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

I have several points to make regarding subhead B12. First, until a few years ago, participants in the schemes under the community services programme, CSP, were paid the full minimum wage by the Department and the latter also paid the employer's PRSI. In what I thought was a very mean cutback, that was changed and now there is a contribution from the companies to the participants' wages. Second, the companies also used to get a grant for general overhead costs, which was not needed by some of them but was needed by others. The grant funding was tailored to prevent surpluses building up in some companies. In the context of the Covid crisis, it is extremely important that money be made available for overhead costs.

My third point concerns the CSP companies that have suffered a severe income loss or had to close because of level 3 restrictions. A lot of these organisations are either community centres or heritage sites. Many heritage sites throughout the country are in community ownership, including, for example, the Dunbrody visitor centre, several sites in Donegal and Athenry Castle in County Galway. Will those organisations be entitled to apply for the new scheme announced yesterday by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation? Has there been any discussion with the Tánaiste as to whether they will get a grant if they have to close because of the level 3 restrictions, which many have had to do already?

In regard to the fourth issue I wish to raise, it would have been helpful if the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, were still here to respond to it. Departments tend to organise their affairs as if they were all competing football teams, not part of the same Government. Any of us who have had the privilege of serving know that they look after their money and will always try to prevent it going to another Department. I got into big trouble as a Minister when I helped another Department by moving people from community employment, CE, schemes onto a scheme operating in my Department, thereby freeing up CE places. The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, should put it to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, that the net cost of creating more jobs under the CSP would be quite small given the huge savings it would bring in jobseeker's allowance and other payments, depending on which scheme people are on. It is much easier to ask a Minister to take money out of his or her left pocket if one is going to put it back into his or her right pocket, although the departmental officials will still fight over it. Even though there are two different Departments involved, at least it is the same head.

The State has invested big money to keep some community centres open from 8 o'clock in the morning until late at night post Covid and every one of them needs that money. A lot of good new community heritage projects have been set up that will not be economic in themselves but will operate as loss leaders in their communities to attract people into all the other businesses in those communities, including bed and breakfast accommodation, restaurants and so on. Does the Minister of State have plans to persuade the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation to support these enterprises rather than having people paid to do nothing, which is very bad in terms of their morbidity? People who are long-term unemployed tend to die younger, go to the doctor more often and take more medicine. That is a scientific fact and it is nothing about the people themselves but simply because humans were not built for being idle. Giving such people a meaning in their lives will bring them significant benefits. The most frequent queries we got during my time in the Department were not about people being put on schemes but about people being put off schemes or trying to get on them.

Will the Minister of State undertake to have a discussion with his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and ask that she achieve a little saving out of welfare by transferring, say, 500 people to some of the new projects operating under the CSP? We need to ensure that every large community centre in the country has the wherewithal to sweat its assets by being able to open all day. Every heritage centre, including the new ones being developed, and other facilities, such as those for Travellers, should automatically be eligible for the fantastic programme that is the CSP. The reality is that most of the people on these schemes will not get commercial jobs.