Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

Two points about community employment schemes were that there were specific difficulties regarding people aged over 55 years, and the review findings and the Minister's announcement address that difficulty. They also go some way to address the second difficulty about which individual schemes complained, namely, that they had great difficulty in recruiting participants and schemes frequently had approval for a substantially greater number of places than there were eligible and available participants in their immediate areas. The improved situation for the people aged over 55 years is one measure to address that difficulty.

The rural social scheme announced in last year's budget is still available and there are 2,500 places, of which approximately one third have been taken up. Approximately 67,000 people participated in a wide range of active labour market and training programmes under FÁS.

See this speech in context