Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 May 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection

Community Employment Programme: SIPTU

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Apologies have been received from Deputies Kerrane, Carey and Flanagan. Deputy Flanagan, in his absence, forwarded a submission on our agenda item for today, which has been circulated to members. We might invite him to discuss it further at our next meeting.

Before we commence, I remind members participating remotely they must do so from within the precincts of Leinster House. I ask members and witnesses to turn off their mobile phones because these interfere with the broadcasting equipment and that members participating remotely please use the raised hand icon on Teams if they wish to contribute.

This morning's meeting has been convened to discuss the State's community employment programme, which is administered by the Department of Social Protection. Community employment is an active market programme designed to provide eligible long-term unemployed people and other disadvantaged persons with an opportunity to engage in useful work within their local communities on a temporary, fixed-term basis. To be eligible for the community employment, CE, programme individuals must generally be aged between 21 and 55 years and in receipt of a qualifying payment for the previous 12 months. Participants can remain on a CE scheme for three consecutive years and may become re-eligible following a consequent 12-month period of unemployment. Those aged over 60 and above are supported to remain on the CE programme until they reach the age for pension eligibility. Some 10% of places are reserved for this purpose.

The schemes acted as a vital resource for the provision of key services in communities as well as the bedrock for the establishment of many social and not-for-profit enterprises while also affording those who were long-term unemployed the opportunity to work and develop themselves within their own community. At the end of April 2022 there were 19,037 participants and 1,243 supervisors employed by CE schemes. However, participation levels have not returned to pre-Covid levels with one in ten positions still vacant when compared with February 2020. While the Department of Social Protection is prioritising the filling of the current vacancies on CE schemes, including the additional 1,500 places assigned to CE schemes under the pathways to work scheme, this committee has expressed concerns with regard to the ongoing challenges in filling positions on some CE schemes. The committee has recommended that the time limits for those aged over 55 on CE schemes be relaxed to allow people to remain on schemes where there is no one to replace them. The committee has also recommended to the Minister that participants on CE schemes should be allowed to transfer to a Tús work placement if they are not able to receive employment from their community employment participation.

I am aware the Government is fully committed to the future of the CE schemes and recognises the valuable contribution being made to local communities through the provision of services. However, we are all aware of the long-running issue of the lack of pension entitlement for CE supervisors and we all know CE supervisors are instrumental in the success of the programme, not only managing the day-to-day operation of the schemes but providing vital support to participants to assist them in accessing further education and training as well as sourcing employment. As we know, it took until last year to reach agreement with the Department of Social Protection to resolve issues arising from the 2008 Labour Court recommendation on CE supervisors’ pensions. We are still waiting for payments to commence for those who retired as supervisors since 2008.

I thank members of the joint committee for raising this important issue as a priority item for our work programme in 2022. A briefing from the Department and the committee secretariat has been issued to members. I particularly thank the joint committee’s policy adviser, Ms Haley O’Shea for her work on this.

I welcome to the meeting senior representatives from SIPTU who are actively involved with workers engaged on the schemes, in particular Mr. Conor Mahon, CE supervisor and chairperson of the SIPTU national CE supervisors committee; Mr. Gabriel Kearney , chairperson of the sponsorship committee of Claregalway-Annaghdown CE scheme; Mr. Michele Rohan, CE supervisor and vice chairperson of the SIPTU national CE supervisors committee; and Mr. Peter Glynn, SIPTU sector organiser. They are all very welcome here this morning.

Before we commence, I will read a note on privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in any way to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way to make him or her identifiable.

I now call on Mr. Conor Mahon to make the opening statement on behalf of SIPTU.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

I thank the committee for its invitation and for the initiating this meeting with our colleague, Ms Annette Hardiman. I will repeat some of what the Chair has said in relation to the purpose and overview of community employment schemes.

The aim of CE is to enhance the employability and mobility of disadvantaged and unemployed persons by providing work experience and training opportunities for them within their communities. In addition, it helps long-term unemployed people to re-enter the active workforce by breaking their experience of unemployment through a return-to-work routine. CE projects are typically sponsored by groups wishing to benefit the local community, namely, voluntary and community organisations and, to a lesser extent, public bodies involved in not-for-profit activities. Such projects provide a valuable service to local communities, while at the same time providing training and educational opportunities to jobseekers.

The Department of Social Protection has the overall responsibility for funding and policy in relation to CE. Its priority in supporting CE is having access to schemes that can provide jobseekers and other vulnerable groups with good quality work experience and training qualifications to support their progression into open labour market employment. For the individual, it gradually reintroduces them into the work environment. People who may be long-term unemployed or who may have left education early can quickly become isolated, insecure in their abilities and can withdraw from society. CE allows such individuals a second chance to work in an environment with the support and guidance of the CE supervisor, who will encourage them throughout their journey.

In a properly run scheme, the work and its quality is a by-product of the process undertaken between participant and supervisor. As the individual’s sense of confidence, inclusion and self-worth improves so too does the benefit to the sponsoring organisation and the broader community. Sponsors of these community groups, who are primarily volunteers, will tell you that without the support of CE, their services would be severely cut or indeed in some cases cease entirely.

The community and voluntary sector are a broad church of sporting organisations, non-profits, charitable organisations, and social enterprises. It is an economy within the broader economy. It comprises a staggering 32,841 different groups, all with wholly different mandates. Recent primary research conducted by Indecon on behalf of The Wheel, Ireland’s national association of community and voluntary organisations, created a model to evaluate the value of the Irish non-profit economy. When total macroeconomic impacts are estimated, charities in Ireland are estimated to have direct, indirect and induced expenditure of €24.98 billion, and to support 289,197 employees. These 2018 data are from The Wheel and Indecon.

In interpreting the data, Indecon notes that all economic activity has an impact on other parts of the economy. This is not unique to registered charities. The evidence also indicates that there are over 300,000 people volunteering. Very few if any of these organisations are not supported or underpinned by community employment, either directly or indirectly. Like the wider sector, community employment is a broad church. No two schemes are alike. Within each scheme, vastly different organisations can be pulled together to form a limited company under guarantee with its sole mandate of running a scheme. We, as CE supervisors, hold a pivotal role in pulling this all together by balancing the needs of the stakeholders in each scheme.

The first of these stakeholders is the participant, who is a long-term unemployed individual. No two of these people are the same. The scheme involves integrating them into an existing workforce, maintaining standards, ensuring their health and safety, coaxing and earning their trust. An individual learning plan is developed and training is researched, found and encouraged. CVs and job-hunting assistance, not to mention all the other holistic interventions, are required. All of this is to ensure that this venture has been a positive in their life. The countless life-changing experiences that supervisors can regale from participants of CE schemes are incredible. CE works as a labour activation tool. Participants do progress into work. All of them progress in their lives because of the holistic approach offered.

There are also the sponsors organisations. Huge governance responsibility has been thrust upon voluntary boards and individuals. Incremental changes mean that this increases year on year. The CE supervisor is in most cases the only full-time employee. Such supervisors are essentially the CEO of the limited company and they take on this burden. We as supervisors must ensure the company’s HR, health and safety, finance, auditing, reporting, policy development and governance duties are correct. This involves balancing the wishes of voluntary organisations within these parameters, ensuring that the integrity of the scheme is maintained and that no unnecessary, even if well-meaning, exposure is risked.

Then you have SOLAS, theDepartment of Social Protection and all the different organisations that have been mandated to run the schemes. The supervisor is their point of contact, ensuring that an evolving remit is adhered to, with up to four audits annually occurring. These include financial monitoring, a training and development audit, an annual external financial audit, with a potential external departmental financial audit. These use newer Department-run IT platforms such as Welfare Partners and Jobs Ireland, which were created to ease the workload and duplication in theory. However, because of the inadequate nature of their design today, CE supervisors have to use both the IT platforms and still manually fill out the archaic paperwork. Instead of the workload reducing, it has doubled.

CE supervisors juggle the diverse needs of all three stakeholders to ensure that all three benefit from the schemes. It is a role that creates huge emotional bonds with our current and past participants, with the volunteer sponsors who employ us, with the organisations they represent and of course with the communities we work in. Because of this emotional attachment and because of the all-encompassing nature of the role, we have not been the best at articulating some of the issues we face that undermine our role and standing.

Here are some of the challenges to the CE schemes. As the Chair mentioned, vacancies and refers have been an ongoing issue for CE schemes. In rural areas, demographic population decline and age profile has also had an adverse effect on CE. Comparable labour activation schemes such as Tús and the rural social scheme, RSS, while similar, had different mandates and supported organisations not within the established CE fold. CE was a self-selecting scheme and a participant choose to come on board. The RSS had its primary eligibility criteria, which meant it was geographically prevalent in certain areas, normally outwith the existence of CE, and Tús was more coercive, because it targeted people who were not engaging in training or labour supports. Names were forthcoming from the Department of Social Protection to the host partnership companies. With the advent of JobPath, they hoovered up the names emanating from the Department of Social Protection. In turn, Tús very much targets the self-selecting participant that was traditionally the forte of CE.

We have outlined the solution. More defined distinctions between the differing labour activation initiatives need to be created, making the more targeted interventions for the cohorts we are supporting. There needs to be more incentive for participants to come on CE. The scheme is not financially attractive to those in receipt of unemployment benefit etc. Changes need to be made to the top-up payments of €25.50. Medical cards, fuel allowance eligibility criteria and increases to same could widen the net, thereby including more participants. Existing entitlements need to remain and not be lost if coming onto CE. In essence, additional incentives need to be added to make CE schemes more attractive and beneficial to participants.

