asked the Minister for Labour if he has any proposals to broaden the scope of the social employment scheme, in view of the number of people under 25 years of age.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers - Social Employment Scheme.
18.
The social employment scheme was developed to enable the large numbers of productive and energetic persons over 25 years who have been unemployed for a year or more to obtain employment and to make a worthwhile contribution to the social development of their community at a reasonable cost to the Exchequer.
The Deputy will be aware that persons under 25 years are catered for by the wide range of other training and employment schemes operated by my Department, the National Manpower Service, AnCO, the Youth Employment Agency and CERT.
In my county, Monaghan, we set ourselves to avail of that scheme in February 1985. We carried out an assessment and estimated that about 600 people could be usefully employed on road construction, drainage, waterworks etc. The takeup was only about 160. In areas such as those, where only 10 per cent of the workforce can be under 25, would it not be possible to allow some leeway in order to increase the number under 25?
I recognise the Deputy's concern in this matter. He has previously put down questions of a similar kind. I am looking at proposals to change the conditions of eligibility for access to the social employment scheme to deal with the question of some people who are under the age of 25 and have, tragically, been unemployed for longer than a year. The other aspect of the Deputy's supplementary question is of interest. There are well over 200 people over the age of 25 unemployed in the areas which the Deputy represents. It is interesting that the take-up relative to the official numbers of people unemployed has been very small.
We did not expect married persons to take a drop in their income but we were very disappointed at the number of single persons in receipt of social welfare benefit who did not take up this opportunity.