Bernard Allen
Ceist:9 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Labour if he plans to expand the range of the social employment scheme.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Employment Scheme.
The Government decided earlier this year to increase the number of participants on the social employment scheme by 5,000 by the end of this year. I am pleased that present figures indicate an upward trend in recruitment. I have no plans to expand the scheme further at this stage.
FÁS always welcome proposals for new types of SES projects. May I suggest that the Deputy contact FÁS direct with any suggestions he may have in this regard.
Despite the Government's decision to expand the number of participants on the social employment scheme by 5,000, the scheme, in effect, is contracting in that some of the local authorities are now reluctant to take on board participants in social employment schemes. In fact the workforce in various local authorities are objecting to social employment schemes because they see the schemes as replacing full-time jobs and they feel that their positions are under threat. Has the Minister any comment to make on these recent developments?
As the Deputy knows, this has been a difficulty from the start and some local authorities never participated in the scheme for that reason. I know that one local authority, in which Deputy O'Sullivan would have a major interest, are presently having difficulties.
We are constantly trying to improve the scheme; we have reviewed the scheme and we have had discussions with the trade union movement on it. At the beginning of this year we introduced a child allowance scheme to improve it and we have proposals for further amendments to the scheme. I am not saying that there is no more room for improvement, but the scheme is costing £60 million per year and if there were more money available we could introduce further improvements.
The issue that is causing disruption at present is that the trade union movement in some local authority areas feel that participation in the scheme should also be linked to further recruitment by the local authorities, but I am afraid this aspect is outside my control.
Could the Minister indicate, if, in fact, there is a demand for the 5,000 extra places on the scheme and how many of the places have been taken up? Will the scheme achieve maximum participation in the current year?
The 15,000 people involved will give 11,700 man-years of activity and the position in the month of May is that we have reached 11,625 man-years, so in effect I do not have any capacity to take on more people. We are right on target in man-years.
Has the Minister taken the opportunity of the expanded scheme to resolve the dispute affecting primary schools throughout the country and has that matter been resolved to the satisfaction of the unions?
Finally, it has been resolved, or I should say I hope it has, because proposals were made which I think were in line for acceptance.