asked the Minister for the Environment the arrangements made for the payment of youths employed on the environmental schemes including the rate of pay and the source of the payment.
Written Answers. - Youth Employment.
90.
A local authority may recruit employee grades without reference to my Department provided the rate of pay does not exceed the existing rate for that job in the local authority. The rates of pay of workers taken on by local authorities on environmental schemes would be determined within this framework and from inquiries made to a number of representative local authorities, employees taken on for the aforementioned schemes were all paid the road worker or general labourer's rate.
No special arrangements were made regarding the payment of the wages of these workers in any of the local authorities queried.
Expenditure by local authorities under the environmental improvement schemes programme is recouped to local authorities by my Department.