Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I refer to the community employment scheme, the rural social scheme and Tús. It is, of course, welcome to see increases in expenditure for 2022 across the board. They are very important. A commitment was made late last year when the changes to the community employment scheme, CES, and rural social scheme, RSS, were announced, one of which was a significant increase in referrals. I understand the Department will look at how it can ramp up referrals across those three important schemes, which are particularly important in rural areas for rural services. I understand a review of the rural social scheme is to take place this year. I would like an update on that because it is very important.

I appreciate the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has been out on the ground and has met with people - I have seen that myself online - and that is important. Many of the tweaks and changes that are needed particularly in regard to the RSS and Tús could be made by simply engaging with the co-ordinators and the supervisors without a long drawn-out review. I appreciate the RSS will be reviewed. That needs to be done in a timely manner. I ask that an update be given on that.

I raised the issue of the referrals many times. The last time I raised this, there were 1,900 community employment scheme vacancies online. I am looking at the details online now and they state there are 2,967 community employment scheme places available. This referrals issue is at crisis point when there nearly 3,000 CE vacancies. This needs to be looked at. Further to what was announced on referrals, will the Minister give an update on how that will work and how they will be significantly raised, because this is urgent? She knows the jobs that are advertised for the community employment scheme and how important they are to services, in particular, in our communities.

As to the six-year rule, the impact of that has not been seen yet, but there will be an impact. I know this issue has also been raised with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, by those on the ground. It is an issue that needs to be looked at.

My position on local employment services and jobs clubs is well known. I want to make the following point because the Minister and others have repeatedly said the legal advice leaves them with no choice. That is fine. If we take that as being read, that is fine. But there was no legal advice on changing the model, and that is the problem. I do not care about how it is procured or that it was necessary. The model was a community-based not-for-profit model. If there were issues in some local employment services or jobs clubs, and they were not meeting the targets they should have been meeting, that could have been looked at. They could have been spoken to and changes could have been made.

There was a commitment in the programme for Government to extend the job activation, including local employment services, and that could have been done without totally changing the model. We have seen what happens when profit is involved and private companies come in. We have seen it with JobPath, with a success rate of 6.8% as regards people gaining employment that lasts for one year. That has been at a massive cost, more than €250 million of taxpayers' money, for a success rate of 6.8%. It makes no sense. I know companies like JobPath are and will be procuring for these new services, and I would love to see their community linkages. As I said before, what is happening is a big mistake. I believe we will look back on it and wish we had done it differently.

I refer to redundancy for people in jobs clubs and local employment services who do not want to move to the private for-profit model. Some of them have given 20 to 25 years of service and they deserve better than the redundancy available through the State. I ask the Minister to look at this. These people have given so much to their communities over many years and they deserve better as regards redundancy if they decide to leave.