I welcome the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, to the House and congratulate and wish her well in her new portfolio.
Community Employment Schemes
I, too, welcome the Minister to the House.
I welcome the introduction of the TÚS initiative as another important measure to stem the huge problem of unemployment that is the legacy of the last Government and I commend Minister, Deputy Burton, for her work in progressing this new programme.
Unemployment is a serious issue in Kilkenny, with in excess of 7,000 people in the county currently on the live register. Five young people have emigrated from the parish of Bennetsbridge in the past three weeks. Their loss is felt by everyone in the community, not least their families. In a small village, the emigration of five young people affects everyone. Their presence is missed from the local GAA and soccer clubs and from the various important little events that take place in a rural village throughout the year. It is a sad time for families and communities.
As I mentioned, the live register in Kilkenny is at a record high. I note that my county has been allocated only 80 community work placements under the TÚS programme which will be managed by Kilkenny Leader partnership for the Department of Social Protection which has overall responsibility for the scheme. I welcome that the work opportunities are to benefit the community and are to be provided by community and voluntary organisations in urban and rural areas. However, I am concerned that this programme, like so many programmes introduced by the last Government, is a little ad hoc and short term in nature. Moreover, I am disappointed that the TÚS programme is limited to the community and voluntary sector.
Having just come to this House from Kilkenny County Council, I am keenly aware of the huge pressures that local authorities are under in these difficult times. In Kilkenny, 150 staff have been let go, 75 of whom were outdoor staff. I am sure this situation is replicated in local authorities the length and breath of Ireland. I ask that the Minister to revisit the parameters of the TÚS scheme with a view to including local authorities in its remit. In recent times, with the visits of President Obama and Queen Elizabeth and with the Government's excellent initiatives in the jobs strategy, Ireland's role as a tourist destination is at the forefront of people's minds. However, we have some important improvement and maintenance work to carry out if we are to show our best side to visitors. As I mentioned, local authorities are feeling the pinch with the loss of staff, particularly outdoor staff. There remains a great deal of work to be done in terms of cleaning up litter, dealing with graffiti and so forth and I believe this programme could assist in this regard.
The TÚS scheme could also assist in dealing with issues arising from estate management. I ask that the Minister, Deputy Burton, examine these issues and to work with the Minister and Minister of State for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputies Hogan and Penrose, respectively, with a view to expanding this new scheme to include local authorities in its remit. There is an opportunity here for joined-up thinking.
Perhaps the Minister will clarify if it will be possible to increase the number of places on the programme available in Kilkenny and if every type of community group be entitled to register for TÚS, including local sports clubs such as the GAA? It is soul destroying for people to know that two days after having worked 364 days on this scheme they will be unemployed and will not be able to re-enter the scheme for three years. What will happen when participants complete their year in the scheme? Will they be eligible to participate in other schemes or will the Minister change the criteria of the scheme and extend the time of employment? Will participants be able to move to another community scheme? How does this scheme fit in with existing schemes aimed at the unemployed operated by the Department of Social Protection, including the community employment and rural social schemes? Will the Minister consider including on the scheme the long-term unemployed who are availing of jobseeker's allowance? Has the Department engaged with trade unions about the scheme? While I welcome the scheme I believe that with minor changes communities and unemployed could get greater gains from it. Does the Minister propose to review this scheme to put it on a stronger footing and to link it in more coherently with other programmes?
I would like to commend Leader in Kilkenny for its excellent community work and to thank the Minister for coming into the Seanad to discuss this matter today.
Thank you, a Chathaoirligh, for your remarks. It is very nice to be back in the Seanad today.
I acknowledge Senator Pat O'Neill's interest in this area and thank him for raising the matter. It affords me an opportunity to inform the House of the roll-out of TÚS, a work placement initiative with the community and voluntary sectors. This will be an important initiative for persons who are unemployed.
I was delighted when, on taking office, I saw the provision of 5,000 places, but I was surprised to find no one had taken the places and that the scheme had not been initiated. Much work has been done since I took office as Minister for Social Protection to get the scheme going.
Senators will wish to note that the first supervisory positions for TÚS were filled this week. Over the course of the next fortnight another 100 or so supervisory, or team leader, posts will be filled and the first 60 or so participants will commence work with local development companies throughout the country as soon as the supervisors are in place.
