asked the Minister for Labour if he will change the regulations governing the Teamwork scheme operated by FÁS to allow projects with long term job potential to receive grants, in line with the practice in other member states of the European Community, in particular Great Britain; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Employment Projects Funding.
14.
The employment programmes managed by FÁS can be classified under the following three broad headings: temporary employment programmes such as Teamwork and the social employment scheme; assistance to business starts such as enterprise and the community enterprise programme and wage subsidies for the employment of workers such as the employment incentive scheme and the graduate recruitment programmes.
Following the establishment of FÁS, I asked the new organisation to advise me within the next six months on how to rationalise the existing programmes and also how to improve the content and cost effectiveness of programmes. Suggestions by Deputies will be taken into account in that review.
Will the Minister agree that projects which have some type of commercial potential should be excluded from the regulations? Will the Minister also agree that every effort should be made to find commercially viable jobs for people, no matter where these jobs are? It is not simply a matter of having off job creation to the Department of Industry and Commerce. If a job happens to come along under a scheme which the Minister operates, he should welcome it.
The present Teamwork scheme offers full time work for 12 months on community projects for those under 25 years of age. If sponsors apply for approval, the project can be extended for a further year, if necessary. However, it is written into the scheme that it must be non-commercial. I do not disagree with the Deputy's remarks and, in the rationalisation of the new enterprise schemes, I am hopeful that we will have a scheme which will be far broader than the present one. Discussions will be held with FÁS this week and, within about a month, we hope to have the schemes rationalised. Indeed, they could be far more imaginative than some of the present schemes but I will have to wait to see the cost factors.
Why do the regulations demand that the Teamwork scheme is non-profit making? Sometimes schemes which appear to be non-profit making when they start can suddenly become commercially viable. However, one cannot allow for that in the beginning and indeed in the enterprise scheme, one must be almost guaranteed commercial viability. There is a grey area which should be exploited and we should not be hidebound by rules and regulations.
I accept that the enterprise scheme is limited. It was made very clear at the start that the Teamwork scheme was non-profit making because it could be a windfall to unscrupulous employers who could use it to their own benefit to abuse young people.
There seems to be some confusion. Will the Minister not accept that the original restriction was to prevent commercial undertakings availing of State paid for labour and that there was never any restriction on a community group undertaking an activity in the hope or expectation that, later on, such activity might be commercially viable? There have been a whole series of projects in different parts of the country which started as Teamwork programmes and then realised their full potential with the result that they are now on a commercial basis, to which there can be no possible objection.
Deputy Colley was referring to a small group of individuals but Deputy Birmingham is outlining something that happens all over the country every day. It is a different point from the enterprise aspect which Deputy Colley sought to introduce.