On training and development, due to the ever-changing social issues experienced by our clients and the need for expertise in responding to these, ongoing training localised needs analysis needs to take place. Funding to undertake should be considered. A sum of €250 per year is insufficient in reaching the stated aims of the Department of Social Protection's major Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, awards. Even a cursory glance at costings for a single QQI module would show this. If there were co-ordinated interactions with the education and training boards, ETBs, about training courses they offered, a certain level of feasibility may be achieved cost-effectively. Otherwise, the funding needs to be greatly increased.

On the issue of training hubs and networks, to assist the training development of participants, schemes within a geographical area need co-ordinated network hubs to be created. This would facilitate a broader and more cost-effective sourcing of training. Coupled with ongoing training needs analysis, more targeting and efficient training can be undertaken.

Currently, each scheme operates independently and supervisors often have no idea of or relationships with CE supervisors in their vicinity. This would be very important for peer support, efficiency and sharing of mutually beneficial resources.

As to reducing the one-year qualification rule to six months, early activation on to a CE scheme would have a much better effect as regards experience and outcomes for participants. Reducing the qualifying period from one year to six months would limit the negative effects of long-term unemployment. Referrals could come from early school-leaving initiatives to continue the progression of under 25-year-olds, a very much under-represented cohort on schemes.

I refer to discretion on extending CE placements for those engaged in meaningful training. Unemployed people are on the live register for a number of reasons and many of them face complex issues. For some, it can take time to recover and build a pathway out of unemployment. Training can initially be daunting and the first pathway may not be the correct one. Exploration of different training options is time consuming but rewarding for the individual. Often, just as progress is made, the allowable time lapses. All the good work with the individuals, which is visible on inspection, is lost.

Consideration should be provided for anyone over the age of 55 years to remain on a CE scheme until retirement. This would ensure provision of services for community groups.

On the material grant, with increased vacancies in schemes, it is impossible to accrue the appropriate funding levels achievable from materials budgets. Insurance on a per-person basis is paid regardless of whether a participant is in situ. The increased fiduciary duty placed on sponsors means there are significant auditory costs in order to comply with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Circular 13/2014. A maximum of €1,500 is allowable under the material grant for audits. The actual cost is nearly double that. The balance must be made up by poorly funded and underfunded voluntary organisations and is a significant burden. The autonomy over the material budget should be given to the sponsor in conjunction with the CE supervisor for identified needs within the scheme and not micromanaged by the community development officer, CDO, or Department of Social Protection, DSP, officials, once all financial policies and procedures are in place and the scheme complies with its annual financial monitoring. The grant value needs an immediate and urgent review. It is wholly insufficient to cover the cost of running a scheme and was so even prior to this inflationary period.

All of this relates to the management and sustainability of schemes but as supervisors, we do not get the opportunity to speak on the issues that pertain to us and it would be remiss of us not to take the opportunity to highlight these three significant issues. To begin, I will quote from the operational manual on the importance the Department of Social Protection places on a CE supervisor, which states, "The quality of a Supervisor can be the single most important factor in the success or failure of a Community Employment Project." CE supervisor contracts are a huge concern. CE supervisors report that they were asked to have a yearly contract signed in place. This issue was previously dealt with, in 2012, by Fórsa, then known as IMPACT, and SIPTU with Mary Donnelly, the Department of Social Protection representative. It was amicably resolved as it was a non-issue. During discussions with the now defunct operational forum, the Department of Social Protection committed to seeking clarity on this hugely important issue for supervisors in conjunction with its legal department in December 2019. We still await the Department's response. The offending piece from the sponsors' operational manual states:

Supervisors (and participants) areexcluded from the Section 9 provisions of the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003 (as amended) as they are “employees with a contract of employment which has been concluded within the framework of a specific public or publicly-supported training, integration or vocational retraining programme” under Section 2 of this Act. This means that CE contracts for Supervisors cannot be of indefinite duration.

Note: No funding will issue from the Department for a supervisor unless they have a valid current contract of employment.

The amendment referred to contained in the Statute Book refers to:

(a) employees in initial vocational training relationships or apprenticeship schemes, or

(b) employees with a contract of employment which has been concluded within the framework of a specific public or publicly-supported training, integration or vocational retraining programme.

The term, "subject to funding", which was agreed as sufficient in the previous meeting with the Department of Social Protection and would be comparable to what Tús supervisors have. There are ample examples of supported training and integration programmes within which the supervisor, manager and employee charged with administration does not need a new contract every year. It is worth noting that the argument always put forward by supervisors is that we should not be part of this amendment and that it is misinterpreted by the Department of Social Protection. It was aimed for those on Foras Áiseanna Saothar, FÁS, training courses and apprenticeships, who were often paid throughout their period of engagement on apprenticeships. It was to preclude them from becoming FÁS employees on completion. It is not as though the trainers or employees formerly within FÁS or within the current education and training boards, ETBs, have one-year annual contracts. This has become an issue for us because we were under the FÁS umbrella. Historically, our belief has been that it refers to the participants on the scheme and not the supervisors.

We wish to suggest a broader solution. As key stakeholders, there is a need for a representative body to be created and on its creation, it should be assisted. CE supervisors are key stakeholders in the CE schemes. They possess an in-depth knowledge of the operational and strategic potential of the scheme and are the glue that holds it together. However, currently the supervisors are not included in any forums that discuss, review or seek solutions and improvements to the scheme. The very successful operational forum needs to be re-established. Many of the issues discussed today used to be teased out between the Department of Social Protection’s policy unit and supervisors until Covid struck and it has not met since. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O’Brien, have created a similarly-named forum with different terms of reference and a select invited group that has no linkages to any of the existing scheme networks. We also wish to be included in any further interdepartmental reviews.

Another issue with have is with an enhanced redundancy agreement. Such an agreement was implemented by FÁS and the Department of Social Protection that, in recent years, has been reneged upon. No reason for this change in position has been forthcoming and no medium exists to explore such issues. It was discussed with the then Minister, Senator Doherty, in her previous role. It was substantively parked to give space for the long-running pension issue to be resolved but the Department was to investigate the matter. SIPTU provided evidence, at a meeting on 2 May 2019, to the then Minister that showed her statement on the matter to the Dáil in February 2018 was inaccurate. With the insecurity caused by the contractual issue so prevalent, redundancy is a real and live concern to supervisors.

On pay claims, of the many groupings that have expressed a need for better pay, I am sure that few would have had their last pay increase in 2008. We note that Tús and rural social scheme, RSS, supervisors wish to have their pay linked to that of CE supervisors and want a study conducted to compare the roles. The job specification recommended by the Department of Social Protection to sponsors to use when recruiting all CE supervisors, not just those in drug rehabilitation schemes, is included in Appendix 1 to our written submission. This is a route we took, in which we went as far as the Labour Court, where we won an agreed recommendation, LCR15822, as contained in Appendix 2 to our written submission, to have an investigation into having our pay linked to community training workshop managers. The current disparity between the two grades after missing out on 14 years of increments is worth noting. That concludes our presentation. The appendices are attached to our written submission. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank Mr. Mahon for his very detailed submission, covering a broad range of areas. I wish to raise a couple of brief questions with him. At the outset, he mentioned that people who are long-term unemployed and had left education early, have become isolated and insecure, as well as withdrawn from society as a result. Has Mr. Mahon seen a difference with people prior to the Covid-19 pandemic compared with new clients entering the CE scheme? What impact has the past two years have had on them?

It is important to note, as highlighted in Mr. Mahon's evidence today, that no two individuals who come into a CE programme are the same. Their background, education, and life experience are different. We need to engage with them if we are to bring them back into the workforce, which is ultimately the objective of these schemes. Following the engagement with the Department, does Mr. Mahon believe that supervisors have been given the level of scope and flexibility to be able to cater for the individual needs of participants to ensure they are actively participating in the workforce?

Related to that, how big an issue is literacy and numeracy? We know, from survey after survey, that one fifth of our adult population cannot read and comprehend the instructions on the back of a paracetamol box. That is a failing of our education system. There are many opportunities for people to re-engage with the education system. When they do not do that, they end up being long-term unemployed. CE is probably the last safety net available to them. How big an issue is literacy and numeracy? Does SIPTU feel that it is getting the support and flexibility to be able to engage with those people to encourage them, through various mechanisms, back into education system? The reality, as we all know, is that in many instances those people have had a very poor experience of engagement with the education system to date. It is not a case of just providing them with a literacy or numeracy course; it is about encouraging them slowly, through various avenues, back into the system. Are the flexibility and support there to allow SIPTU to do that? Perhaps Mr. Mahon or some of the other witnesses could address those questions.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

First, in response to the Chairman's question about Covid, undoubtedly it has had a huge impact on participants. We find, in general, that the participants that are sent in our direction will ebb and flow, depending on the economic status of the country at any given time. If there is a period of high employment, the people that we will reach towards will be the furthest removed from the labour market. Those people tend to come with more social issues, notwithstanding Covid. However, Covid has exacerbated those issues. People are coming in now without having met with or spoken to anyone for perhaps a year. They have had little or no interaction. The benefit we see, from a social inclusion perspective, is off the charts in its significance for these individuals. We have also found with Covid that social issues are currently coming up, such as housing. For example, I have two or three participants on my scheme who are on the verge of homelessness because they are being put under so much pressure. These people, in general, are living hand-to-mouth on the payment they receive through the scheme of a Friday. That money is gone quickly and they do not have any savings. Social issues, such as housing, have a huge impact. Obviously, Covid has exacerbated the housing situation. From a mental health point of view, there is a high rate of depression and a lack of contact with people. Even going into Intreo services and going to the post office to get their payment was an interaction for these people. All of these interactions were gone during Covid. While previously they might have gone to a shop five or six times a week, they were going once a week during Covid. Every interaction that these people undertook was diminished significantly during Covid. CE is of huge importance to them. When we, as supervisors, are dealing with these people, it is taking longer to get them up to speed and to reintegrate them into our workforce. It is problematic and has posed problems for many supervisors dealing with such people. We almost need to be social workers and counsellors. We wear so many different hats that we cannot be experts in everything. We have made many phone calls to Pieta House to seek different supports to help and assist our participants. That illustrates the holistic nature of the role that we undertake, which was previously alluded to. We are helping participants fill out their medical card applications, helping them with HAP and helping them with their different needs. If a person is not solid in an area such as housing, work and training will be the least of their worries. It is only when get them onto a solid and secure footing that we can start integrating them wholly and ensuring they benefit from CE going forward. The Chairman asked about support and flexibility and the Department of Social Protection. We only really deal with the Department from a practical management point of view. We do not really have any interaction with it from a policy development perspective. We do not deal with it on a personal, one-to-one basis. I have never met the most recent two community development officers, CDOs, on my scheme in person. We have only emailed each other. I have only spoken to the CDO on the current scheme perhaps twice ever. We have a great relationship via email, but there is not that bond and, therefore, there is not really any flexibility or support for the current needs of schemes.