I would like to summarise some of the key features of TÚS. Five thousand work placements are being identified in the not-for-profit community and voluntary sectors. Local development companies have been working to identify quality work placements within suitable organisations across a broad range of services of benefit to communities. Participants will be paid their social welfare entitlements and an additional €20 per week. Participants under 25 years will be paid the maximum job seeker's allowance plus €20 per week. This will make TÚS very attractive to this age group. Participants will work for 19.5 hours per week, with some degree of flexibility in the schedule of hours.
The aim is to offer 5,000 work placements over the next year. Separate allocations have been made, as was said by the Senator, to each of the local development companies and to Údarás na Gaeltachta which will deliver TÚS at local level. It is important we maintain the focus on the long-term unemployed. For this reason, eligibility for TÚS is, at present, confined to those on the live register for 12 months and in receipt of job seeker's allowance.
TÚS presents one of a number of opportunities to meet the Government's aim of keeping people work-ready and at the same time providing and supporting valuable support services in the community and voluntary sectors. In addition to TÚS and a number of other schemes and initiatives that provide work or work placement opportunities, such as community employment and the rural social scheme, I announced a new internship programme as part of the jobs initiative with the aim of providing 5,000 short duration opportunities.
With regard to the Senator's comments about the limitations on TÚS, the internship scheme, which will go live on 1 July, may answer many of his issues. It will be open to people who have been on the live register for three months or more. It is aimed to give experience to people who have a qualification or an accomplishment but who cannot get a job because they have no experience and cannot get experience because they cannot get a job. Participants will get a six to nine month internship or traineeship, for which they will continue to be paid their social welfare payment plus €50. Given the Senator's comments about a more flexible scheme, he may like to look at that scheme. It will be included in the social welfare Bill and I will outline it in detail when I bring the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011 to the House before the end of June.
There are a range of interventions, with differential duration and access criteria, designed to offer responses to people presenting with a broad set of circumstances. The overall intention is to have a suite of interventions that will play different roles for people wishing to enhance their employability or commence self-employment.
The availability of job opportunities with some financial incentives, even short-term work placements, is important. In addition to any financial benefit, work brings benefits to the individual, including improvements in his or her position, and to family circumstances. The intention is that following engagement with these types of interventions, a person will progress to available work opportunities or further training or development.
For anyone involved in community or voluntary work or in the community at large, it is depressing to see young people in their 20s heading into dependency on social welfare which could last for half a decade, a decade or even longer and become a lifestyle choice rather than a temporary period when they get an income support from the State and the State reaches out to assist them, whether through education, training or work experience, to get back to the jobs market. That is the cultural reform we must bring about in social welfare.
There is a range of expertise available within local development companies. I went to Tullamore to meet the network of local development companies and to talk about TÚS in detail. I was amazed, on becoming Minister, to find that no one was taking up the course. The response so far has been very positive. During June, we will see the first people taking up the placements. The response from the different companies has been positive.
I will come back to the Senator and we will have an opportunity during the debate on the social welfare Bill to discuss this matter. We will examine the internship programme, which specifically answers the access flexibility requirement the Senator indicated. The internship programme will be open to the private, public, voluntary and community sectors. There have been indications of interest by development companies and the private sector but also, for example, by county managers.
Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire go dtí an tSeanaid. Tá mé thar a bheith buíoch as an t-am a thógáil, mar tuigim go maith go bhfuil sí an-ghnóthach na laethanta seo. Tá fáilte faoi leith roimh na cuairteoirí óga sa Ghailearaí go dtí an tSeanaid tráthnóna. I welcome the Minister and thank her for taking the time out of her busy schedule to talk about an important issue relating to community employment, CE, schemes, which has come to light in recent weeks. My Sinn Féin colleague, Senator David Cullinane, highlighted what he feels is a jobs crisis. We are certainly in dire straits with regard to job creation. I appreciate that the Minister is looking at this as a matter of urgency.
It has come to our attention that in recent weeks a directive has been given by one of the regional departments in FÁS that the leniency of allowing an extra year on a FÁS scheme has been curtailed, that the three year rule is to be implemented very strictly and that people will not be given a fourth year or extra time on a local CE scheme.
A number of questions arise from the directive. It is not logical when we are in a national jobs crisis. The FÁS website describes the community employment scheme as an employment and training programme that helps long-term unemployed people to re-enter the active workforce by breaking their experience of unemployment through a return to a work routine. This is all fine and dandy if one has a job to return to. At present, there is a huge difficulty for people who are leaving CE schemes in finding employment.
