Mr. Oliver Egan:

Some 23,300 people are participating in the scheme. It is a very broad church. We have been set a target under Pathways to Work of ensuring a certain number of those places are one-year activation programmes. That will allow us to continue to secure as many activation places as possible. We are all probably aware that one of the problems with the scheme was that people tended to stay on them for a long number of years, which meant that other people did not have opportunities to avail of it. We have to balance that with securing progression opportunities for people who have longer-term needs. We are very aware of Deputy Conaghan's point about the need to support community groups and individuals as part of the activation agenda. We are trying to balance that within the totality of the programmes we have. As a group, the task we face involves bringing together the best of the community employment scheme, Tús, the rural social scheme and the job initiative scheme in a new way that helps people to make progress. That is the type of thing we are looking at within the labour market activation review.