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

I will give responses but I will not have answers to all of the Deputy's question, as I think he recognises. I have a table of statistics relating to the rural social scheme in front of me. They relate to the numbers availing of the scheme and qualified adults. I am not going to try to analyse it on the spot. The piece of analysis the Deputy is asking for makes sense in the context of the review. We will do that.

The Deputy asked about the cost difference for participants in the Tús and CE schemes. We can find out. Like the Deputy, I would assume that Tús is cheaper because there is no training element. The CE scheme is also more optional, which makes a difference. The CE scheme can also last longer.

The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform has a job to do. It does it fairly consistently. I will say that we get the amount of places for which we look. We have vacancies on the Tús and CE schemes. The rural social scheme is demand-led. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform is not limiting access to the CE scheme at the moment. We have the budget that we need for all those programmes.