Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

Will the Minister of State accept the importance of the projects my colleague, Deputy O'Connor, has outlined? I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of these different projects to the community in the greater Tallaght area, some of which extend into Brittas. They are all doing vital work. I described this announcement as a body blow to the communities and community groups in those areas. Many of them will do vital work with young children in the area over the summer months. Groups like Tallaght Citizens' Information Service provide information on social welfare problems and so on. People use that service constantly but it is due to lose some of its people. Deputy O'Connor spoke about the important work the Tallaght Travellers homework project is doing with the homework clubs and so on. This announcement appears to be a contradiction in that respect. The Minister of State will be aware that the education committee has discussed the problem of disadvantage and the importance of giving young people an opportunity to break out of the cycle of poverty and disadvantage. There are people working in those areas.

This is an unusual situation in that the TCDI board resigned en masse and we are told the jobs will be terminated from 1 July. We are being told by FÁS that there is no official policy in place to account for the JI managing agents terminating their work. There is a contradiction here, and it struck me when talking to people about this matter, in that we had a statement from the Minister, Deputy Martin, on 10 November 2004, the headline of which read: "Martin Introduces Changes to FÁS Employment Scheme." He said there would be no compulsory lay-offs yet 28 people are facing redundancy. All the staff have been asked by FÁS if they want to take redundancy. We are told constantly that these people do not want to work but they want to work in their communities, and they are doing vital work. No one wants to accept the lay-offs.

I thought the uncertainty around this issue had been addressed following the statement from the Minister, Deputy Martin. Why is this situation happening? Will the uncertainty around the JI, community employment and the social economy programmes be raised again? Last year, Members from all parties in this House raised the issue of these programmes being terminated and the effect of that on communities, particularly disadvantaged communities. There is a contradiction in this situation because the Government statement was to the effect that it was concerned about disadvantage yet it allowed these cutbacks in the area.

I do not know whether what has happened is a blip in the system but we want to know the position. I realise the Minister will read from a script when replying but I hope it will not be the usual type of reply to the effect that the matter is being examined and so on. We want answers here tonight. If that is not possible, we are asking the Minister of State and his Department to resolve this situation sooner rather than later and before these jobs are lost because it will have enormous effect on the people living in those communities, not just on the families of the people working in JI schemes.

This is a body blow to the people in Tallaght. There is an opportunity, even at this late stage, to resolve this matter. Why can the people on these schemes not be transferred to another sponsoring agency? That is the important question. If mechanisms or structures have to be put in place to allow that to happen, I ask the Minister of State to put those structures in place and not allow this action be mirrored in other communities throughout the State because that is what will happen. FÁS appears to be taking a strong line on this issue. We are all looking for compromise, which can resolve the situation. I hope the Minister of State and his Department can resolve it.

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