Mr. Gabriel Kearney:

On the scheme I am sponsoring, we have 34 participants, going up to 38 because we have taken on four more. We have insurance and so on in place for 38 and we have to do that, but we get our money only for the number of participants we have on the scheme.

Even if we do not have all of our spaces filled, we still have to pay the insurance. Money is going out, which is farcical because that is the way the system is set up. We are losing out on a lot of material money, including basic petrol money, if one wants to call it that.

Another major point concerns those aged over 55 on CE schemes. Everybody says it is great to get and keep them on CE schemes because they are doing the grass cutting and so on. The curse of it, if there is such a thing, is that we cannot bring in new people, that is, the people for whom CE schemes were set up. We could have 36 or 38 people on a scheme. If 32% or 50% of our cohort is aged over 55, that means we will never be able to take on new people.

Reference was made to people we would love to bring in as coaches. Last year, a committee asked us whether we would like more participants. I am a volunteer. Ms Rohan is the only full-time worker in the scheme. The amount of paperwork I would have to do to try to create extra spaces is such that I could not do it within the time allowed because I have to run my own business.

The Government makes announcements that it would love to have more participants but the paperwork and all that goes with it makes that difficult. It is impossible to do it. We submitted our paperwork and more information was sought, which I do not blame the Government for doing. However, there is no full-time person in place to carry out that role. The guys we have working as supervisors are up to their tonsils with the workload they have been given. They do not have the time to do paperwork. It is a brilliant idea for those aged over 55, but we should sometimes be careful what we wish for because if there are only those aged 55 or older on a scheme, we cannot bring in the training that is necessary. That age cohort does not need to do training courses. We need to be careful as sponsors. We would love to re-energise CE schemes, but the only way we can do that is to bring in young people. If everyone involved is aged over 55, we cannot bring in younger people.