Vol. 570 No. 2
68 Mr. Hogan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if her attention has been drawn to the decision of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business to sanction the necessary finance and change the rules to ensure that community employment participants who work with the disabled are able to continue in that role; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18799/03]
69 Mr. Howlin asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of places currently available on community employment schemes; the number that will be available at the end of 2003; when the FÁS internal review of community employment and the jobs initiative programme will be completed; if her attention has been drawn to the severe difficulties created for those with disabilities by the reduction in community employment places; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18628/03]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 68 and 69 together.
At the end of May 2003 there were 22,769 participants in the community employment programme countrywide. By the end of the year this number will have been reduced to 20,000. Participation levels on CE are gradually being reduced, reflecting the significant reduction in the numbers of long-term unemployed and the shift in emphasis away from work experience programmes to training, from which there is a greater level of progression to employment. All health service-related CE projects, including those providing services for persons with disabilities, have been ring-fenced from reductions that have taken place as a result of reducing the CE programme to 20,000 places by the end of 2003. Other ring-fenced services include drugs task force activities and child care service provision. Projects in RAPID areas are given priority. During 2002 when CE places were being reduced, FÁS ensured that these designated health CE places were untouched and that the places were maintained as agreed.
I understand the difficulties being encountered by sponsor organisations, which may have difficulty in replacing participants due to the lack of suitable applicants coming forward for the programme. Although CE is an active labour market programme and the concept of progression by participants is central to such a programme, I have asked FÁS to make a particular effort to identify CE participants suitable for the positions in question.
A number of reviews of CE are currently under way. The PPF provides for an overall appraisal of active labour market programmes to be carried out and this work is being undertaken under the aegis of the standing committee on the labour market, which is chaired by my Department. In addition, a cross-departmental senior officials group has been asked to consider options for the future of CE, taking account of the link with the provision of community services. FÁS is also currently completing an internal review of CE and the job initiative programme, which is well advanced and should be finalised shortly. The outcomes of these various initiatives will inform the Government's consideration of options for the future of these programmes.
The Minister must be aware of the unanimous agreement of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business that participants in CE schemes who are working with people with disabilities should continue to work on those schemes. The Minister obviously took fright when he saw the protest outside the House because in recent hours he has been on the phone to various disability organisations, giving reassurance that he would review these matters. He has had since last October to do this, however, and we have been receiving the same answers since then to our questions about the dismantling of the community employment schemes. We were told that the places of people working in this area would be ring-fenced, as would their funding.
This is European Year of People with Disabilities. In light of the great success of the Special Olympics and the increased awareness of the disability movement arising therefrom, and taking account of the promises that were made with regard to mainstreaming of disabled groups and places on CE schemes, will the Minister of State give an undertaking to all disability groups that the 207 personal assistants will be allowed to continue their work through the community employment schemes and that the funds for these groups will be ring-fenced as promised?
I assure the Deputy that I have not been on the phone to any disability group in the past number of hours or days.
The Minister of State sent his instructions by bush telegraph.
I have met representatives of a number of disability groups over recent months, including the Irish Wheelchair Association, whose representatives I met last week and again yesterday. I assured them, as I assure the House, that the community employment places for the Irish Wheelchair Association and other groups in the caring and health areas have been ring-fenced. That has never changed. The difficulty to which the Deputy is referring is that the Irish Wheelchair Association has not been able to find people to fill the places available.
That is ridiculous.
It needs 75 people to fill the ring-fenced places. I assured them that FÁS would make a specific effort through the employment services to find 75 people who are suitable to take up those positions.
All the Minister of State has to do is change the existing rules.
There is no need to change the rules. People have been concerned about the reduction in the numbers on such schemes but in the area of disability we have not reduced the numbers.
The Minister of State has.
We have left them as they are and they are ring-fenced. I have assured the Irish Wheelchair Association that we will try to find people for the positions. If it is not possible to find 75 people to take up the available positions, I will certainly review the situation.
Remove the capping rule.
In some parts of the country, where the Irish Wheelchair Association had not filled places in six weeks, the local FÁS office barred them from doing so afterwards. I was not aware of that but I have clarified the matter with FÁS so that situation will not recur.