In most areas, people who have been on CE schemes and who are doing extremely important work in their communities are being displaced by other people who are already on the live register. There is a revolving door scenario, where people on FÁS courses, who have been trained and are doing fantastic work, are being replaced by others who are on the dole. It does not make sense. The communities I talk to in Connemara and Galway are disappointed by the lack of leniency where there was leniency previously.
Did the directive originate at Government level, particularly from the Minister's Department, or did it originate within FÁS? What is the thinking behind it? There is no benefit in people leaving CE schemes if they are unable to find gainful employment and are put back on the dole. One of the benefits of CE schemes is that participants work with other people, are trained and improve their skills. Leaving people languishing on the dole is not a positive option when the cost of keeping them on CE schemes might not be much more.
It is possible the related cost of mental health issues which would ensue from not having them on those CE schemes would be more than the amount we are saving by putting them back on the dole.
I ask the Minister to consider the Sinn Féin proposal of creating 10,000 new places on FÁS CE schemes because, as the Minister said, the jobs initiative is being rolled out at present but those jobs have not yet materialised. In the interim, there are over 430,000 people on the live register. This would be a fantastic opportunity to get those people doing meaningful work in their communities. The cost of having them on a CE scheme as opposed to being on the dole would be much more beneficial in an economic, social and every other sense.
I draw attention to the plight of self-employed people who do not qualify for the dole, including those who had been labourers, electricians, plasterers, fishermen, farmers and so on. At this stage, they are not counted on the live register and are not entitled to unemployment payments despite being unemployed. We feel something needs to be done to try to help these people out of this difficult situation and to help train them. We plead with the Minister to address this as a matter of priority because such people seem to be the forgotten unemployed in our country at present.
The Minister might give us an insight as to what is happening in regard to the restructuring of FÁS and the future of community employment within the new structure of the national employment and entitlements service. When and how will this happen and will it have an effect on the CE schemes to which I referred?
I am not sure if the Minister is aware of the work done over the years by Pobal in the area of disadvantage. Mr. Trutz Haase has done much work on economic indicators and the deprivation index which shows that many rural and peripheral areas are at a much higher level of socioeconomic disadvantage. For example, to take the Connemara Gaeltacht, the further west one goes, the lower the level of education and the higher the proportion of people dependent on State income such as a FÁS course or State-funded employment. Therefore, there is a cycle of deprivation that has continued even though Pobal has been putting money into schemes for the last 20 years to try to reverse this. The gap between rich and poor, and between those who are deprived and those who are not, has not lessened but has widened a little.
In peripheral areas such as west Donegal and west Mayo, as well as possibly in some urban areas where there is a huge level of deprivation, will FÁS bring back that level of leniency in regard to CE schemes so those people would be allowed by the Minister to have that extra fourth or fifth year on the schemes? It is much more difficult for people in such areas to find gainful employment and I ask that they would be given a special dispensation and some leniency to try to help them through these difficult years, to keep those communities alive, to allow people to train and upskill and to keep them in gainful employment as well as doing much of the work that is needed in the community. Another element affecting communities in the west is that many of those who are able to work are emigrating, so we are losing many of the younger people who would do much of that voluntary work in those areas. It is a very small thing which would make a huge difference to us and our communities.
I welcome the Minister's comments on the TÚS programme and we hope it will roll out well under Údarás na Gaeltachta. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. Tá mé thar a bheith buíoch di as an t-am a thógáil agus tá súil agam go mbeidh sí ábalta na smaointe seo a thógáil ar bord.
Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an Seanadóir maidir leis an cheist seo. I thank the Senator for raising this matter. Community employment has long been an important initiative for persons who are unemployed. As with a number of other interventions, community employment has evolved over a number of years, with eligibility broadened to provide working opportunities for a wide range of people who face challenges in accessing the wider work force.
The primary aim of community employment is to facilitate re-entry to the active workforce. Community employment achieves this by breaking the cycle of unemployment, opening up training and educational opportunities, providing work experience and work routines, and utilising people's skills. Operationally, community employment has two options, with different eligibility rules and conditions. The part-time integration option is designed to help participants aged 25 years and over to find a job or enter full-time training or education, normally after one year on community employment. A person who is aged 35 or over and is claiming a jobseeker's payment for three years or more can qualify for the part-time job option. With this option, a person can work up for up to three years compared with the standard one year available to other participants in recognition of the need to provide access to a part-time job for extended periods for persons in this eligibility category who have been unable to secure regular employment for some time.