On the Chairman's question on literacy and numeracy, the issue can be geographical, as much as anything else. If a CE scheme is in a very rural area, it will deal with a certain cohort of people. Where I am based, in Oranmore, we cover the area into Doughiska. There is a very much a rural aspect to my scheme. People will join the scheme because they are on farm assist and other benefits. I also work in Doughiska, which is the most culturally diverse community in Ireland. There are both urban and rural aspects to my scheme. In the urban setting, I will see people who are predominantly non-nationals. They have high rates of literacy and prior learning. Some of them have master's degrees. Their issues with employment are often caused by a lack networks and confidence in the English language. We get confirmation of their degrees and qualifications from their home countries. We go through the NARIC process of getting the qualifications recognised in the Irish system for them. Often, that is all that we have to do with them from a training perspective, because they have had the training. We might get them a comparable Irish qualification so that it looks good on their CV. For them, the primary issue is not literacy, but English language competence. It is about being able to speak and being comfortable speaking English. Being immersed in a predominantly Irish environment, speaking with other Irish people, their English comes on leaps and bounds. They have the competence generally; it is just a confidence thing.

For the older cohort of traditional CE workers, whom people might perceive as being those who cut pitches at the GAA club and so on, numeracy and literacy can be an issue. We start them off training at a very approachable level. They do courses such as Safe Pass, which very much has taken literacy into account. Many of these people have the literacy. They just need to become comfortable with their peers and with going into a group to do a training course. That confidence is built up gradually over time. That is where time comes into it. We would love to have the flexibility and support of the Department dealing with individuals. That is why I mentioned in the submission that often in our work, we just manage to get through to a person, they are on a pathway and then their time on CE ceases, when they are two thirds of the way there. A person might need to complete nine modules to get a Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, major award. If that person has completed five or six of the modules, they are so close to completion and it is such a disappointment for us and them that we cannot get them over the line. That is why we would love a bit of flexibility in assisting us with very identifiable individuals to get them over the line. We can provide evidence of what has been done in the process. I hope that answers the Chairman's questions.

Photo of Paul DonnellyPaul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Mahon for his presentation. CE is so important. We often come into contact with CE schemes and community and voluntary organisations that have CE workers. I wish to raise a few points. Mr. Mahon mentioned briefly CE workers in sports organisations. There are people who are involved with sports clubs and who cut the grass, line the pitches and perhaps do a bit of maintenance work. Indeed, in the past I have come across a number of individuals with very specific skill sets. They were coaches, mentors and trainers, but they could not use any of those skills at the clubs where they were working as part of the CE scheme. I am also aware of people joining CE schemes and perhaps wanting to progress into working in fitness or coaching, and getting their coaching badges. I think there is an aspect of the sports-related part of the CE scheme that is missing. Young people or others coming back into the workforce would really benefit from that retraining. They could find a new career path.

A jobseeker who previously worked as a general operative might have always wanted to be a coach or mentor and might ask whether there is a way to become one. Since the fitness industry is now massive, is there a way we can utilise the CE scheme to enable what I describe?

The briefing note states €375 million was allocated last year whereas only €320 million was spent. There is not enough money for training. An argument could be made that unspent money could be used the following year to increase the training budget to get more people involved. I do not know what happens an allocation if it is not spent in the year in which it is allocated. Does it go back to the Department?

I was interested in the comment that organisations are overwhelmed with documentation. Many organisations are overwhelmed by it. The same kind of information must go to different governmental organisations. This seems really strange. I worked for Tusla. When the prevention, partnership and family support service was formed, families were being asked to produce the same documentation time and again for various organisations the agency was working with. That has all been simplified now and one form goes to all the other organisations. It is important in that it frees up CE supervisors and community and voluntary organisations from having to process an overwhelming volume of documentation. Could the witnesses comment on that?

I am not a huge fan of JobPath and the impact it is having on people. There are people being mandated to opt for it as opposed to self-selection. One will get much better outcomes from a person who wishes to be at a place as opposed to being forced into a place. That is completely logical.

Last week we had carers before us. An issue arose over the 18.5 hours for which they are allowed to work. They are excluded from CE because it involves 19.5 hours. Is that the minimum or the maximum?

Mr. Conor Mahon:

Nineteen and a half hours is what those on a CE scheme work.

Photo of Paul DonnellyPaul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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The minimum. Obviously, there is a gap whereby carers are excluded from the CE scheme.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

That is obviously very purposeful.

Photo of Paul DonnellyPaul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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Exactly. Could I have a couple of comments on that?

Ms Michele Rohan:

With regard to the point made on coaching, the CE scheme for which I am a supervisor is very heavily involved with many GAA, soccer and rugby clubs. We have a few community centres with basketball and badminton clubs. We have a very large athletics club in Claregalway. As is the case across the country, all of these clubs are crying out for coaches. Most of them depend on parents and volunteers. It is funny that the Deputy should bring this up because I have been examining it with one of our hurling clubs recently. It is definitely an area in which there would be great interest. It would benefit everyone. We have an annual contract with the Department of Social Protection and an agreement that is signed. It is a legal document. When we want to make a change, we have to ask, apply and go through the official routes to do that. We would have to amend the agreement if we wanted to include, say, a sports development officer across the board. We would have to try to increase our numbers, which I am currently considering, because we had two additional sponsors added to the scheme last year. This required an amendment and insurance. For me to add the four extra people I was given, I had to go back to my insurance company and go through all the paperwork again. However, what is proposed can be done. There are easier ways to do it. It is an absolutely brilliant and beneficial idea for the entire country with regard to CE schemes. Sports development officers can go into schools and the children can go to their local pitches and have somebody there. Even yesterday in Claregalway we had a County Clare hurler who gave of his own time to train the kids of the national school he had been to. It was during his own time because he is finished college at the minute. Let us consider the training that could be given and the qualifications. There could be strength and conditioning courses. Individuals could go on to third level education. It is boundless, really. The idea is excellent and we would very much be in favour of participating in that regard.

Photo of Paul DonnellyPaul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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Is there no official bar? I understood that CE could not tap into that area.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I will take the questions from Deputy Donnelly and then let the witnesses come back in. Has the Deputy finished?

Photo of Paul DonnellyPaul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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I asked a couple of questions.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I will let the Deputy back in later if he wants. There will be no problem.

Mr. Gabriel Kearney:

On the sponsor side, the idea that the Deputy had would be brilliant. Much of the time we hear about the traditional work that participants do, such as cutting grass and carrying out maintenance. This relates to only one cohort. Normally, it involves those aged over 50 or 55, who have almost completed their working lives. While it is said such a person can get a job at 60, the chances are that he or she will not. As a society, we have to come to that conclusion. CE, as we have it, involves the cohort in question; however, if we want it to grow and benefit society and the community, we have to start considering different areas. The one mentioned by the Deputy is huge. We are involved in the sports clubs; the sponsors are already there. As Ms Rohan alluded to, if we had on our scheme an employee who could go into the schools but also train the under-12s or others, it would bring kids along who might otherwise drop out. This is because he would have them twice per week. He could see them in the schools and talk to the principal and say Johnny is not coming. He could talk to the child in a caring sense in the school and then bring him to the club. Without this, the clubs are dying.

For sponsors to get these types of initiatives onto the courses we are allowed to have is sometimes very difficult. It is in this regard that I would love the members of the committee to ask what is needed for it to happen. We can keep cutting grass forever but it is not bringing what we can do into play. It is a question of inviting younger people in to train for two or three years and then progress their careers. We would all benefit from that. We should consider further the benefits on both sides, namely the benefits to society and, more important, the individual. It is a matter of everyone winning from it.

Ms Michele Rohan:

They are on CE schemes, particularly in the urban areas. From what I know, many of the soccer clubs, under the Football Association of Ireland, have some. We already have our traditional CE with X number of people working on soccer and rugby pitches doing the grass and lining. There are those who dismiss it as cutting the grass but if the grass is not cut, you cannot go out and play your match the next day. If the pitch is not lined, the referee will not let you play, so it is very important to keep the grass cut.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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It is important that it is at the right height for hurling as well.

