Vol. 436 No. 1
104 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the number of participants on social employment schemes or community enterprise development programmes at present who are on an extension of their duration of the scheme; the proportion of total participants that they make up; and the classification of those who gained extensions under these criteria.
At the end of October there were 19,505 participants on the Social Employment Scheme/Community Employment Development Programme. Some 219 of these participants — approximately 1.1 per cent of the total numbers involved — had been retained beyond the normal 52 week period. These people were retained on the basis of the criteria which I outlined to the House on 14 October 1993.
I have recently decided that FÁS can extend the participation by up to six months of up to 6,000 participants who are now due to finish on the SES/CEDP where sponsors of projects which still have some time to run would find it difficult to recruit replacement participants.
