When the Government came to office there was a shortfall in the provision for 1997 and one of its first initiatives was to provide additional funding to ensure it met the 40,000 average for this year. Our aim is to increase the figure by 2,000 next year.
On the additional money for the 25,000 participants moving to the rate for the job, the Deputy misunderstands the position. Nobody gets paid more than the amount given under the community employment programme. In order to receive the rate for the job participants must work for a specific number of hours. For example, if the rate is £7 per hour and the community employment cap is £90 the participant will work for approximately 13 hours. This is how the rate for the job operates. No additional funding is required, it is merely organised in a different way.
In recent negotiations CORI concluded that we should aim to move 10,000-15,000 to the rate for the job over the next three years. In line with Partnership 2000, a monitoring group headed by my Department is being set up to examine how we can achieve this.
The entire community employment programme is being examined in the context of the implementation of the White Paper on human resources. We have to decide what we want to achieve under the programme. There are two main elements to the programme at present. The first is the reintegration element which seeks to reintegrate 75 per cent of participants into the labour market. Essentially these participants have been on the live register for one year and are over 21 years of age. The second is the part-time element which involves approximately 25 per cent of participants. These people have generally been unemployed for more than three years, are over the age of 35 and have very slim chances of being reintegrated into the labour market. We must decide whether the programme will follow more the social economy model, as recommended by Father Seán Healy, or the labour integration model. In the context of the implementation of the White Paper on human resources we will have to address this issue very seriously.