Deputy Teresa Ahearn gave me notice of her intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of a letter from the Department of Labour to Scoil Cormac, Scoil Aonghusa and the day care centre informing them that the people employed under the FÁS Teamwork scheme would end their employment within the next few weeks.
Adjournment Debate. - Cashel (Tipperary) FÁS Teamwork Scheme.
I thank you for allowing me to raise the termination of the FÁS Teamwork scheme at Scoil Cormac, Scoil Aonghusa and the day care centre for the mentally handicapped in Cashel on the Adjournment. I propose to share my time with my colleague, Deputy Michael Ferris.
Is that satisfactory? Agreed.
I am glad the Minister for Labour, Deputy Ahern, is present in the House for the debate. I want first to impress on the Minister the alarm, dismay and frustration felt by the staff of the schools, the parents of the children and the members of the Mental Handicap Association on learning that a letter had arrived from FÁS on 9 June 1990 stating that the continuation of the Teamwork scheme as operated in these centres is about to be concluded. The letter stated, and I quote:
It seems certain now that FÁS will not be in a position to approve any extension to existing projects or indeed consider new projects.
This news is regrettable for many projects but for Scoil Cormac, Scoil Aonghusa and the day care centre in Cashel, all of which cater for mentally handicapped children of varying degrees, it is absolutely devastating. After waging a long war last year in trying to ensure that this scheme would be continued in the schools in Cashel, it is regrettable to find that instead of winning the battle we have lost it yet again. I wonder if this will be an annual war.
Scoil Cormac caters for 128 mildly mentally handicapped children all with learning difficulties. Many come from disadvantaged homes, some have behavioural and emotional problems and all experience difficulties with language, speech and articulation. Scoil Aonghusa caters for 44 pupils with moderate mental handicap but the majority are severely disturbed and are very difficult to manage. The day care centre caters for 22 children with severe and profound mental and physical handicap. None of these children can walk and every morning the children have to be carried by the staff from the bus — I might add that this is not provided by the State — to the centre. They also have to be carried around the centre during the day. Every need of the children, physical or emotional, must be catered for by the staff at the centre.
It is impossible to give full details of the work done by the Teamwork people. Each school enjoys the services of six Teamwork people and, according to the letter from FÁS, 18 valuable staff members will be removed from the three schools. It is almost impossible to state the value of Teamwork to those centres. They are a vital and necessary element in the successful and smooth running of those schools. They provide valuable back-up to the teaching staff and the result is that teachers are, for example, able to bring a child to the bathroom happy in the knowledge that a person is in the class to supervise the other pupils. It is important to realise that the children are very demanding and constantly look for individual attention. Particularly in the day care centre, they share the tremendous physical burden in the day-to-day running of it. The Teamwork people provide continuity and allow those employed to establish a valuable and lasting relationship with the young children, something they need.
Last year we had difficulty ensuring the continuation of the scheme. The school had to reduce the number of children and the day care centre was forced to close three days per week. That had an appalling impact on the children who only progress when living in a stable environment. The day care centre was the only relief the parents got from the tremendous burden on them but now they are bearing the enormous burden of caring for their handicapped children. What happened last year will occur again this year if the FÁS proposals are adopted. The contribution of Teamwork to the mentally handicapped in south Tipperary is irreplaceable.
The letter went on to state that as an alternative the schools may consider the social employment scheme. That is no solution and would not be a substitute for the Teamwork scheme. Those employed under the social employment scheme must be over 25 years and must be on unemployment assistance. Through experience it has been found that people in that category are not willing or anxious to work in centres such as those in Cashel. They are not prepared to take on the responsibility for the amount of money offered to them. We tried to work under that scheme but failed and we know from experience that it will not replace Teamwork.
The social employment scheme is also unsuitable in that it operates on a week-on week-off basis. The children need continuity and constant contact with those whose care they are in, in order to build up a good and secure relationship with them. Staff employed on a week-on week-off basis would not help. In fact, they would cause a major disturbance and would lead to feelings of fear and insecurity among the children. The children need to integrate with youth. They respond better and more enthusiastically to young people. The Teamwork scheme was ideal in every way and helped to deal with the needs of the children.
The proposal is to take a very valuable asset from children who are among the most disadvantaged in our society. The proposal is to cut back in our schools that serve the needs of the disadvantaged. Those schools constantly cry out for help in regard to speech therapy, home liaison officers, physiotherapy and other services. Those schools are being abandoned because they are the responsibility of three Departments. The teachers in those schools carry a tremendous physical and emotional strain trying to cope with the demands of the children and the stress of their parents. We are dealing with parents who are at breaking point for the want of relief from caring for their mentally handicapped children.
Teamwork helped the schools in Cashel to continue and they enabled the staff in the schools to provide the backup for the parents and security for the children. I should like to plead with the Minister to provide the necessary funding for FÁS so that Teamwork can continue the good work. He should remember that the social employment scheme will not work. The Minister should make an exception where the Teamwork people operate in centres such as those in Cashel. I speak with emotion on this subject because I feel strongly about it. The Minister should give urgent consideration to my plea.
I should like to thank the Chair for allowing us to raise the issue on the Adjournment and I am grateful to Deputy Ahearn for giving me some of her time. I have been concerned about the schools in Cashel and in the south-east region. The difficulties in them came to my notice following representation I made three weeks ago to the Minister seeking approval for the continuation of the Killenaule community project. I received a letter from FÁS to the effect that they had been in contact with the FÁS south-east region and had been advised that they had received no Teamwork budget for 1990 and, accordingly, could not recruit for Teamwork schemes. That has been the position since 1 January last for all five counties. FÁS went on to suggest the social employment scheme as an alternative but, as Deputy Ahearn pointed out, it is not suitable because of the many regulations laid down by the Departments of Labour and Social Welfare for participants to qualify.
