Vol. 438 No. 5
128 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment when he will introduce his national work sharing plan to create up to 75,000 extra jobs in view of his organisation of the community work programme yielding 40,000 community jobs; and the way in which he intends to do this.
The Government is committed under the Programme for a Partnership Government to the introduction of a national voluntary scheme of work sharing. We are I believe, on target to implement that commitment by early 1995.
The scheme will seek to secure the participation in employment of as many persons as possible and in this way to contribute to reducing unemployment. It would be very difficult, at this stage, to estimate the total number of persons who might benefit from the introduction of new sharing arrangements.
As I indicated in my contribution to the budget debate in this House, I intend to amalgamate the present Social Employment Scheme, the Community Employment Development Programme and Teamwork into a new programme to be known as the Community Employment Programme, with a planned target of 40,000 participants by the end of 1994.