After all the months during which we have been addressing this issue, will the Minister acknowledge that these positions are not ring-fenced? It is a misnomer to say the position is ring-fenced when the people providing that service are forced off the scheme. That is pretending the situation is other than it really is. The Minister of State is insisting that people who have been providing personal services should be replaced by others. Will he acknowledge that care assistants are no longer available to many people who have availed of their services up to now? Will he give the House an assurance that he will revisit this matter now, rather than doing so at some future date when he has trawled the country? People who in the past, have had personal support services provided through CE schemes should continue to be provided with such services until a suitable person is found under the revised scheme. In other words, the cap should be removed now and a trawl should be undertaken to find a replacement who fits the new criteria. Until such a replacement is found, the Minister of State should instruct FÁS that nobody should be without that support.
As I have stated, we have to replace people who leave a scheme with new people.
The Minister of State is forcing people off the scheme.
That has been the essential element of CE since it was founded by the Deputy's colleague a number of years ago.
Yes, it is an excellent scheme.
The Minister is extending it.
I informed the Irish Wheelchair Association, as I have informed every other group, that the essence of the scheme is to progress people on to permanent employment at the end of the CE scheme.
One in five places is being cut.
Please allow the Minister of State to answer. Hopefully, there will be time for a further supplementary question.
I am quite confident that in this case the problem can be solved.
They are back on the dole.
Yesterday, I assured the Irish Wheelchair Association that where it is not possible to find a replacement for a person who is coming to the end of a CE scheme, on a case by case basis, I will be prepared to consider the possibility of that person being retained until it is possible to find a replacement. I have asked FÁS to be flexible in that regard. The complaint made in this House was that large numbers of people are being made redundant and becoming unemployed.
Is the Minister of State denying that?
I find it difficult to understand that, and if that is the case – I accept it is – we cannot get people to fill the 75 places that are now vacant across the country.
The Minister of State should undertake another tour of the country to find out what is really happening because he admitted that in the past six weeks he has learned something about FÁS schemes that he did not know already. Perhaps he was not informed by his Department or FÁS. There is a hidden agenda by FÁS and the Department to get rid of the community employment programmes. That has been going on for the past few months and no amount of reviews, position papers or internalising in the Department can get away from that fact. Does the Minister of State understand that people caring for the disabled cannot be replaced easily because their work is tailored to the requirements of those with disabilities? Resource centres for independent living and many other community facilities have had the benefit of providing work experience for the disabled to get them into training and employment.
This is an uncaring attitude by the Government but if the political will was there the matter could be resolved. The Minister of State has provided a chink of light by saying he will examine cases individually. He should meet the requirements set down in the programme for Government which stated that places for the disabled would be ring-fenced. If the rules need to be changed and the cap lifted on years of participation, the Minister of State should take the initiative by doing that immediately.
Does the figure of 75 which the Minister of State gave apply to the Irish Wheelchair Association?
Yes.
Does the Minister of State accept that there are other groups which are also in difficulty? Does he have an accurate figure of people with disabilities whose services are under threat of being removed before the end of the year? If so, will he provide that figure for the House? Will he give an assurance that a direction will be given to FÁS that nobody will lose their personal assistants under this new scheme until a replacement has been found?
I do not have those figures with me but I will make them available to the Deputy. Many of those employed by the Irish Wheelchair Association are drivers, caretakers and carers who should be able to progress to full-time employment and others should have an opportunity to replace them. That is the situation and will remain so.
In respect of Deputy Hogan's allegation that we are trying to do away with CE schemes, the review has now been completed and I will be taking the proposals to Government shortly. We will have a new CE programme providing for an enhanced labour market initiative to get the long-term unemployed into an even more intensive training programme followed by progression to employment. We will also have a programme to provide a much more structured and significant service to the community, right across the spectrum, which in respect of CE will be part of Government policy for the first time. It will help us to go forward with a community employment scheme that will serve the needs of the unemployed in progressing towards employment, as well as serving the needs of communities, including carers, environmental workers and local authority workers.