I received confirmation today from the County Tipperary Association for Mentally Handicapped Children of the concerns of parents in Scoil Aonghusa, Scoil Chormaic, the day care centre, the Nagle Centre where three teams of five people and a supervisor work, St. Ann's in Roscrea, and other schools for the handicapped in Munster. Mr. John Murphy, chairman of the association for mentally handicapped people in Munster, gave me details of the problems being faced. The Cashel and Emly youth service depends on assistance from the ingenious Teamwork scheme. It is not possible to operate the social employment scheme when catering for mentally handicapped children. We are concerned at the announcement by the Department of Health that they do not intend to provide funds for the health services and so on for those children. It appears that they have abandoned their responsibility and left the matter to the Minister for Labour. On the last occasion Oireachtas Members for the area visited Cashel we were able to promise that we would sort out the problems of the local centres and expressed our determination that they would not recur. There is no doubt that damage was done to the procedures used for caring for the children. I appeal to the Minister to allocate sufficient funds to take account of the needs of the south-east region. We have been progressive in our work but we are being penalised while other areas are permitted to continue. I should like to ask the Minister to use his good offices to sort out this problem. I know Deputy Davern will support our call.
I should like to thank the Minister for the help he has given in the past and to compliment FÁS on the tremendous job they have done in Scoil Chormaic and other centres for the mentally handicapped throughout the country. The school under discussion is 21 years old and it has progressed from a very simple beginning. The demands on the school grow each year. I should like to thank the Minister, and the Ministers for Health and Education, for their help over the years. In view of the tremendous problems being faced in the school I should like to make a special appeal to the Minister to provide adequate funds to help those involved. I suggest that the Minister take money from other subheads in his vote to make money available for this exceptional case. I have raised this issue with the Minister in recent weeks and I am confident that we will find the funds to help the mentally handicapped children.
I should like to thank Deputies Ahearn, Davern and Ferris for raising this issue. I appreciate and have noted their concern for the children and parents, and I will take the details outlined into consideration.
Teamwork is a community managed scheme designed to provide temporary community-based employment for young people through voluntary organisations for the mutual benefit of the young people and their communities. The scheme which is operated by FÁS is targeted at young people who have completed second level education and who have not succeeded in obtaining permanent employment. The duration of projects funded by Teamwork can vary from a minimum of 24 weeks to a maximum of 52 weeks. The scheme was never intended to provide services which are required on a continuing permanent basis. It was a temporary scheme.
The impression seems to have been created that Teamwork is being terminated. This is not the case. Up to and including 1989 Teamwork was eligible for assistance from the European Social Fund but regrettably this is no longer the case following a decision in Brussels. However, I secured additional Exchequer resources this year, £4.6 million compared with £2.3 million last year, to ensure the continuation of the scheme in 1990 at its 1989 level of 1,150 man years, giving employment to around 1,900 young people during the course of the year.
FAS now operate on a regional basis with each region having its own budget to cover the provision of training and employment schemes in the region. This ensures a more equitable distribution of FÁS operations throughout the country, resulting in some cases in requests for projects under the various schemes in parts of the country where a demand did not exist prior to regionalisation. This may mean that the same number of projects may not be renewed in certain areas in order to allow projects to start in new areas. In the case of the project specifically mentioned by Deputy Ahearn, I understand that assistance under Teamwork will continue up to end November next.
I am satisfied that the scheme is of major benefit to local communities and voluntary bodies and the young people who participate in Teamwork projects scattered around the country. However, it is necessary to emphasise that the scheme was introduced to help the young people. As such, projects which have a need for staff on a continuing and permanent basis must ensure staff through means other than Teamwork.
I would also like to point out that the Government have decided to expand the social employment scheme to cater for 15,000 participants by the end of this year. Sponsors of local projects might consider the possibility of obtaining workers through the SES for their ventures and thereby give the long-term unemployed in their communities an opportunity to regain a foothold in the labour market.
For many years in the Dublin region we did not use the social employment scheme for local authority works while other regions used the Teamwork scheme. We used the social employment scheme to help the blind, the deaf and the physically handicapped. However, I accept the view that that scheme is not very flexible, but I do not accept that it is not possible to make use of it because I have been involved in a number of projects that made use of the scheme. Where we have people working week-on week-off the numbers are doubled and that is how the difficulty is overcome. I accept that our young people are more interested in and very flexible in regard to this work.
Teamwork is designed to help young people in their search for secure, permanent employment. It was never intended that the scheme would provide staffing on a continuing permanent basis for local projects no matter how deserving the cause. This year I succeeded in having the fund doubled. When the ESF funding was withdrawn I had to seek funds from the Exchequer. I have argued that projects such as those outlined by the Deputies should be continued but I cannot give any guarantee that organisations can retain the same staff. That in effect would mean that other areas would be deprived of benefits under the scheme. I must deal with each application on its merits.
However, because of the good work being undertaken under the scheme, and the benefit to young people of participation in it, FÁS at my request will carry out an urgent review of expenditure with a view to endeavouring to make some additional funds available for Teamwork this year. In that regard I will bear in mind the requests by the Deputies. However, it is important to stress that this cannot be seen as permanent funding for organisations. I have the greatest respect for the commitment of those involved in those organisations but in my view they should look for long-term funding. I will do what I can to deal with the problem raised by the Deputies.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.35 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 29 June 1990.