Ms Michele Rohan:

Exactly, and soccer. The grass must be cut twice a week for soccer - hail, rain or snow. In response to what Deputy Paul Donnelly said about the training and the courses that are available, there is a younger cohort of people who really want to do the courses to which the Deputy referred but do not want to do a degree for four years. They may have left school a little early. Those courses are available. Strength and conditioning is huge at the moment. Every club in the country is looking for people trained in strength and conditioning but cannot afford to pay them. The chap or the girl who does such a course cannot get a job. I have a son who has done four years of a degree in it, but the jobs are not there. It is possible, however, to get perhaps younger people, 18-year-olds or 19-year-olds or early school leavers, onto such courses alongside business courses. Most such courses come with business courses, so the students get two different strains. They can do a strength and conditioning course but they need the business head to be able to promote themselves as well as all the social media they need to go along with - Instagram, Facebook, you name it. It is endless. A huge number of younger people come onto such schemes and are happy to do so.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

To build on what has been said, doing such training courses is cost-prohibitive for schemes. A scheme with a budget of €250 a year will not get even a single module of something like that completed. This goes back to the training hubs I suggested whereby, geographically, ten schemes would be brought together. I might have only one participant who wants to pursue that avenue. I will not have that kind of course available to me in the vast majority of places. Such courses will be in urban areas. I can probably pick ten locations in the country where such a course is available to people, and it will not be possible, given the financial resources of CE participants, for them to travel long distances for training. If we were to get a cohort of schemes together in the training hub and if we were to identify our people within them, with three or four people who want to follow one course and three or four people on my scheme who want to follow another course, all of them together, we would probably get a critical mass of 20 people who want to do seven or eight different but similar courses. Then we could contact the ETBs and tell them we have 20 potential participants in a CE scheme for three years to follow a fitness course or a coaching course, as Deputy Paul Donnelly mentioned. That would be the benefit of having training hubs created for CE schemes working together. Training is of huge importance to CE. It is what differentiates it from the other labour activation schemes. It is something we pursue, but we feel we are pursuing it with our hands tied behind our backs because of the lack of resources given to us to achieve it. The ETBs provide a few core component courses, but if we stray in any way from those we are into big money because we are going into private providers. The cheapest course we will get will be about €350 per module. Something as specific as health and fitness or strength and conditioning would be approximately €850 per module. Scheme participants would never accrue a €850 allowance over three years of CE, never mind managing to get enough for seven or eight modules of such a course.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Senator Wall may come in momentarily. To clarify one issue, that is all well and good for strength and conditioning courses, for which there might be demand, but what happens if someone on a CE scheme has an interest in becoming a blacksmith or an apprentice to a blacksmith? The cost of doing such a course would be multiples of €250. There will not be ten or 20 people in any catchment are who will want to do such a course, but there is an opportunity to create a job for one individual to service an equine population within the region. Coming back to my point about flexibility, should there not be a mechanism whereby the case can be made for a specific individual who has an interest in a particular route which gets them the education they need and, ultimately, a long-term sustainable job? Is that missing within the system at present?

Mr. Conor Mahon:

I think so. Like the Chairman said, the farrier role is almost an apprenticeship. That could be incorporated into the likes of CE. An individual we were dealing with recently went off to become a stonemason. It is our job to give him work experience so he can get work experience while being on a CE scheme. He has that parachute back and the safety net of the CE scheme and us looking after him and helping him with his forms, including HAP forms. At the same time, he is developing skills in the hope that he will eventually find employment. It was kind of a new venture for us but, again, there was only a limited amount of time that we could release him for work experience or incorporate him working with the employer while on CE without it impacting his payments. Eventually, his homelessness was borderline and he just came back to us because he was afraid to make that leap. We felt that could have been handled with the flexibility the Chairman spoke about. If we could have just negotiated that, we felt that person would have taken flight and would have survived.

Photo of Mark WallMark Wall (Labour)
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I thank all our guests for coming in. This is very important to many people. CE schemes are at the heart of the communities I represent. Ms Rohan said correctly that without them the grass would not be cut, the lines would not be there and the sports clubs Deputy Paul Donnelly mentioned would not be able to continue, basically. We saw during Covid that there was so much pressure on sports clubs, and there is still so much pressure on demand for CE schemes. I know personally how important CE schemes are. As I said, I am involved in a number of community groups.

I have a couple of questions. I wish to go back to youth unemployment, which we raised the last day with the witnesses' colleagues in SIPTU. Mr. Mahon spoke about getting young people involved in CE schemes. He also spoke about training with ETBs, as did the Chairman and Deputy Paul Donnelly. Where are the witnesses with that? What is their relationship with ETBs? Is there something else we can do with the ETBs? Mr. Mahon is correct that they put on a certain number of courses. The cost of the courses he spoke about may be prohibitive. What else could we do to encourage the establishment of more courses and to tackle youth unemployment? As we on this committee all know, that is growing, unfortunately, and is something we need to tackle to encourage more people into these courses. We must get more young people involved in their communities. That is a huge problem for communities with which I am involved. As I said here the last day, we are now all of a certain age at which we are looking to the next generation, and perhaps the generation after that, to get involved in communities. That is what we want to do. We want them to get involved with their sports clubs and through communities. Is there something missing there that the witnesses have not touched on already from the point of view of the ETBs?

Do the witnesses have any figures as to how many people on their schemes are over 55, which is a focus of the committee? As public representatives, we receive regular calls from CE supervisors about CE schemes for people who are 60, 62 or 63, asking for extensions. It seems to be a genuine attempt to ensure that those people can continue the work they know well such that that community group and that community sponsor maintains everything they know because that person has the experience. Do the witnesses know anything about that?

As for the material budgets, perhaps the following comes under Mr. Kearney's remit. I get calls all the time from sponsors now who have to fundraise and who are getting letters of demand from CE schemes because they simply do not have the material budgets. We know the cost of petrol, for example. We are coming back to the grass cutting. The cost of petrol is just going up and up. Sponsors are getting more and more letters of demand that the CE scheme will not be able to continue if more money is not paid. That is an issue. Perhaps the witnesses might comment on the demands of sponsors.

That CE scheme supervisors have not got a wage increase since 2008 is wrong. We have all supported them with their pensions. It is to be hoped that can be implemented as quickly as possible.

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.

Ms Michele Rohan:

Regarding the over-55 cohort, two thirds of those on my scheme are aged over 55 and one third of participants are aged over 60. Those aged over 55 do not have to engage with training. Prior to the last contract approved with the Department of Social Protection, I had a 40% progression rate. I do not know how I am supposed to get 40% of my participants into a job if two thirds of them are over 55 and one third is over 60.

I had a training goal for years 1, 2 and 3, which included a certain number of minor and major awards, which is impossible when half of those involved do not have to engage. Last year, the progression target for me was reduced to 25%. In the middle of Covid, that was very difficult. I managed to get some into employment. These are the targets that are, in some cases, imposed on us and we are not able to achieve them.

What was very welcome is the fact that the over-60s were allowed to stay on the scheme but that blew my target out of the water. We need more flexibility for our scheme. For me, taking on two extra sponsors and four people last year meant an extra workload. It means I have to go to two extra areas every day and do individual learning plans, ILPs, payroll and so on for four extra people without any additional increments for me or any benefit. It simply gives me more work to do.

Mr. Mahon referred to helping people with form filling and that sort of thing. My scheme is more about rural social inclusion. If I have to do extra paperwork for some people, which I will have to do, that is on top of all of the information and paperwork I have to have in place for the Department of Social Protection. In terms of the bureaucracy and red tape involved, almost 70% of my time, including ILP, welfare partners and payroll, is taken up with such work. Before I even get out to see what jobs need to be done, I get calls from sponsors. It is a significant responsibility and the stress level on supervisors at the moment is quite significant. That is before we even talk about pay, terms and working conditions.

On material budgets, we used to get €20 per participant prior to the recession, which was cut in some cases to €8 or €9. None of us have gone back to €20. I have gone back up to €15. There are different figures across the country. No two areas are the same. The direction from the CDO in one part of the country can be completely different to that given in another.

As supervisors we have established a network whereby we are able to communicate with one another about training and get better pricing. We have reduced our insurance costs. There are three different insurance companies in the market and various different costs per person. All we had to do was check what people in Kerry or Donegal were paying, and we were then able to use that information. Insurance companies realised we were communicating. As a result of this communication, we got better pricing for training. This is something that supervisors have initiated. It has not come from the Department of Social Protection.

We are saving money but at the same time, we are not getting recognition for any of that. We have become more efficient, proficient and professional in what we are doing. I cannot understand why someone in one part of the country is getting €15 per person for materials, but someone in another is getting €12.50, €9 or €10. Some sort of uniformity needs to come from policy.

Everything has to go back to policy. Yesterday, I was asked if I could deal with a playground. Playgrounds are being built, but once they get funding and are up and running there is nobody to cut the grass and look after them. I now have to ask whether I can include that area and get approval from policy, via the CDO. I have to get an amendment to the agreement, if it is agreed. I then have to go back to the insurance company and ask whether we can add that in. Nobody has asked me about the extra work that will entail and whether I will be able to do it.

I was asked if I could add in a walkway. Every pitch in the country has doubled their grounds and added walkways, but we have not doubled our number of people. It is only in the past couple of weeks that, as people have come off the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, and we are getting some referrals, I have been able to increase my numbers near to where they should be. Nobody has considered the fact that we now have four pitches to deal with rather than two and only one person instead of two people. We need a little bit of joined-up thinking.

As supervisors, we need to be able to give advice and our opinion on what is happening. However, we are kept at arm's length because we are not employees of the Department of Social Protection; we are employees of limited companies whose boards are all working full-time or comprise people who are semi-retired or retired and depend on us to give them guidance.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Did Mr. Glynn want to come in on this?

