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

There has been a useful debate on the local employment service but there are bigger issues involved here, specifically the internationalisation of bids for basic services in this country, which I believe is being driven by European agendas for some time. The other issue is the privatisation of fundamental services. I have serious concerns about that trend over the last 20 or 30 years.

I have been on a hobby horse for a long time. I still find we are up against the same reluctance to change based on old attitudes and for no rational reason. I really welcome the changes in community employment and the easing of conditions around staying on the schemes. However, I still cannot get my head around how, on a big policy issue, the State believes it has to ration the right of people who are unemployed and getting a payment to make a contribution to the State through the provision of services.

Let us start with the RSS. Only about 5,000 farmers are on RSS. I cannot understand why all those who wish to go on the RSS cannot be accommodated. We could not get a tsunami of applications. That would not happen because some farmers are on farm assist and will not go on the RSS for whatever reason. Instead, we went backwards. At least, when people went on the scheme previously, they could stay on it because it is not an activation scheme. Now there is a six-year cap, which I know was introduced before the Minister's time.

I have no doubt that if we were to create useful occupation for everybody who is eligible - I am obviously talking about eligible people - the advantages would outweigh any cost. The cost is the difference between people being on the scheme and getting a little extra in wage and supervision costs etc. and paying them out money on the basis that they do not actively engage in part-time employment, on penalty of very serious means tests. That is the cost. It is quite modest. I think the cost was calculated for Tús, which is a cheaper scheme than community employment, at about €5,000 per participant per annum. What is the upside? Let us look first at the health service.

It is well recognised in the Department - very good evidence is available on the matter - that people who are forcibly unemployed suffer much higher morbidity and mortality, go to the doctor more often and take more medicines. More importantly, however, there is also evidence that when people get employment there is a 99% improvement in the medical conditions they have that are caused by forced idleness. We all know the social cost of forced idleness to the Department, but the problem lies probably in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, where there is a deeply inset mindset that it would be just too radical by half to suggest that it would be much better if everybody on jobseeker's allowance long term, that is, for over a year, in other words those eligible for a scheme, were able to engage for a very modest amount of money, if they so wished, in providing services in their communities. It is a matter of measuring up the invisible costs in health, well-being and family issues. For example, we know that people who are unemployed smoke more cigarettes. That is a health issue. Then there are all the other issues when people are cooped up with no money. It is a matter of weighing all those invisible costs, which are nonetheless huge costs on society. We are also damaging people's well-being, all because we somehow cannot find the money, even though there are useful things that could be done in the community to improve community life. I do not believe it would cost any money in net terms if those things were done.

We need to start thinking big, breaking down the walls that have been there for a long time. One of the reasons the rural social scheme got transferred into the Department with responsibility for social welfare is a syndrome the Minister of State is probably aware of. He knows what happens when one Department goes for money. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform will look at the cost to that Department. However, when schemes come under two different Departments, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform never looks at the saving to be made to the other Department. Then there is bailiwicking between the Departments. Therefore, the reason all these schemes got transferred into one Department in 2010 was that at least there is a stop to the internecine strife between Departments, as if they were defending some great empire they had protected against another empire, that being another Department, when that was all meant to be subject to one Government. The Minister of State knows this and has seen the system fight like tigers to preserve what little they have to preserve.

There is a reason the rural social scheme comes under one Department. Previously, there was not that problem because there was only a transfer between two subheads. In the case of the Minister of State's Department, all that would happen if enough scheme places were created for those who wanted them - I am not talking about workfare; I am talking about those who want places on the scheme - would be that the Department would have to take some money out of its jobseeker's allowance budget, put it into the community schemes budget, which is what we are debating now, and come up with a little extra money. That would save on health costs, well-being costs and social welfare costs under other headings.