Extensions of a further year are only allowed under the part-time integration option. Requests for extensions must be made a minimum of eight weeks before the participant's proposed finish date by the project supervisor. Once an extension application is received by the local FÁS office, the FÁS development officer decides whether the extra year's placement is the most suitable and cost effective measure to assist a participant in gaining employment. Participants who are deemed job-ready by the supervisor are not extended in order to free up the place for other participants.
Lifetime participation on CE is capped at three years for those aged under 55 and the cap is six years for those aged 55 and over. Persons in receipt of a qualifying disability-related payment for 12 months are eligible for one additional year on top of these two limits, that is, four years for those under 55 and seven years for those aged 55 to 65 years. I have no proposals to consider changing these arrangements. The day-to-day administration of community employment is a matter for FÁS as part of its responsibility under the Labour Services Act 1987, as amended by Part 3 of the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2010, and the Minister of the day has no role in respect of any administrative matter, as I am sure the Senator appreciates.
The community employment programme makes an important contribution to the delivery of local services across the country and provides significant employment and training opportunities for those engaged. I do not envisage any change that would impact on the nature or range of services delivered. Within the current budgetary constraints, the number of places on community employment was increased to 23,300 in 2010. The budgetary provision in 2011 will allow FÁS to continue the programme at the same level as in 2010. In delivering these places, FÁS will continue to operate flexibly in the management of this allocation in order to maximise progression to the labour market while at the same time facilitating the support of community services.
The Senator asked about the national employment and entitlements service. As he is probably aware, at present the whole of FÁS is within the Department of Education and Skills but the proposal is that the employment services side of FÁS, including the community employment services, will move to the Department of Social Protection. This is in place at present at the planning and senior levels, and I am getting an opportunity to meet FÁS staff in different centres. I hope the national employment and entitlements service will be under way this time next year but it is a major change to bring social welfare services, community welfare officers and FÁS employment advisers and placement services all together under one roof. If they come together under one roof, we should be able to offer people who are in need of social welfare income support a much more integrated service to help get them back into the labour market or training and education. As I said, we have begun that process.
As I said to Senator O'Neill on the earlier matter, I am also in the process of activating and rolling out the 5,000 TÚS places. There has been a very strong response from local development and management companies, including the Údarás na Gaeltachta, because they see it as a valuable opportunity.
On 1 July we will offer the internship option. This will provide a great deal of flexibility that voluntary and community organisations and the private and public sectors will be anxious to explore. However, it is about giving. Consider, for example, a person who has completed an apprenticeship or finished a degree or masters course, yet cannot break into the jobs market because of the current economic climate. This scheme will offer six to nine months of quality experience which that person can utilise and include in a curriculum vitae to get into the jobs market. In addition, this measure will stop people, particularly young men, drifting into long-term unemployment. All international and Irish studies show that it is an especially negative experience for them and marks them for a very long time.
Senator Ó Clochartaigh may ask a brief supplementary question.
The Minister has mentioned she has no proposals to change the arrangements. I am bold enough to ask her to take on board the proposals I have made in this Chamber, namely, to look at the Pobal measuring system in order to identify areas of deprivation and perhaps subsequently change the terms of reference regarding extensions for a further year which are allowed only as part of the part-time integration option. Areas seen to be deprived under the Trutz Haase measurement system might be included. As the Minister stated, the position for long-term unemployed persons did not change, even during the boom times. Having such an option would alleviate some of the problems under discussion.
The Senator can take it as a given that all existing schemes will be kept under constant review. As stated, an unprecedented number of unemployed persons are looking for opportunities. Although the community employment scheme has its critics who say it is not sufficiently close to the labour market, many of us realise it offers very valuable experience to certain individuals in communities throughout the country.
As the integration of FÁS with my Department proceeds, community employment schemes will come more closely within the Department's remit. Pobal and the partnership companies will be included in the remit of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and there will be a certain amount of change. However, the important element of the changes is giving persons who are unemployed opportunities in order that they will believe they have valuable options they can exercise in work, education and training placements. The spin-off effect is to be felt in the contribution they make in community work. I will keep the matter under constant review.
The Seanad adjourned at 2.15 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 7 June 2011.