Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 March 2021
970. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Social Protection her views on altering the requirements to qualify for the community employment programme from 12 months on the relevant payments to six months to enable more persons to be eligible; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14328/21]
View answer1047. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Social Protection her views on expanding the eligibility criteria for the community employment programme from persons living on one of the offshore islands and currently receiving a community employment qualifying payment for six months or more to persons living on one of the offshore islands, peninsulas or other rural areas more than 20 km from a large town; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15941/21]
View answer1048. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Social Protection the steps she is taking to develop and enhance the community employment programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15942/21]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 970, 1047 and 1048 together.
The Community Employment (CE) Scheme is an active labour market programme designed to provide eligible long-term unemployed people and other disadvantaged persons with an opportunity to engage in useful work within their communities on a temporary, fixed term basis. Those who are unemployed and in receipt of an eligible payment for 12 months or more, are long-term unemployed. Currently there are over 80,000 persons on the Live Register for more than twelve months. CE is a targeted employment support scheme specifically designed to assist those at most remove from the labour market back to employment, including the long term unemployed.
Altering the eligibility criteria in the manner suggested by the Deputy would reduce the number of employment support places available for persons who are facing greatest difficulty in returning to employment.
As the Deputy has noted there is wider of eligibility criteria for inhabitants of offshore islands including the requirement to only have been in receipt of a CE-qualifying payment for 6 months as opposed to 12 months prior to availing of CE. There are no plans to extend the offshore island exemption to other areas, or to reduce the eligibility criteria for the scheme in general. As outlined above any widening of eligibility criteria would reduce the number of places available for persons further removed from the labour market.
Since the start of the Covid-19 emergency, my Department has focussed its attention on ensuring that contingency measures were in place to support existing CE schemes during the various levels of public health restrictions. This included extending CE participant contracts that were due to finish during periods of Level-5 restrictions. On 2nd March, 2021 Minister Humphreys and I announced that participant contract end dates will be further extended until 2nd July 2021. This will benefit approximately 7,000 employment support scheme participants. When it is time for the participants to leave their schemes, this will be coordinated with the scheme sponsors on a phased basis and over a number of months.
The Deputy may be aware that Minister Humphreys and I held an online meeting recently with CE sponsoring authority representatives. Following on from this meeting, on 2nd March 2021, Minister Humphreys and I announced a new operational forum for CE and Tús sponsors and officials from the Department of Social Protection. The purpose of the forum is to facilitate discussions on operational matters. This will include proposals to further develop and maximise the contribution of CE and Tús schemes in assisting long term unemployed people back to work, while delivering valuable services to local communities.
As part of the July 2020 Stimulus Package, the Government announced 3,000 additional places on Employment Support Schemes, including Community Employment. The Department is working closely with stakeholders at present to identify ways in which these opportunities can be made available to the long-term unemployed and those furthest removed from the labour market.
As always, my Department will continue to monitor scheme activity and potential amendments to the supports provided to ensure CE continues to deliver for both long term unemployed persons and in providing vital services to local communities.
I trust this clarifies matters.
