Vol. 482 No. 6
71 Mr. O'Shea asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if she will review the regulations applying to eligibility for community employment schemes whereby a spouse who is signing for credited unemployment assistance contributions is not considered to be on the live register and therefore cannot qualify for a community employment scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19052/97]
The Community Employment (CE) programme is targeted at a particularly severely disadvantaged group of unemployed people, i.e. those registered long-term unemployed, whose principal or only source of income is a social welfare payment. In addition lone parents are eligible to participate in community employment and eligibility conditions for the programme are somewhat less restrictive for the disabled and for members of the travelling community.
However, married unemployed people can swop their social welfare entitlement in order to qualify for participation on the programme. In this way, a married person who meets the eligibility criteria can transfer entitlement to his or her spouse, who is unemployed but not on the live register, in order for that person to qualify for participation in CE. Also, persons with children who are in receipt of survivor's contributory pension (SCP) or deserted wife's benefit (DWB) can apply to transfer to one parent family payment (OPFP) in order to become eligible to participate in CE.
These eligibility criteria only came into effect last year following a detailed review of CE and in response to the recommendations of the Task Force on Long-Term Unemployment. They were designed to target the programme at those priority groups already referred to. I have no plans at present to widen the eligibility criteria. However, consistent with a commitment in Partnership 2000 a working group, inclusive of the social partners has been set up to consider women's access to labour market opportunities. This group is chaired by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs and I look forward to its deliberations.
All unemployed people, whether on the live register or not, are eligible to participate in FÁS mainstream training/specific skills training programmes and from time to time FÁS also offer return to work courses for those who wish to return to the workforce.
