asked the Minister for Labour if he intends to continue the Social Employment Scheme due to cutbacks in county council allocations; and if he intends to get trade union approval for such schemes in view of the fact that permanent workers will be made redundant or put on short time working hours; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Written Answers. - Employment Schemes.
12.
In order that projects may be assisted under the social employment scheme they must meet a number of criteria. Among these criteria, is the requirement that there should be no displacement of permanent employment because of the scheme.
All applications for the social employment scheme are considered by the SES Monitoring Committee to ensure that they meet the criteria of the scheme. The committee is made up of representatives of ICTU, AnCO, Department of the Environment and the Department of Labour.
SES schemes are not started if the relevant trade union have not given their approval.
13.
asked the Minister for Labour if he will make special arrangements to enable workers employed on the 24 week schemes in the nine Irish Congress of Trade Unions centres for the unemployed to be retained, in order to allow for continuity of services and supports for unemployed people and in order to enable important counselling skills to be retained in the centres; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Under present conditions of the social employment scheme, up to 52 weeks employment is provided for each project participant. Allowing persons who have completed their term of employment on the scheme to continue participating would be unfair to a large number of eligible unemployed people who are anxious to participate and are awaiting vacancies. It is not possible, therefore, to extend the employment of participants in the ICTU centres beyond the 52 weeks period.
14.
asked the Minister for Labour the number of people who will be affected by the lower rates of payment under the social employment scheme in 1988; if he expects fewer people to opt for the scheme as a result of these lower rates; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The rate of allowance for persons without an adult dependant on the social employment scheme was reduced from £70 to £60 for new participants from April 1987. This enabled the number of man years to be provided under the scheme to be increased by 1,000.
In 1988, the budget for the SES will be £43.41 million and this will provide for 9,647 man years, which is an increase of 1,402 on the 1987 expected man years.
I do not expect that the reduction in allowance will cause major problems regarding recruitment as the pool of unemployed people on unemployment assistance is sufficiently large.
Persons who are entitled to an adult dependant's allowance, continue to receive £85 per week.