Ms Geraldine Hurley:

I will respond to some of those points and then hand over to my colleague to deal with some of the points on carers. On the rural social scheme, we are aware of the concerns about the six-year rule. It was introduced in 2017, so that rule will not start to apply until February of next year. It will only start to apply to people as they come up to being six years on the scheme. Therefore, it will not impact everybody in the scheme in February but we are very aware of the concerns. We are also aware the circumstances in which the rule was introduced in 2017 have changed somewhat compared with now and as we move into 2023. When that rule was introduced, additional places were assigned to the RSS. Therefore, there were positive aspects to that reform.

Regarding CE schemes, it is a challenge to fill vacancies on them to ensure services continue to be delivered while making sure schemes are not competing with open labour market employers in the locality who will also want to recruit people, be it people coming to the end of their time on a CE scheme or people who would be eligible to participate in one. I can assure the Deputy that, currently, if a replacement who would be ready to start cannot be found for a participant departing a scheme because his or her time has expired or his or her extended contract is expiring, the participant on it will not be required to leave it. It is a challenge in the context of where we are at in the employment cycle and with jobs being available in the open labour market for people who are leaving CE or who, otherwise, are unemployed, including those who are long-term unemployed. We must be conscious schemes are competing with local employers for participants.

On the 12-month limit applying to a placement on the Tús scheme, Tús was designed to be a shorter intervention than CE for people who are that bit more employment ready. It does not have the same training requirements, but if participants on completion of a Tús placement still feel they need more support and intervention, they are eligible to move on to a CE scheme.

Regarding the Deputy's point concerning supervisors, we very much appreciate the work supervisors on all three schemes do countrywide. The schemes would not be able to operate in terms of providing support, including training supports, to participants or in the provision of services locally. Our local community development officers work closely with supervisors in delivering the schemes. Regarding the differentiation in pay, CE supervisors have additional responsibilities over and above RSS and Tús supervisors with respect to training and development plans and other work they do. Historically, that is the reason there was some differentiation in pay.

I think I have answered all the Deputy’s points. I will pass over to my colleague Mr. Hession to deal with the points the Deputy raised about carers.