Vol. 484 No. 3
21 Mrs. Owen asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the budgetary resources, if any, she has made available for the community employment scheme in 1998 and the proposals, if any, she has to meet the 25,000 target of new places to tackle long-term unemployment. [22098/97]
The Fianna Fáil -Progressive Democrats programme, An Action Programme for the New Millennium, contains a commitment to establish a 25,000 place programme which will pay the going rate for the job.
We aim to deliver on this commitment by progressively increasing the number of people on the community employment programme who will be paid the rate for the job. The community employment programme is under continuous review in the light of the dynamics in the labour market arising from the booming economy. It is against this background that the rate for the job initiative will be introduced. Last week's budget provided for an additional 2,000 places on the community employment programme. A total of £314.1 million is being allocated to FÁS for community employment next year. I assure the Deputy that any further action I take in this area will be driven by the need to ensure better opportunities for the long-term unemployed.
I wish the Minister a speedy recovery and hope her arm injury will not stop her in any way from dealing with industrial blackspots.
How does the Government propose to meet the target of 25,000 places if it made an allocation in the budget for only 2,000 places? Will the Minister indicate how many of the 2,000 places for next year are new places? How many people were projected to be on community employment schemes this year and how many of these will be on schemes next year?
I thank the Deputy for her good wishes. I also hope my arm injury will not deter me from dealing with unemployment blackspots. I am not suffering from a disability but my temporary injury has certainly made me more sympathetic to the needs of disabled people, with particular reference to ensuring they get job opportunities. Responsibility for the training of the disabled is being moved from the Department of Health and Children to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in line with the recommendation of the Commission on Disabilities.
The Deputy misunderstands the issue in that 25,000 new places are not being provided. The Government's aim is to move to a situation where 25,000 participants on community employment schemes are paid the rate for the job. At present the figure is approximately 1,000. An additional 2,000 places will be created next year, bringing the number of persons on community employment schemes to an average of 42,000, as opposed to a figure of 40,000 this year.
If 1,000 people are being paid the rate for the job this year, how can the Minister expect us to believe the Government can create an additional 6,000 places each year over the next four years? What steps has the Government taken to ensure that the necessary resources are made available and that jobs are created so that people can be paid the rate for the job? Will the Minister confirm that the projected number for this year was 40,000 and that the projected number for next year, taking into consideration the budget, is 41,000? According to my calculations, that is 1,000 more places than the projected number for this year. I received the figures from FÁS and would like the Minister to explain the discrepancy between them.
When the Government came to office there was a shortfall in the provision for 1997 and one of its first initiatives was to provide additional funding to ensure it met the 40,000 average for this year. Our aim is to increase the figure by 2,000 next year.
On the additional money for the 25,000 participants moving to the rate for the job, the Deputy misunderstands the position. Nobody gets paid more than the amount given under the community employment programme. In order to receive the rate for the job participants must work for a specific number of hours. For example, if the rate is £7 per hour and the community employment cap is £90 the participant will work for approximately 13 hours. This is how the rate for the job operates. No additional funding is required, it is merely organised in a different way.
In recent negotiations CORI concluded that we should aim to move 10,000-15,000 to the rate for the job over the next three years. In line with Partnership 2000, a monitoring group headed by my Department is being set up to examine how we can achieve this.
The entire community employment programme is being examined in the context of the implementation of the White Paper on human resources. We have to decide what we want to achieve under the programme. There are two main elements to the programme at present. The first is the reintegration element which seeks to reintegrate 75 per cent of participants into the labour market. Essentially these participants have been on the live register for one year and are over 21 years of age. The second is the part-time element which involves approximately 25 per cent of participants. These people have generally been unemployed for more than three years, are over the age of 35 and have very slim chances of being reintegrated into the labour market. We must decide whether the programme will follow more the social economy model, as recommended by Father Seán Healy, or the labour integration model. In the context of the implementation of the White Paper on human resources we will have to address this issue very seriously.
