Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I assure the Deputy I keep very close eye on the flow-in and the flow-out of CE, Tús and the rural social scheme, RSS. CE and Tús are in a bit of a different space and we are still kind of in a recovery phase from Covid as well. CE is in a better place. We got to a kind of steady-state position in the past month or two in terms of referrals and people leaving. It is important to say as well that extensions are possible on CE. If CE vacancies are being advertised and no one is taking them up, a six-month extension can still be given. We are also trying to increase referrals to our local offices. The pool shrank - I suppose because of the good context of the labour market conditions. On the other side of that, we expanded the eligibility criteria. We will have a pilot scheme for qualified adults next year, which could bring up to 9,000 people into eligibility for CE. That will help. As I said, we are trying to increase the number of referrals. A potential one on the horizon next year is that 3,000-plus Ukrainians could eligible as well. There are about 3,500 at the moment who have been on a jobseeker's payment since February or March. Come next spring, there is potentially more eligibility in that regard.

The RSS is a bit different. That scheme operates in the context of the pressure on small farms and the number of people on farm assist as well. I am eager to do sort of a root-and-branch examination of the RSS. In the past week, we wrote to Departments and other stakeholders to invite them to be part of a review group. I will be meeting the chair of that group next week. We want to look at going back to basics and the initial logic relating to the RSS, which was to keep small farmers on the land but also to keep them engaged with the community. We want to see if there are other ways we can do that. We will get that process started, hopefully, before the end of this year. However, the work on it will largely be done next year.

Tús comes up quite a bit. Tús is straight work experience - there is no educational or training element to it. Obviously, someone is getting something valuable out of it in terms of the work experience and the sponsoring organisation is getting something out of it as well. However, it is different to CE in that the person is not getting an extra bonus. What happens to a fair extent as well is that the follow on from Tús can be CE and a person can have a broader experience on CE with the educational and training element to it as well. Tús has not recovered in the same way that CE numbers have. Particularly in the situation that we are in at the moment, where we are trying to get numbers back up on both these, we are keeping all options open. When we make a change, we see what the impact is, assess and see whether we need to make other changes as well. I am very aware the community services around the country are quite dependent on Tús, RSS and CE as well. We keep a close eye on it. We will keep our options open.