Mr. David Connolly:

As Senator Moloney said, the cut applied in last year's budget was a shock to the whole system. We know from our meeting with the Minister that it was foisted on that Department in an attempt to deal with something of the scale of 60%. We need to acknowledge that the officials were the ones who had to deal with much of that stress. As Mr. Briscoe said, people at local level felt under threat because the future of their jobs schemes was up in the air. It is important to acknowledge that the officials were in a difficult position where they had to deal with everything while at the same time trying to engage with people. I think they found that the engagement through the unions in particular helped them to work through the process. We are not pretending it is anywhere near the end of the process but that was an important point.

Mr. Darragh O'Connor referred to the community employment campaign run by SIPTU. Many of the activists are in the Gallery to hear the evidence to this committee. It was important that we engaged with the Government backbenchers and the Opposition parties. Much of the change happened because of that internal pressure on the Minister from the parties. We learned that there are many Deputies who are very connected into the work of community employment and the wider community sector and the benefits and argument for it. We have a very informed electorate. However, our concern now is that we have been warned by the Taoiseach and the Minister responsible that this budget will be the worst ever in their term of office. I do not know why they keep telling us it will be the worst ever. This creates a serious threat to the future of community employment. We ask the committee to be aware of this issue because there is a danger that the Minister rather than the Department could decide that we should start with last year's allocation and then have the argument. It is vital the committee ensures the Minister allocates the funding necessary for this programme into next year so that another crisis is avoided.

I refer to the important work by the Department officials and their presentation today. Despite all the stress and turmoil, we now have evidence in financial terms to show what it costs to run community employment. We have recommendations that value the service side as well as the activation side. Coming to the end of this year and into next year, we have much more concrete evidence of the costs and the fact that the scheme is run very efficiently and has been developed over many years.

Mr. Oliver Egan said there are cuts of €3.5 million to be found. It is good if they know that but it should be retained in the programme because, in fact, their own report shows there is a greater demand for training. It is welcome that the officials who produced this report acknowledge the importance of training in the current environment.

I have two further points to make. The Minister assured us we would be involved actively with her and the officials, and this has happened. However, we will now be facing a potentially ominous report on the activation process, in other words, labour market activation. There seems to be a mindset and an obsession - some of it driven by the ESRI and the Forfás report and this seems to be contaminating the troika representatives - that the only reason for community employment and other schemes is to do with activation into the labour market. We know in this country that there is not an active labour market in this current environment. The representatives have said new approaches need to be developed, and social economy is one such approach. I remind the committee that when Deputy Ruairí Quinn was the Minister responsible for enterprise back in the 1990s, the size of community employment schemes was doubled because the infrastructure was capable of doing so. We are not arguing it is all the one thing. It is good to hear the Department officials saying the Tús programme should be aligned, as should the RSS, but in doing so the differences in wage scales and conditions need to be addressed without undermining or diluting the effectiveness of community employment. The other schemes should be brought up to the same level.

With reference to the double payment, there is no question that the decision to remove the payments from lone parents and those with disabilities had a major impact on people who have been recognised as among those most likely to be living in poverty. Recent research work in UCD has shown that in the general population there is a 16% risk of poverty but it is 35% among lone parents. The argument that they are getting an income over and above what others who are on the scheme receive misses the fundamental point. It was not just an income, rather it was to address the circumstances of those who are lone parents or those with disabilities because their circumstances are different from the rest of the population. It was designed to act as an incentive to ensure this participation would be of benefit to them and their children. The case being made is reflected in the Department's report. It states there should be tailor-made approaches to those circumstances. For example, we support the drugs projects and child care projects. It is not a case of one size fits all. We argue it is vital a means is found to re-involve lone parents or those with a disability.

The VEC programmes were very effective in the earlier days of the community employment scheme. They are a vital element in providing quality training and also because they are in receipt of much of the funding that was taken away from the Department of Social Protection and was taken over by the Department of Education and Skills. There is a strong argument for a more active involvement by the VECs. However, in doing so, they need to talk to the local sponsors, the workers and the trade unions about their requirements in order that it is not another one-size-fits-all approach that suits the VECs. Those are the issues I want to deal with.