Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 25 May 2022
130. Deputy Richard O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the fact that persons who want to remain on the community employment schemes rather then returning to jobseeker’s are not allowed once the period is expired even though these persons carry out great work for their communities; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26898/22]
View answerThe aim of the Community Employment (CE) programme is to enhance the employability of disadvantaged and long-term unemployed people by providing work experience and training opportunities for them within their local communities. The programme aims to improve a person’s opportunities to return to the labour market.
CE placements are intended to be temporary and subject to time limits. This is to ensure the continued availability of places on CE schemes for a broad range of long-term unemployed candidates. Those who are unemployed and in receipt of an eligible payment for 12 months or more may be eligible to participate on CE.
In general, all CE placements for new entrants aged between 21 and 55 years are for one year. However, CE participants, working towards a major educational award, can seek to extend participation by up to two years to enable them to reach the required qualification standards.
Those over 55 years of age can remain on CE for up to three years, while CE participants who are aged over 55 and commenced on CE prior to the introduction of the changes in 2017 continue to be eligible to stay on CE for six consecutive years. CE participants over the age of 60 can participate on a continuous basis up to the State Pension age.
During the COVID pandemic the Minister for Social Protection and I extended CE participants contracts on a number of occasions. These contract extensions, which were in place from October 2020, supported CE schemes at various stages of the pandemic so that they could maintain important community services while also ensuring that participants had sufficient time to fully avail of the work experience and training opportunities affected by public health restrictions.
CE participants with extended contracts started to leave schemes on a coordinated and phased basis from 8 April 2022 and this will run up until January 2023. This will ensure continuity of service delivery and also support a phased recruitment of new participants.
In light of the ongoing COVID related challenges faced by CE schemes Minister Humphreys and I announced a number of reforms to CE in December 2021 including lowering the age limit at which CE participants can stay on CE up to state pension age from 62 to 30.
As part of these reforms and to assist with the transition from COVID emergency supports, participants including those with extended contracts, may not be required to leave CE, where a suitable replacement has not yet been referred to the scheme. This is a transitionary provision for supporting schemes to retain services, with the higher-than-normal turnover of participants in 2022. Extensions under this provision must be approved by officials from the Department and consideration will be given to the impact of COVID on the recruitment of participants, the type of service provided by the placement along with recruitment and referral efforts. This does provide schemes with additional flexibility to retain participants, where required to maintain services in communities.
I am fully committed to the future of this programme and will continue to support and improve the programme for the benefit of the CE participants in particular given the valuable contribution being made to local communities through the provision of services.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