Mr. Peter Glynn:

I was just going to ask the Chair to bring Ms Rohan in and get her expertise on those matters.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

The relationship with ETBs depends on the geographical location. That is what we can garner from our networks and talking to other supervisors. Some have brilliant relationships with ETBs and are very integrated, successfully creating courses and bringing huge numbers through them. Others have little or no interaction and very little discussion about where the skills and training needs are within the community employment sector. Considering we pull from the same cohort of people, there should be much more interaction. That is something we have requested in the past. When we had the operational forum I alluded to, these were the kinds of discussion points we would have raised. The ETBs are integral to our training ability because we can get the training for our participants free through them. In a QQI scenario, almost every course will have certain core modules or components, like communication, work experience and so on. We need these courses that are being run in the ETBs so we can stream our participants through them. There will also be courses that are very much identified as needed. We do an awful lot of horticulture or ground maintenance courses but the ETBs do not run them. It depends on the trainer capacity in the ETB. They just seem to churn out the same courses year on year without evolving to the needs that are out there. Much more interaction is integral.

I never got to answer Deputy Donnelly's question on paperwork. One of the bigger issues we have is with Welfare Partners, which is the platform the Department has created for this. The last time there was any engagement with sponsors was in 2017 and that was to initiate the Welfare Partners system. It was supposed to alleviate all the work Ms Rohan was doing. The problem is that forms cannot even be printed out from it. If someone puts up all the training modules they have in order to get them approved, they cannot generate a PDF to print it off and get the participant to sign it. They have to go back and write it out manually and then get them to sign it because that is what is requested when being audited under individual learner plans, ILPs. It is duplication of work and it is completely nonsensical. There was little or no engagement with supervisors on the implementation of Welfare Partners. The Department does not really have a handle on how we work with it and interact with it. It could be enhanced for much greater efficiency.

Encouraging youth participation is also a geographical issue. That is the thing about CE schemes; they are all unique to the particular area. It comes back to the types of roles being covered. As Mr. Kearney mentioned, if it is predominantly people over 55 cutting and maintaining pitches, that may not attract a younger cohort. Schemes need to evolve. I have been very fortunate in the scheme I worked on in that we were involved with FoodCloud, the national company that I am sure the committee is aware of. We have warehouse operatives, drivers and an African community radio station. We have guys producing and presenting radio shows. These are roles that would be much more attractive to a younger cohort than traditional roles. There should be an evolution. More sponsors should be taken on so there is a much broader spectrum. It goes back to the question of social inclusion and getting people engaged. They can come in at a very low ebb but all of a sudden they will flourish. A person might have only had the capacity to do a specific relatively low-skilled role but all of a sudden when they get a bit of training they will gain confidence and then they can be put into the more high-capacity roles that involve much more job progression. It is great when there is a broad spectrum of roles in a scheme.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Seeing as Mr. Mahon mentioned African community radio, I note that today is Africa Day. I wish everyone a happy Africa Day.

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I would like to take this from a high level. I ask the witnesses to confirm whether SIPTU has members involved in the Tús rural social scheme, RSS, as well as CE. I also wanted to put down a marker by stating that participation in schemes should be voluntary. Workfare and all those theories people sometimes have are madness. If people do not want to be somewhere, they are not doing much good for themselves and they are certainly not doing any good for that place.

On the other hand, let us presume somebody came to the Government tomorrow saying they had a good idea that would dramatically improve the mental health and well-being of all those who are unemployed. We know people who are unemployed suffer higher morbidity and mortality, go to the doctor more frequently and take more medicines. That is scientifically proven. I got that information from the medical people within the Department of Social Protection ten years ago and I doubt it has changed. Suppose this person said they had a plan that, at a very modest cost, would improve people's self-esteem and self-worth. That is what work and activity does for people who are unemployed. That is medically proven. As long as we can create useful positions for people, everybody who is long-term unemployed should have the opportunity to go on a scheme. That is why I asked about the Tús RSS in community employment. People should also be able to stay on a scheme unless someone is literally knocking the door down because they need the place. We should seek to create as many positions as possible because there are endless services to be provided across a massive range that we could not even dream of discussing here today. For example, how many community centres in this country are available and open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.? Staffing is often the issue there. That is something simple.

I would make a comment about repetitive work. I had this argument with the Department when I was Minister. Graveyards are not covered by CE schemes and I wanted the RSS to do them because graveyards are a very important issue, at least in rural Ireland. One of the arguments against that was that it was repetitive work, as the grass and weeds would grow again. I told the Department the story about Dean Swift and the boots. The story goes that Dean Swift was going out walking one morning and found out his servant had not cleaned the boots and they were all muddy. He called the servant in and asked him why he did not clean the boots. The servant asked what the point would be as when he came back that evening they would be all muddy again. Everything was fine and the dean said nothing. That evening there was no supper for the servant and he came in and asked the dean why he did not get any supper that night. The dean said asked what was the point, as he would give him supper tonight and he would only be back tomorrow looking for more. In other words, life is about repetition. All our lives are about repetition. There is no avoiding it. It would be strange if you went to Croke Park or the Aviva Stadium and somebody was not employed to repetitively clean the place, cut the grass and so on. Even this place would be a strange place if people did not do repetitive tasks everyday. I think we can dismiss that argument.

The original idea when we set up Tús was that CE should be an activation or training scheme, whereby when people became long-term unemployed they would be given intensive support to re-engage with the commercial workforce. Anybody who has worked on the ground or lived in the real world, as opposed to doing some rarefied administrative or academic work, knows there are people on these schemes who will never get commercial employment.

It does not mean they cannot do incredibly useful work in communities. If all the CE, Tús workers and so on stopped working in communities tomorrow, there would be shock about the effect it would have on society. They are unlikely to get commercial employment, however, which is a different matter. My view is that the first two or three years should be on a CE scheme that is very active, with good training funds and good access to self-progression. After a while, there will be people who need periodic training and upskilling in the job but who are unlikely to get full-time employment. The idea was they would then move on to a work scheme that would not involve intensive training, where I think most over-55s more naturally fit. That would be called Tús, for want of a better word, or it could be another module of CE. I am not fussy about the top structure. It should suit the purpose rather than the purpose suiting the top structure. That way, as long as jobs could be created by different schemes, as many people could come into them as wanted to, since we have realised this is very beneficial and has saved a lot in the medical budget. The amount someone on CE gets in costs above somebody on unemployment benefits is very small.

This should be looked at freshly and rationally, in the way that people on the ground see it. My experience in politics was that the Government had a great activation idea. It said it would get everyone working and that if everyone really tried, they would get a commercial job. Communities looked at this differently and said this is a convenient way to have a win-win situation. People who are unlikely to get jobs are providing the most fantastic community services and, if they were not there, what would everyone do? In my experience here, never the twain shall meet in the mindset of officialdom compared with the reality on the ground. I believe there is a modest cost with huge benefits for everybody who wants to be involved.

I will touch briefly on the administrative structure. Unfortunately, people work for the rainy day where somebody has a claim or issue of some sort, with some dispute happening. Paperwork and keeping records are part of the modern world. We can eliminate some, organise some better, and automate some, but it exists. When something goes wrong, everyone asks if there are records. There are 847 schemes. I understand that means 847 companies with employer responsibilities for audits and so on. Tús or the rural social scheme, RSS, have a different model. There are about 30 partnerships throughout the country, which are the employer. There are a small number and they are well resourced. They have the heavy responsibility for employment law, looking after insurance, looking after audits and so on. Instead of having 847 audits, there are now just 30. They are bigger bodies. The idea was to concentrate all that bureaucracy in well-financed, well-resourced partnerships. In that model, the local sponsor and the supervisors propose the work programme and inevitably the partnership or, in the case of the Gaeltacht, the údarás, would agree it. We need to have a debate on this. It seems to me that putting that kind of burden, responsibility for employment law, insurance and everything else on a small community company is a terrible burden and a terrible amount of bureaucracy, which is repeated 847 times. We need to see if we can simplify that. I am following up on that because two models are running at the same time.

I take it that active negotiations or claims are going on regarding wages. One thing that is often overlooked in these schemes is that if people have some self-employment or minor source of income, or even just money in the bank, the Department of Social Protection does a means test on it. Single people with no dependants can claim the full €22.50. It is not a lot and they can claim the full €230.50 per week. If they have a dependant, whether an adult or a child, and any small self-employment income, the Department will take that off them at a 100% rate. It will reduce their payment by the amount they have in self-employed income and they still get €22.50 for the week's effort. I have heard of people on half a million euro a year complain about tax rates. They are taxed at around 50%, including PRSI, USC and so on, but this is taxation of the poor at a 100% rate. Has that issue been raised with the union by the participants? It seems to me to be the absolute worst case of effective taxation, if one can call means testing effective taxation, which it really is. It is just the State clawing back money, which is what taxation is. Have the witnesses raised that issue with the Department with regard to encouraging the workers or their dependants to get employment, better themselves and improve their lifestyle without being penalised in the most draconian way for doing so?

Mr. Gabriel Kearney:

From the supervisor's point of view, I agree with what the Deputy said about the over-55s and the CE scheme being more centred on educating and redeployment. I think the Government is missing a trick. Much of what I have done with supervisors has a sense of "them and us". The biggest "them and us" view might come out of left field and is that if the supervisors were more linked with the Department of Social Protection, they would be on the same page so that they could get those programmes up and running more easily. The Department is in its own bubble. I am not saying that harshly. It is not linked. It is like what the Deputy said about the two train tracks never meeting. There has to be a closer link between those two parties for the CE scheme in future. The sponsors still get our side of the bargain.

Senator Gavan referred earlier to the different roles. We can get on board with it if we use the type of model the Deputy spoke about, so that the over-55s who are out of the training loop either go into a second part of the CE scheme or to something different. As the Deputy said, the name does not matter. We have 38 people in our scheme. We would focus on retraining them and getting people back into employment. The community will engage with that. People will come into the scheme because they know they will get training. As I said, many training providers are not linking up. We are not getting the courses we need. The back-to-work courses were great in the 1980s but I am not sure if they are great now. There should be more joined-up thinking. The Department and supervisors should get the fighting about the pay claim out of the way. We cannot talk to them until the pay claim, pension or whatever it is is sorted out. There are no better people than those on the ground to know how to get participants back.

