This report was prepared by Stew Butler and Marius Lüske in the OECD’s Directorate for Employment Labour and Social Affairs, Sara Flisi and Fabio Berton from the European Commission’s Competence Centre on Microeconomic Evaluation of the Joint Research Centre, and Aoidean Delaney and Hugh Cronin from the Department of Social Protection of Ireland. Statistical assistance was provided by Dana Blumin and editorial assistance by Lucy Hulett. The report preparation was supervised by Theodora Xenogiani (team leader).
Co‑operation with Roshin Sen from the Department of Social Protection (DSP) of Ireland and with Katarina Jaksic and Nora Wukovits-Votzi from the European’s Commission Directorate‑General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion has been instrumental for the project and the preparation of this report.
The report has also greatly benefited from the information and assessments received from stakeholders in Ireland who the OECD team met with during virtual and in-person fact-finding missions. A number of teams from across the Department of Social Protection were generous with their time, to offer helpful insight into policy formation and delivery. Visits to Jobcare in Dublin and the Balbriggan Community Employment scheme, enabled the project team to listen to Community Employment and Tús participants, supervisors and scheme administrators. Helpful external insights were generously bestowed via meetings with the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Irish Local Development Network, IBEC, Solas, and the Economic and Social Research Institute.
The authors would like to pay particular thanks to the members of the evaluation sub-group of the Labour Market Advisory Council. Not only did they offer their time during the initial fact-finding mission, but also facilitated further sessions with the team to discuss methodology and emerging results from the analysis. This expertise was vital from both a contextual and technical perspective and permitted the authors to refine the report based on this feedback.
Comments on earlier versions of this report – through virtual meetings and in writing – greatly benefited the report. Comments were provided by various stakeholders in Ireland, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre / Centre for Research on Impact Evaluation (JRC). Paolo Paruolo at the JRC, Giulia Santangelo at Cedefop, Roshin Sen at DSP and Stefano Scarpetta and Mark Keese at the OECD, all provided comments on the report.
The report was produced as part of the project “Pilot studies on impact evaluation of labour market and social policies through the use of linked administrative and survey data” which is co-funded by the European Union (European’s Commission Directorate‑General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion) (VS‑2020‑0 368).
The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.