Contacts between the project sponsors and this Department have been on-going since October 2019. There was also a meeting in February 2020 between an official of my department and their counterpart in the HSE to discuss the matter.
Due to Covid 19 restrictions the opportunity to meet with the scheme sponsors was not possible. However, following the easing of Covid 19 restrictions, a meeting was arranged discuss the issues in detail.
This meeting was held on Friday 3rd July 2020, and in attendance was an official of my department and the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson of the board of the Clogh/ Muckalee Community Employment Scheme.
It was agreed that the Clogh/ Muckalee Community Employment Scheme, would request approval for an additional five Community Employment positions from the department which would bring their participant number to 26.
It was further agreed that they would furnish to my department a completed application for same, together with the required union approval, in compliance with the requirement under Community Employment Procedures that specifies:
Where a project maintains an approval level of 26 or more participants, additional supervisory grant support may be allocated for an Assistant Supervisor to enable the sponsor provide assistance with additional supervision. DEASP will only consider such grant support when the Sponsor submits, with the project application, a detailed job description for the additional supervision tasks and the intended salary levels.
Once these vacancies have been filled by the project sponsor, and application may then be submitted by the company to request the approval of the appointment of an assistant supervisor, which will be given favourable consideration by my department.
I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