Only the guys on the ground will know them. If those guys can become part of the picture rather than outside it, we will have much better CE schemes for the areas and the participants will benefit.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

There was obviously quite a lot of information from the Deputy. I will try to pick out some of the points and respond. The Deputy raised a point about the distinction between schemes. There was a distinction between Tús, which was created by the Government of which the Deputy was a member, and CE, but with the recruitment of participants. That distinction is greyer now. Participants can now self-select while previously it more a matter of coercive recruitment. It involved people who were not engaged in training with CE or had not self-selected to come onto the scheme. That has changed.

There was an interdepartmental review of CE in approximately 2015. It highlighted a social inclusion mandate and steered the emphasis towards comprising the two streams of labour activation and social inclusion. One of the biggest failings of the Department is that it has not articulated that to sponsoring organisations. The lack of engagement with sponsoring organisations is incredible considering the onus that is thrust upon them. The last time the Mr. Kearney was brought in to the Department of Social Protection was 2018. It is four years since there was a face-to-face meeting between a sponsoring organisation and the Department. In that time, there have been many tweaks to eligibility for the scheme and the mandated involved. Sponsoring organisations, by and large, are there to run the scheme but their primary concern is the mandate of the organisation they are representing. That is the primary mandate of a GAA club, FoodCloud or the African radio station and the scheme is the benefit that arises. Their responsibilities around governance and what governance is expected of them must be articulated to them. There are more than 900 schemes. When we had to come up with plans around Covid-19, each of us had to come up with a policy independently. It was thrust upon us as supervisors and we were going into an area with which we were not familiar. A principal in a school would have got direction from the Department of Education. I was a chair of a board of management in a school. Such a board would be given policy templates and would enact them with slight tweaks to suit a particular school. The governance structure would be there to support the school. We do not get that and have to do it independently. The Department of Social Protection is fearful of taking too much responsibility. It likes to keep us at arm's length. They are almost fearful that if the link - which should be there, as Mr. Kearney said - gets too close, we would be subsumed into the Department. That fear is there. There is need to increase the networks between CE schemes so we are linked in and can support each other.

Mr. Peter Glynn:

I will answer the Deputy's question about the employment relations issues we are currently facing. I can confirm that we have members in Tús and the RSS. I can also confirm there is considerable frustration among the membership over the way with which employment relations issues, including pay, etc., have been dealt. I can also confirm that we have requested a return of the old stakeholders' forum that dealt with these issues. Before 2008, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the Department of Social Protection, employers' bodies and SIPTU were represented around a table and could discuss these issues. As it stands, we have to issue 847 notices for a pay rise in each of the CE schemes. We wrote to the Department to seek active engagement and that overture has been rejected.

On the most recent occasion we were before the committee discussing Tús and the RSS, we advised that hundreds of people from the community sector were marching about their conditions of employment. They have not received a pay rise in over 14 years. It saddens us to say that we will be selecting a number of organisations for a ballot for industrial action, which will take effect on 5 July. That is reflective of the frustration at the lack of progress in our engagement with the Department.

Ms Michele Rohan:

Covid hit in March 2020. The only directive we, as supervisors, got at the time was to continue the payroll. We were in a crisis situation and the direction we got was to ensure that the people were paid, which was fine.

As regards returning to work or having people working in various organisations, including Tidy Towns, community centres and all those sorts of thing, we could not at the time get any direction from the Department as to whether or not our people should be at work or could return to work. Particularly during the second lockdown, which was during the summer, grass was growing everywhere and villages were covered in weeds. The members themselves were going out to cut them because we could not get a "Yes" or a "No" from the Department as to whether it was an essential service. Because we are all limited companies, we were told to check with our insurance companies. The insurance companies threw it back at us. Was it an essential service? Were we in level 5? If we were in level 5, was grass cutting an essential service? Other organisations were out on the ground and we were being asked why we were not out there too. We were not out there because nobody could tell us whether we were insured. We could not take that risk because we were responsible for the welfare of those people and for the board of management.

I was in the office every day on my own. I had no issue continuing the paperwork. I caught up on all the paperwork on which I had been behind. I felt I was not doing my bit when I saw what the other organisations were doing. The likes of Tús and RSS were able to go out because they are under the likes of the Galway Rural Development, GRD, or partnerships. They had another level to which they could go. I had to go and look for templates for all the risk assessments that came with the return to work. Only because we have a national and regional network of supervisors that we set up ourselves was I able to put the question out there and ask what we are doing about this and that. Some CE supervisors were working, for example, in Údarás na Gaeltachta or GRD and they could tell me what templates they had. Only through that and the organisation we did ourselves were we able to protect ourselves, our participants and the board of management, which expects us to know what to do. I must say it was the worst and most stressful situation I have ever experienced because I did not have a clue what I was doing, and I was not the only one. That is in answer to the question about Covid.

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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A comment was made about structures. It is true that I was there when we got Tús through Cabinet. I must say it was not a scheme I had sent up. It was December 2010, if people remember that time. I took what I was given because we knew that time was short and at least we got something in. The structure was meant to be that a person would do his or her activation years and would later transfer to what we called CE mark 2. There was resistance to doing it under CE mark 2. That is all about activation. Therefore, we said we could call CE mark 2 Tús. People were to progress to Tús and the scheme was intended not to be time limited.

Does every CE company does its own payroll?

Ms Michele Rohan:

It does.

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The interesting thing is that even though there are 30 partnerships, the payroll for all Tús schemes and the RSS is done in Clifden, County Galway. It is done centrally for all the companies. In other words, even though the individual companies are the employers, the payroll is done on contract by the State in Clifden, County Galway, through Pobal. That is convenient because it is a tedious job that involves a lot of responsibility. Professional people are doing that job. The process has to be repeated numerous times and as Mr. Glynn said, if something happens, they all must learn the new system.

What is interesting is how that came about. When we set up the RSS, the Secretary General of the Department had previously been an assistant secretary at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, so he knew his way around the system. He came up with an ingenious idea, which we discussed in detail, that we would centrally administer things like payroll. We would only have 30 employers taking all the responsibility of employment law, insurance and whatever. There would be local autonomy. We had good and robust discussions and we came up with what I believe was a good formulation.

Even allowing that it is very hard to get swift change in the system, significant improvements could be made to reduce the burden and centralise processes, as happens in local authorities and so on with certain functions. That takes burden from what would be a small, voluntary company.

Photo of Marc Ó CathasaighMarc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I was not physically present for them but I was listening on my headphones. The witnesses might forgive me, therefore, if I am unable to identify speakers.

We are hearing very clear messages repeatedly. As Deputy Ó Cuív mentioned, there is a burden with paperwork and we have heard about this from community and voluntary sectors. There is repetition of effort across different companies and it does not seem to make much sense to me. We have heard about pay and conditions and I accept what Mr. Glynn has said. I am aware it is subject to ongoing discussions. There is also the matter of flexibility.

Deputy Ó Cuív has a point in referring to the fact that we almost have two things happening here. Those are the activation piece, or trying to get people into a labour market economy, and the social economy piece. One of the presentations referenced the value of the social economy, which is being recognised increasingly at an EU level as well. We have people we want to get into a traditional workforce and then there are people who we should acknowledge may always work within the social economy. That may be the correct route. Mr. Kearney said that maybe if we muddied the waters between those areas, we would create a capacity issue, and there may be a need to differentiated.

Deputy Ó Cuív probably knows more about what goes on during budget negotiations than anybody else in the room. It is true to say that health savings arise from these processes. I would come at this from an active transport perspective as well. Both of those elements will pay for themselves many times over in health budget savings than what may be extracted; that is not how Departments negotiate when it comes to budget time. It is not how I understand it works.

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It depends on the Minister and who is the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

Senator Eugene Murphy took the Chair.

Photo of Marc Ó CathasaighMarc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I have a couple of questions that may build from Deputy Denis Naughten's first contribution. He spoke about the impact of Covid-19 on the people coming to these services. We have come out of Covid-19 now and find ourselves in a very different economy, particularly with regard to the workforce. We know there is difficulty in a range of areas, with hospitality being the one jumping out of course, in getting staff. One of the contributors I could not identify because I was listening with headphones said the movement of the economy and the labour force very much dictates how far removed people are from the traditional labour market when the organisations before us first meet them.

My question is around that issue. Do the witnesses find that people who might have been candidates or clients three or five years ago are now entering into the workforce without going through the organisations? Does that mean the people the witnesses are now seeing would have been further removed from the workforce?

I have a couple of questions relating to capacity. They kind of touch on what Mr. Kearney spoke about. Do we have capacity within the community employment sector now? Do we have it in the right places, geographically? Are there places where we struggle to fill spaces and are there places where we need more capacity? That goes to the question of whether we see people staying on for longer. Ms Rohan referred to the two thirds of people over 55 and the one third who are over 60. Is keeping such people on through the scheme restricting capacity for activation and training candidates that we might expect to see?

Mr. Gabriel Kearney:

It comes back to the core issue I spoke about earlier, which is that there is too much of a them-and-us aspect to the scheme. Somebody mentioned there were over 800 schemes, all individually run, because it is the way the Department wants us to be run. It does not want one process of co-ordination of all the schemes. We should break down that barrier. As the Deputy has just said, there are people who are 55 and older who, chances are, will never again get into the active workplace. They will have more importance for society on the social side. We must recognise the benefit of both.

Ms Rohan mentions that schemes must have an activation rate of 20%, 30% or 40% but two thirds of those would be over 55. We can speak all we like about activation but with that cohort of people, there is not a notion of that happening. If we are honest about what we are supposed to do, there are two types of community employment schemes. We can call them whatever we want but there is a community scheme to try to get guys and girls who have lost confidence in themselves, for whatever reason. That is what I thought we were involved with. We give those people some training and put them on their way to further employment. There is also a smaller group of guys for the social side. They are needed for Tidy Towns work and the maintenance of pitches, for example. We should never knock that side of what we do.

