Vol. 418 No. 9
17 Mr. Gregory asked the Minister for Labour if he will make provision whereby FÁS may grant extensions beyond the maximum 52 weeks, as is currently provided for, on social employment schemes in circumstances where the sponsoring body and FÁS agree that an extension is desirable.
The purpose of the social employment scheme is to give as many long term unemployed as possible opportunities to become involved in a work related situation on a part time basis for one year.
FÁS have been given authority in exceptional circumstances to allow the re-engagement of persons who have completed projects. However, in view of the numbers of long term unemployed awaiting opportunities to participate, I think it is desirable to keep the number of extensions to a minimum.
I thank the Minister for his reply. Up until very recently the regulation was that no extension could be granted, or so FÁS have been telling me and other public representatives. I take it this is a new initiative on the part of the Minister. Will the Tánaiste enlighten us as to when this change was made?
I can only rely on the script I have, and it states that FÁS have been given authority in exceptional circumstances to allow the re-engagement of persons who have completed projects. I have no statistics about how many are involved or when this started. The final sentence in the reply indicates, however, that because of the huge numbers waiting to get on the scheme the number of extensions has to be kept to a minimum. In fact, I have only the information the Department got in the reply.
The purpose of my question was to point out that extensions of these schemes up to now were granted only after direct interference by previous Ministers overruling FÁS and directing them to grant extensions for constituency reasons more than anything else. I welcome the fact that this is now being regularised and that FÁS will make such decisions in future.
I cannot comment on that. I sometimes have a pipe dream that I would love to have that kind of power.
