Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. That is exactly why it is so important we invest in our young people and give them the supports they need to find employment and show them there are better ways. That is something this Government is committed to - to helping our young people in every way we can.

There were a lot of questions there. One was on the pensions for CE supervisors and why we cannot extend it to Tús and the rural social scheme supervisors. All these schemes are delivered by independent bodies. The promoters of the schemes are funded by my Department. While it provides funding for participant and supervisors payroll, the Department is not the employer of any scheme participants or their participants. We need to be clear on that.

Community employment supervisors and assistant supervisors have for some time been seeking the allocation of Exchequer funding to implement a 2008 Labour Court recommendation that specifically related to a pension scheme for community employment supervisors and assistant supervisors. It is within this context that officials from my Department, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the unions representing community employment supervisors and assistant supervisors held discussions on proposals to progress this issue. These discussions were held on the clear agreement by all involved that they related solely to community employment supervisors and assistant supervisors. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy McGrath, and I recently reached agreement in principle to try and resolve the issue. It has gone to the unions and I hope we will have a resolution in due course.

We have increased the numbers on CE schemes as part of the July stimulus package. We announced an additional 3,000 places. Unfortunately, the lockdown meant some schemes were impacted by restrictions. There are 1,760 vacancies on community employment and 1,458 on Tús schemes. The community employment sponsoring authorities are encouraged by my officials to promote awareness of the benefits of community employment in local communities and to advertise their vacancies on the Department's recruitment portal www.jobsireland.ie. I take the Deputy's point about the length of time people are on these schemes. CE schemes provide two services: job activation and a social service. Until we recognise that, we will always have these problems where people want to stay on, they reach a certain age, and if they get another six months on the CE scheme, they might be due to retire. It is either that or they might get another two years. We have to recognise that.

I have met with a number of the CE supervisors and listened to their concerns. A report was done and it said you are stigmatising people if you put them in the category where they can stay on and you do not expect them ever to work again. On the other hand, there are those who want to stay on and who are doing really valuable work in their communities. If those services they provide were not available, there would be a gaping hole and somebody would have to provide them. There is a further conversation we have to have on CE schemes and I am prepared to have it. I am clear we need to look at it from the perspective that it is a job activation measure and does really good work in that. Many young people come in, get the work experience and training, and then get jobs. That is what it is meant to do, but there is also the social side to it. I am happy to work with the committee on that because it is something I feel strongly about.

As I said, there were a number of measures in the July stimulus to get people back to work, many of which we could not activate because the economy was closed down. We will be getting these back up and running and they will form part of the Pathways to Work strategy. I have been talking to the labour market advisory council which has given us good advice on how we go forward.

On PUP rates, 45% in receipt of the payment are on €350, 18% are on €300, 17% on €250 and 20% are on €203. The vast majority on the PUP are higher earners. The Deputy mentioned our projection of 395,000 unemployed. They are all projections and it is hoped the numbers will reduce, but we have figures to back up the projections. The unemployment numbers in the Revised Estimate are based on the assumptions of rates and numbers of unemployed used by the Department of Finance in the development of the stability programme update which was published in April 2021. The stability programme update assumed that the quarterly unemployment rates would be 24.4% in quarter 1, reducing to 11.2% by quarter 2.

The numbers range from 592,000 in quarter 1 to the actual number of those on the live register plus the pandemic unemployment payment recipients, which was 273,000 by the year end. As Deputies are aware, we are constantly monitoring projected unemployment. The latest Central Statistics Office data for April 2021 recorded a Covid-19 adjusted overall unemployment rate of 22.4%. This includes all those in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment. The traditional International Labour Office level of unemployment is 5.6%. Neither of these is likely to represent the true underlying level of unemployment. It is likely to lie between the two estimates.

The quicker the economy gets opened up, the better the position we will be in to beat the figures. We have said we will get more people back to work. The roll-out of the vaccine programme has been successful. As the Deputy said, the vaccine has been rolled out and we want to get more people back. People want to get back to normality and get back to the workplace and to social interaction. We want to support them to do that.