There is too much of a fight between us as small companies who are meant to be employing people. We are not doing it really, if we are honest. I am meant to employ Ms Rohan as a sponsor but I do not in reality. If we are being honest about how a scheme is set up, we should call a spade a spade. The Department employs Ms Rohan and she gets all her job descriptions from it. I am suppose to put all that into train. I do my own gig and I have my own company to run. I do this in a voluntary capacity and I am director of a non-profit company called CE in Claregalway. Ms Rohan is really the managing director of that, as Mr. Mahon is with his. That is mirrored in the other 850 throughout the country.

We should have to call a spade a spade and say what they are. We should give them the support the need and the education budget that will bring people from unemployment. Somebody mentioned getting that year down to six months and catching guys not on the live register too long and who get into their own little routines. We all do that. If we catch them at six months, we can, as mentioned by Deputy Ó Cuív, give them proper courses. A self-employed person on a scheme could have the taxman take everything and then we wonder why people do not go on it. We must overhaul the process.

We have the foundation to do this and the sponsors are behind it. Supervisors are keen to bring their participants from unemployment to employment, even if it is social employment.

I can give examples whereby guys in Claregalway were drunk and down and out, because of Covid again, and not talking to anybody but now it is heartening to see them flourish from having work such as mowing pitches or cleaning weeds away from roadways for the local Tidy Towns committee. These people reap the benefits but we, as a society, do not give them a benefit, only because a CE scheme does not belong to a bigger scheme. I mean that the Claregalway scheme is a Claregalway scheme and the same applies to schemes in Annaghdown or Dunmore. I believe that we should link it all together, which is a lovely idea, but we are too afraid, for whatever reason, to bring them all together.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

On the impact that Covid has had on the employment labour market, there is definitely a different type of participant presenting to us. If they come from a situation where they received the PUP, they tend to have had a career up until quite recently but had to pause it due to the circumstances around Covid. Such people are very much labour-market ready and very close to employment and do not have as much social issues. They may have had a personal reawakening about their previous career and view community employment as an opportunity to retrain to go down a different route. They may have been in the hospitality sector, as has been referenced, and have made a decision, having done shift work and worked unsociable hours.

Photo of Marc Ó CathasaighMarc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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The phenomenon is being called "the great resignation" after people have woken up to their situation.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

Yes, exactly. These people want to use CE to go down a different route. For us, these people are brilliant candidates because they are very engaged in training, want to progress and I am sure we will have huge progression rates to show for that type of candidate. Equally, there are candidates who might have been unemployed to begin with prior to Covid. As their social issues will have been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, they are even further removed than they ever were. They already were removed potential participants, which is very much like what Mr. Kearney has outlined. CE offers great flexibility for a certain number of the ex PUP-payment-type of people who seek retraining.

Ms Michele Rohan:

On what Mr. Kearney said about sponsorship bodies and the more than 800 CE schemes, a section of our presentation on sponsors' organisations mentioned the responsibility placed on supervisors. As the former Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív noted, supervisors look after all of the payroll and all of the financial side of a payroll such as tax returns, PRSI and PAYE contributions etc. They must be sent to the Department every month and you cannot have any differentiation between the amount of funding you received for the monthly wage and the amount that has been claimed.

As stated in our presentation, the supervisors must act like the CEO of these limited companies and a CEO's responsibility is the work that must be done by CE supervisors. A CE supervisor works as a HR manager, a financial manager, a training manager and the production manager, who decides the amount of work to be done and which work must be done. A supervisor liaises between the sponsors who seek to have the various works done in various locations. CE is in drug treatment centres and all of the most essential services, including, for example, Enable Ireland, the autism sector and services for people with Alzheimer's disease. CE schemes do not just provide people to cut grass and participate in activities for Tidy Towns committees. It is everywhere. If we are not a little more progressive in our thinking and have joined-up thinking, then these 800-plus schemes will close because those who volunteer their time, namely, the sponsors, are burdened with too much responsibilities and they will walk away.

What will happen then? I do not know. Something needs to be done about governance. The Department and this committee can do something about this matter. Today, we gave the committee a lot of information and we are at the end of a phone if members seek more information. The schemes are stressed to the limit and the supervisors are stressed to their limits. The role of a supervisor is not seen as a career any more because of the amount of work involved. In addition, many supervisors are retiring and the need to replace people in supervisory vacancies and roles is increasing. Our terms and conditions must become more attractive to attract new people, and younger people, to the role. We depend on the committee here to improve the role of supervisors. This is the first proper opportunity that we have had to give members our opinions and experiences on the ground and to have our voice heard as regards CE schemes, for which I thank the committee.

Photo of Eugene MurphyEugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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Do the other witnesses wish to comment? No.

Photo of Marc Ó CathasaighMarc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I asked a question about capacity. Have we capacity? If so, it is in the right places?

Mr. Gabriel Kearney:

The answer is "Yes" and "No". We have the capacity if we are going to pursue the chosen model, instead of the one that Deputy Ó Cuív spoke about where we can put our numbers that are not activating into deployment, and if we can increase our number of, say, the younger cohort - I should not say that about a certain age but I think we all know what this means for people who are over 55 and older people. If we cannot attract young people to train, then we cannot do the activation and we cannot do the things we were set up to do. In that case, we must get bigger numbers, as we have requested. As I mentioned earlier, we requested more numbers. We gave a presentation to the organisations for bigger numbers but we were bogged down in paperwork to achieve that and I pulled away from that, as I could not do it. The numbers are there but it is very hard to get them. Like everything else, there is a prohibitive amount of red tape involved.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

To build on what Mr. Kearney has said and as Deputy Ó Cuív outlined, if you have someone with a social inclusive element and if you believe that this is the highest form of work he or she will achieve, then there is certainly a place within CE schemes for that individual but such people must be micromanaged to a degree. Unless you have a labour activation kind of person who has a higher capacity working alongside him or her, then you could not leave such participants to their own devices in a lot of roles. Striking a balance in a scheme is integral to its success. One cannot have all social inclusion or labour activation. You must strike a balance between the two aspects for it to work as otherwise, the micromanagement required from the supervisor means you would literally have to sit on them the whole time just to make sure that they were able to work in a safe manner.

Photo of Eugene MurphyEugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. Glynn wish to comment?

Mr. Peter Glynn:

No.

Photo of Eugene MurphyEugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I ask the Vice Chairman to take the Chair.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh took the Chair.

Photo of Eugene MurphyEugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I will be brief, as much of what I intended to say has been mentioned by other members. I also know that Deputy Canney and Senator Garvey are under pressure to get away too.

I wish to first recognise, as other people have done, the huge contribution the schemes have made to society, particularly in the west and midlands. The schemes have been hugely beneficial and are very important. From a community perspective, it is terrible to think that these schemes would not have the back-up or support and such a situation would be met with an absolute horror factor from the public. I know how important these schemes have been to every aspect of life in my own region and throughout County Roscommon.

I wish to mention one thing, which has been referred to by a number of people here. We should never overlook what these schemes have done for people who find themselves in difficult situations. I mean people who just cannot go to certain jobs, such as people who have mental health issues or family pressures.

The way those people are nurtured and looked after is extraordinary. I see that all over the region. Sometimes I know those people because I have been very much involved in community work all of my life and I know one has to be very patient. One might not get much out of that individual for the first three or four months but gradually, when they get involved in Tidy Towns, a sports field scheme or some other scheme in a community centre, they can turn out to be really fantastic people. When they get a bit of confidence they become very proud of the work they are doing.

I have two very simple questions. Would our guests agree that the one-year Tús schemes are too short? Some supervisors have said to me that people are barely on a Tús scheme, getting to know people and getting to know the ropes, when they have to leave it again. That might be one of the requests to the Department, to expand the Tús schemes to at least two years. Taking on board what was said earlier, is it time to revolutionise the schemes? Given the way the jobs market is now and given the pressure that supervisors are under with all of the work involved, do we not really need a revolution in all of those schemes and more engagement with the Department to make that happen? What requests would the witnesses have of this committee? Would they take those two requests on board for us to bring forward to the Department to make immediate progress on?

Mr. Gabriel Kearney:

As a sponsor, I have said previously that we have to get the supervisors of the schemes talking to the Department because if that does not happen, we are just going around in circles. These guys are on the ground and they know how the schemes work. As the Senator said, they nurture people with low confidence. Nobody wants to be unemployed. There may be a cohort of people who find it difficult but nobody wants to be without work. We need work for our mental and physical health. The supervisors are on the ground and they know the people. They nurture them. As a sponsor looking on, I can see that they are hitting a stone wall in the Department because they are viewed as not being part of the Department but as supervisors in private companies. That is not the real position. The schemes are set up that way to protect the Department but that is not doing anything for society or for the participants.

The Chairman took the Chair at 11.32 a.m.

Mr. Conor Mahon:

On the question of the one-year Tús schemes, when Tús was initiated it was seen as a coercive scheme. It was for people who were not engaged and the aim was to get them up and running. CE schemes, on the other hand, are self-selecting. Our view is that instead of giving Tús schemes a second year, people could progress into CE. The first three months to which the Deputy referred in terms of barriers could be overcome on Tús and if there was a better working relationship between Tús and CE, then the CE sector would be taking on people who were much more ready to begin in terms of jumping straight in to the training and progression. There could be a choreographed transition between Tús and CE rather than an extra year for Tús. That is my personal opinion.

