous. These people – we have five assigned to us – are meant to be doing work at our locality. Instead, they spend the day at some club or whiling away the time.

The GWU foundation was contracted by the State employment agency Jobsplus in 2015 to run the scheme which is aimed at employing people who had been jobless for a number of years.

Through the multi-million-euro scheme, about 600 people were struck off the unemployment register and given mostly maintenance work at government schools and local councils. Participants receive the minimum wage – about €750 a month.

“In our case, the workers punch in, we assign them tasks but they never do it,” another councillor said.

A council official had a different sort of complaint. Some workers, she said, would be asked by the mayor to do work in certain areas that would earn him votes. “I’m aware that this is a reality, that being elected to a council requires vote catching and so on but using a scheme like this just to please select residents is simply not on,” the official said.

When contacted, the Education and Labour Ministry, which is politically responsible for the scheme, said it was aware of workers slacking off.

Workers in the scheme who were not found at their place of work by inspectors following reports from councils or during routine checks had a day in their vacation leave struck off, a ministry spokeswoman said.

They would also be served with a verbal warning, then a written warning and would have their employment terminated if they defaulted a third time.

“We have issued 76 written warnings to 74 workers,” she said, adding that two workers had already received a second warning.

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