Vol. 453 No. 2
102 Mr. Hyland asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the action, if any, he is taking to make additional funding available for FÁS schemes; if his attention has been drawn to the number of people willing to participate in employment schemes; his views on whether it is preferable to provide adequate funding for productive employment as against social welfare payments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9167/95]
106 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment if the Programme for Competitiveness and Work allocation of 40,000 community employment workers will be placed in the current year and thus end the embargo on community employment schemes which is wreaking such havoc amongst community employment workers on the many community projects which depend on them. [9108/95]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 102 and 106 together.
I am glad to inform the Deputies that, earlier this week, the Government decided to allocate an additional £10 million for the community employment programme, which will take total available funding to around £265.7 million and provide for an average of 40,000 places on the programme this year.
The Government and I are well aware of the high level of demand for places on the community employment programme and for this reason additional funding was made available for the programme. The bulk of the additional funding will come from savings in social welfare payments with the balance coming from savings in Departments which benefit directly or indirectly from the programme.
