This motion deals with community employment schemes. There have been many questions, debates and motions in the House on the issue for a good reason. There is widespread acknowledgement of the value of these schemes to communities throughout Ireland. Every Deputy in the House knows from first-hand experience that terrible damage has been done to vulnerable groups by the savage cuts in the schemes which have taken place over the last two years.
After months of attempting to defend the indefensible, the Minister of State with responsibility for labour affairs, Deputy Fahey, has finally broken ranks and admitted the truth. In his own words, these cuts are wrong. They were forced on him, according to himself, by the Minister for Finance. When a member of Government reaches the point of publicly declaring that a policy of Government is wrong, under the doctrine of collective responsibility he must either accept responsibility for these actions or remove himself from the responsibility. Deputy Fahey seems to want to do neither. Instead he is leading his backbenchers in a revolt against his own policy. This Alice in Wonderland situation saw 33 Fianna Fáil Deputies demand a change of policy last Tuesday – they are probably not here tonight because they are still demanding it – and a full restoration of the 10,000 places that have been cut in the last two years on the CE schemes. Of course the Minister for Finance was in Brussels last Tuesday – when the cat is away the bravery of Fianna Fáil backbenchers is increased.
This week it is time for those Government Deputies who agree with the Minister of State to make their minds up. They must either vote with this side of the House to restore vital community employment or give up their pretence at concern. I am talking about Government Deputies because the Progressive Democrats are also publicly disagreeing with one another over CE cuts, despite the fact that the political head of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is the leader of the Progressive Democrats and the Tánaiste. Deputy Sexton criticised Deputy Fiona O'Malley for her attack on the Minister of State, Deputy Fahey. Deputy O'Malley accused her colleague Minister of giving politics a bad name – that is what the Minister of State is doing, according to his own – and playing to the public gallery. Deputy Sexton rounded on Deputy O'Malley and promised on RTE television to make her views on community employment cutbacks known during this debate. We wait with bated breath.
The issue of community employment should not be dealt with through posturing or phoney wars. When Deputies come to vote on this motion tomorrow, Dáil Éireann may vote to acknowledge the value of the thousands of schemes up and down the country, of the 20,000 people who are serving their communities doing essential and vital work and of the thousands of community and voluntary bodies which sponsor CE schemes. Alternatively, it may vote to reduce all their efforts to a mere labour market strategy of limited intrinsic value and therefore open to be cut or ended when labour market conditions improve. Few issues give a clearer insight into the difference between a conservative understanding of how communities work and the progressive view of development at local level. The issue cannot be fudged. Deputies must either vote to restore these schemes because they are worth the investment – because they have intrinsic value – or vote to register their satisfaction with the cuts of the last two years.
When CE was introduced by the former Minister for Finance, Deputy Quinn, few expected it to become the success story it subsequently did. It has supported sports organisations, the elderly, the disabled, arts groups, environmental protection and community development. Over the years it has become the glue that holds together quality of life in communities. The Government has lost the plot. Whatever CE was originally intended to do, it has become much more. When the Minister of State – or as we saw earlier, the Taoiseach – quotes the reduction in numbers of the long-term unemployed as justification for cutting CE, of which we will hear more tonight, he misses the point. He fails to understand that these schemes do essential work. Without the schemes the work will not be done and we will all become impoverished.
It is interesting that the first sentence of the Government's proposed amendment to tonight's motion says that Dáil Éireann, "reaffirms that the primary role of community employment is that of an active labour market programme". The Government has no concept of how it is much more than a labour market programme – it is the value added that sustains community activity and community groups and provides support and a better quality of life for thousands of our citizens. Another falsehood began to be peddled today when Government representatives compared the numbers on one scheme, community employment, with the numbers on three schemes, the community employment scheme, the jobs initiative and the social economy programme. The criteria for participation in each scheme are different. It is nothing more than a patent attempt at deception to roll three schemes together and pretend they can be compared to the numbers on one scheme. The people are not to be taken as fools.
A third falsehood is the empty promise made again and again on Question Time by the Minister of State, Deputy Fahey, and others that the disabled would be unaffected by these cuts – that they would, in the phrase of the Minister of State, be ring-fenced. Last week every Member of this House was lobbied by campaigners on behalf of the Centres for Independent Living – disabled people seeking a measure of independence for themselves. They brought to each of us first-hand testimony of how their quality of life had been adversely affected by the CE squeeze. Not only are the numbers being cut, but the terms of qualification for CE participation have also been changed. No longer can the long-term unemployed return to CE after a period away from it. The Minister has introduced three-year term limits which is having a hugely negative impact. This is deliberate policy – it is not by accident. The leaked Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment report of senior officials to the Cabinet committee on social inclusion states that while places may be ring-fenced, individual personnel are not. They are being squeezed out one way or another.
Another famous promise was based on mainstreaming. Although it was mentioned this afternoon by the Taoiseach, this is also being abandoned. There is no hope left for people who are losing their personal assistants or who depend on any of the vital work being done in the health area by those in community employment. If they lose out under one of the mechanisms of squeeze that the Minister and the Minister of State have introduced, there is no prospect of replacement with mainstream money. I quote from the report of senior officials to the Cabinet committee on social inclusion which states: "In the light of the experience of mainstreaming in the education sector, it has been decided not to pursue mainstreaming in the health related areas of community employment." All of this havoc is being wreaked on communities and individuals and on the prospect of people getting back to a decent standard of living. For what purpose? That is the question I repeatedly put to the Minister of State. Why is it being done? Surely it is not to save the miserable few bob.
The core cost of community employment is the difference between what a person would receive on social welfare and what he or she gets on community employment. The basic personal rate for those on community employment schemes is €149.20 per week. Persons with a qualifying dependent get €232 per week while the child dependent allowance is €16.80. By comparison, a person on unemployment assistance gets €124.80 per week, or €207.80 per week with a qualified dependent. The child dependent allowance is again €16.80. The core cost per participant of maintaining somebody in community employment is €24 per week. That is what this is about. In a budget of billions of euro are we going to rob communities of vital participation and vital work? Are we going to rob people of the dignity of labour and put them back on unemployment assistance to save a lousy €24 per week?
We have heard the published figures tonight. Miraculously, like last year, they are much better than we were led to believe when the Estimate process was going through. There can be no justification for the savagery that has been unleashed on communities and individuals by the reduction of 10,000 places on community employment schemes over the last two years. Since there is no logic from the financial perspective in throwing somebody off a community employment scheme for €24 per week, it can only be explained by the Government embracing an ideology which is foreign to this country – an ideological view of community and of people. It is a view which places value only on what can be deemed to be economically productive. It has no wish to understand what adds value to lives among ordinary communities – among those who want to play sport, who want to live independently, who want to enjoy or be exposed to the arts for the first time. If one is not an economically productive unit in this new economy one has no place and must be crushed. This is a view of Ireland that is alien to our traditions.
This House will have the opportunity tomorrow to decide whether this is a vision of our tomorrows that we want. Those who are currently wrestling with their consciences on the far side of the House can decide to reject this narrow economic vision of Ireland and show that they place value on the people in communities and the work done by participants in community employment schemes and the voluntary and community organisations who sponsor them through their efforts to give a leg up to vulnerable people throughout the country.