In terms of what we ask of the committee, as Mr. Kearney said, the level of engagement between us and the Department of Social Protection is close to non-existent. It does not exist. When Ms Rohan referenced the networks that we have, these tend to be in place because of the union. They involve people who are very engaged and who have gotten to know their peers nationally. While we have some people in our networks who are not union members, the vast majority that are very engaged are. Given the age profile of the schemes, some of which have been in place for 30 years, we are losing between 80 and 100 supervisors annually just through the natural process of them reaching pension age. However, because there are no official linkages, we may never touch base with the newer people coming in. Therefore, the network shrinks. The partnership companies have the Irish Local Development Network, ILDN, to represent them as a representative body but we have nothing other than ourselves as representatives within the union. We feel there should be a structure put on the way we communicate with the Department.

Mr. Peter Glynn:

We concur and there is a common thread here. The interaction with the Department from an operational and an employment relations point of view is at a low ebb. What would improve that going forward would be a re-engagement of the operations forum. This would have to be a real fit-for-purpose forum, unlike the proposal the Department has at the moment for CE schemes. We need an effective collective bargaining forum that deals with all of the stakeholders to address these issues rather than having to deal with them on an individual basis in each enterprise.

Ms Michele Rohan:

Regarding the networks, we have set up a national network. We have gone out to other counties around the country and established networks there as well and because there is zero training of supervisors now, the networks have become the training tool for new supervisors. We are training ourselves because there is no official or active training for supervisors going on. It is being left to the sponsors to train new supervisors. The abdication of responsibility by the Department is ridiculous when it comes to that. These networks that we set up ourselves are filling the gap because there is nothing else there. The questions that a new person will have can be put to the network. A high level of camaraderie and support for each other has been built up in the last 12 to 24 months. Only for the network, I do not know how some of the newer supervisors would manage. If there are any difficulties with queries from community development officers, CDOs, people can use the network as a tool to bounce ideas off. It has been a very positive addition for us.

I inquired about training for myself recently to keep up with the new payroll systems that were coming in and to make sure there were no changes that I had not spotted on our own payroll system. An online training course was advertised at a cost of €99. I am entitled to €250 for training which I have never used in the 12 years that I have been a supervisor. I was an assistant but now I am a supervisor. In the 12 years I have only ever been at one training session which was on the individual learner plan, ILP, system and which lasted for about two hours. I have never gone to any other training since. When I asked about this course and filled out the form, I also applied for it for one of the participants. The forms are uploaded onto the welfare partners site for approval by the CDO. The participant was allowed to do the course. I was asked for a separate form, which I filled out and got my sponsor to sign. Then I was asked for a justification. I had to justify my request for €99 worth of training. I am responsible for €500,000 of Government funding that comes through my scheme. Would that be enough justification, I wonder? I had to go to the trouble of justifying this. I honestly did not have the time and I decided not to do it. I was asked whether the course and the trainer were QQI recognised but the same questions were not asked when it came to the participant. I thought I should do this course just to make sure that I have all avenues covered but I had to go to so much trouble to get approval that I did not bother. I used my own intuition and reckoned that I could manage. It is something that I wanted to do but I could not get approval for €99.

As I said previously, our terms and conditions change all of the time. We have a responsibility to coach and mentor participants so that we can help them to decide the areas in which they need training to gain full-time employment. I do not have any training or qualifications in adult guidance counselling for education or anything like that.

I found an NUI course in Maynooth University. It was €2,500 for the first year. I would gain a qualification from it. I inquired about it and I was told that it was a great course. Some of the public servants and people working within Intreo services had done it. I inquired of them what they thought. They said it was an excellent course. The only difference was that I had to pay €2,500 for it. I would get €250 in support and, at a stretch, the it would be €500. The people who had done the course within the Intreo service did not have to pay for it. They did not need it for their job, but they were just doing it. I was expected to do this job without any training. I have not done that course because I do not have €2,500. I have two kids in college.

The second year of that course was going to be €3,000 and I would have to travel once a month to Maynooth, stay overnight and come back down. I could not do that. I used my own initiative and abilities to figure out what I thought would suit people to get off the live register and into full-time employment, which is my goal.

My experience of dealing with community development officers and Intreo services in Galway has always been positive. I have a good relationship with all of the people there. It is a pity that the policy unit that is causing the issues. I have dealt face to face with the members of the policy unit through the negotiations that we had over the last couple of years for our pension, which turned out to be a gratuity. I know these people. They are human beings like the rest of us. They are not the enemy. They have a job that they are supposed to do. It is what it is. They can come so far but they cannot go any further than that. It is a pity that it has declined into this “them and us” situation and that we cannot be adult about it and use common sense. When it comes down to having to justify a €99 course online, what is the point?

Photo of Seán CanneySeán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I am not a member of the committee, but I thought it was important that I came down here to offer to my support to the witnesses. I was listening to them on the screen before I came down here; I had been doing something else. If we get anything out of today, we get a sense that there is total frustration. I know this myself on the ground.

Mr. Kearney has hit the nail on the head on a number of occasions on what is wrong, as have Mr. Mahon and Ms Rohan. The important thing is that we have 847 schemes. They are all working in the community. They are not all there to cut grass, as Ms Rohan said. Some of them are involved in mental health services, the Irish Wheelchair Association and all facets of services. However, what has happened is that these organisations have become totally reliant on the CE scheme participants to deliver their services.

Over the last 30 years, the Department of Social Protection has tried to distance itself from responsibility. In Tuam, for instance, we have a CE scheme that is sponsored by Galway County Council. We have one of them in each municipal district. Without those schemes, the countryside, the towns and the villages would look a hell of a lot worse. If the council were to employ people directly to carry out this work, it would cost them an arm and a leg compared to what it costs now.

The Minister announced an extension of the scheme for people where vacancies that could not be filled so that they could continue with the participants that were there. It transpired that was only for 12 weeks. The amount of paperwork that had to be done to try to realise that was so arduous that people said to hell with that and they did without them. I get calls from supervisors and from sponsoring bodies, such as Mr. Kearney’s, to say that they need more people and how to get them.

From listening to what the witnesses are saying, if I were a CE supervisor, I would need to have a lot of skills, including HR skills, health and safety, project management skills and all that goes with that. You need to be a financial guru as well to make sure finances are kept on track. Really and truly, the message today is that the Department of Social Protection needs to wake up and to realise that these schemes will fail and fall over the next ten years. Then we will realise what we have lost. Participants in the schemes are providing great services for society. There are also a lot of positives for the participants themselves.

The job activation aspect is part of it, but when people get to a certain age, they should go to another category within the scheme. People should be kept on in the scheme because they have the skills built up for that scheme. People talk about cutting grass, but that is only the tip of the iceberg in relation to communities. The committee has heard the witnesses. I am not a member of the committee, but I am sure it will be making a strong recommendation to the Minister.

There are no questions that I can ask, because the witnesses have answered all of the questions. I do not want them repeating anything. I must say, that the way they have presented the situation today is exactly what I am hearing on the ground in Galway from the supervisors and the participants. There is a frustration there. The sponsoring groups are frustrated because they just cannot see why in the name of God they are involved in something like this. To go back to what Mr. Kearney said, the most important message to get out is the need for joined-up thinking, the coming together of the supervisors and they being recognised as the catalyst for getting work done on the ground by the Department.

Extending the Tús scheme to two years is a help. These are things that will help. However, there is no point in doing that and creating another layer of paperwork around that so that after year one you have to repeat something and it might take three months to get the paperwork right, which creates frustration.

I will work with the witnesses and with the Chair. As Senator Eugene Murphy said, these schemes are in every parish and we benefit from them. We have to make sure that they are not just taken for granted. What will happen is that the day the grass is not cut or the day that the driver does not show up to the Irish Wheelchair Association, or whatever the case may be, the first point of contact will be Ms Rohan or Mr. Mahon asking where the driver is. They have to answer that. We are leaving them with a huge burden of responsibility. That is not fair and it is not right. I want to thank them for their input and to offer my total support for everything they have said today.

Mr. Gabriel Kearney:

I want to thank Deputy Canney for his support on this. We all agree that the CE schemes are essential. I speak from the sponsor side of it. I have been chairman of our own group for 12 or 13 years. I was supposed to be there for two years, but I cannot get anybody. With the amount of work that is coming in, as well as the responsibilities, it is awful hard to get the next guy to come in. They do not want to come in because we are not recognised. They say it is only an old FÁS course, or whatever scheme. We are essential to what we are doing in the community. That is the reason I am involved. I am a volunteer in it, but these guys are working on it. We all have that community spirit in us. If we work together, that community spirit will stay with us. I thank the committee for allowing us to speak about this.

Mr. Peter Glynn:

I have a final remark on behalf of SIPTU and the delegation. I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to put our case forward. We look forward to the report.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses. Clearly, the operation and the management of the schemes can be adapted to allow supervisors more time to train and to provide support to participants and to get the skillsets that they themselves need in helping to support participants who are on the schemes. I thank the witnesses for attending and for their constructive and positive engagement with this committee.

Shortly, the committee will discuss in private session its next considerations on this specific matter. It is our intention to present a report on our deliberations to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and to Dáil Éireann shortly thereafter.

In terms of the wider matters on our work programme, we hope the committee's deliberations and recommendations are taken on board by the Department and considered by the Minister.

We have strong representation from the province of Connacht among the membership, secretariat and witnesses today and in light of comment by some members, particularly Deputy Ó Cuív's reference to repetitive tasks, I note that Senator Murphy and I-----

Photo of Eugene MurphyEugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I know where this is going.

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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-----look forward to being involved in a repetitive task next Sunday in Pearse Stadium and beating Galway for the third time this year. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.

The joint committee went into private session at 11.50 a.m. and adjourned at 12.08 p.m. until 9.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 1 June 2022.