The latest information relating to duration of unemployment published by the Central Statistics Office indicates that in April, 1992 there were 75,635 people on the Live Register who had been unemployed for 2 or more years.
The Social Employment Scheme operated by FÁS is the principal manpower intervention aimed at persons who have been unemployed for 1 year or more. An Exchequer allocation of £72.9 million was originally made available for the scheme in 1992 which would have resulted in the participation of an average of 11,300 people on the scheme each week.
The rates of payment to participants on the Scheme are pitched above those to which they would be entitled had they remained on the Live Register in order to encourage participation in the scheme. In addition, as it is a part-time work scheme participants are free to engage in paid employment when participating in the scheme during the period while they are not actually involved in projects.
The long term unemployed are a priority group for FÁS training programmes. It is accepted that older long term unemployed with dependants are sometimes reluctant to participate in training. In order to attempt to overcome this reluctance, a dependency bonus of £10 is payable to trainees in addition to their training allowances which equate to the level of social welfare payments they were receiving.