Monica Barnes
Ceist:4 Mrs. Barnes asked the Minister for Labour if, for each of the years 1985 to 1990 inclusive, he will give details of the funds made available by his Department, in 1990 punts, in respect of women, including equality.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Funding of Women's Programmes.
The main expenditure in respect of women in the agencies under my Department is in respect of training and employment schemes run by FÁS and CERT. Some courses are only for women and in others women have significant participation Since this is a matter for FÁS, I have asked FÁS to communicate the expenditure details direct to the Deputy. A similar situation exists in respect of CERT.
The budget of the EEA for the period in question is already published.
As regards expenditure under the Vote for the Department, which includes the Labour Court, it would not be possible without considerable trouble and expense to extract and cost separately activities which were in respect of women.
Would the Minister agree that in view of European integration and the integrated market there must be a far greater investment of funds in programmes of training and retaining for women, so that they are not further marginalised on the periphery of the workforce?
I agree. During the review of the Structural Funds last year, I argued for positive discrimination in favour of women's programmes. This has allowed us to double our participation in schemes such as the return-to-work courses for women and specific skills courses. Next year we will be able to go further. We have isolated the budget under these headings to improve substantially the number of women involved.
When will the figures be available? It is reported to me that the number of return-to-work courses is being cut back. This is the opposite to what the Minister has been saying.
The figure used to be about 200 but rose to 330 two years ago, 560 last year and 950 this year. It will be over 1,000 next year.
For women?
Women only.
The time for dealing with priority questions is clearly exhausted and I am now proceeding to deal with other questions.