Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have to say this morning has been fascinating. I spent 18 years of my life working for what effectively was a community co-op. We started with nothing and built it up. Over that time, I saw people developing. People got a week's work and then a year’s work. Then some of them went out on their own to become successful. I was working in a rural area with high unemployment at the time. Now it has extremely low unemployment. We must recognise that we have to build into the future and take a long-term perspective.

Listening to the debate, it seems that if we look at Travellers as a community, one has a young enough coming group who we would hope will get better education and, therefore, their future should be one of more choice. The second group are those who are already adults, be they on their 20s or their 60s, who have finished their education and are unlikely to go back into it. It might happen in the future depending on how one builds it up. One has to look at the different groups and pick each person individually deciding what is the best for the individual rather than everybody together. There will be as many choices as there are people.

Having run a community organisation which had a commercial aspect as well as a social aspect at the same time, I am firmly of the view that everybody – this does not just apply to Travellers - should have an opportunity to work. I do not agree with work programmes which force people to work. That is absolutely negative. Everybody should have an opportunity to work. My experience is that if one gives people a reasonable opportunity, they will take it. There could be a few quick wins which would be in the gift of the State.

Currently, if one gets onto a CE or Tús scheme the time is limited, no matter how well a person has worked and no matter how important their job; if one does not progress, as society defines progression, one has to go. Someone might look after the local community centre and keep it open, making it available every day and it does not matter whether or not they are replaceable, it is still a case of "out you go". Someone might be employed elsewhere as exactly the same thing as an employee and there would be no limitation. Perhaps starting with target groups, there should be no limit to the time one spends on the scheme. I initially set up Tús in December of 2010 and I was gone by February 2011. I took what I was getting but I did not agree with Finance's one-year rule. What was meant to happen was that an individual would get on a CE scheme for three years, get training and if he or she had performed well but had not got a commercial job, he or she would transfer to Tús and get a job providing some vital service to communities, which would be of indefinite duration. If a person got another job, obviously he or she would move on but if not, they would stay where they were.

Dr. Cann's reference to the social economy is interesting. The biggest social economy scheme in the country is the community services programme. I had quite a bit of experience with that. Its big advantage is that a person who is on the programme can stay on indefinitely. They can get the minimum wage and a company can pay one extra if they can earn the money, and they must have an income. Unfortunately, job initiative, which was also a good scheme, has been run down systematically. We should have a big increase in community service programmes because there are many services which will never be economic, such as heritage facilities. Dr. Cann also mentioned Wicklow. I have some connection with Wicklow. I went down to visit them in their early days, when I think they were in Bray. They asked me if they could get sewing machines. We went to the ESB and asked if it had any sewing machines lying around somewhere. It had a whole heap of sewing machines so we got them for the project and I am glad to hear it is still working well. There is also a very good scheme in Galway which is totally Traveller run, from the management down. It was set up in my time and the model has been proven very effective. It has broken into a particular business which I will not mention here which one would not normally associate with male Travellers, and which people would think unlikely because of social prejudice. It has been hugely successful in getting the job done. There is much that we can do in those and I would be interested in Dr. Cann's reaction.

Work experience in the private sector is a huge opportunity. My experience of work experience was that if one got someone in who was good, one would get them a job or one would retain them. It is important that people can get in there and prove their worth. We have discussed internships in the public service, including in this House, among ourselves. It is absolutely vital.

I hate JobPath. I have a total aversion to it. Most people who get jobs through JobPath would have got the jobs anyway. It is a total waste of money. I have my suspicions about JobPath because people come to me who were called for JobPath who did not want to go to it for their own reasons, which might be valid but I have many Travellers who come to my office every week - a high percentage of those who come to my office are Travellers - but JobPath has never come to me for Travellers. I wonder whether Travellers are actually being called for JobPath or if there was a subtle, quiet instruction to the effect that "we do not want those". I do not think that it is a good model that gets people into employment.