Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

We must stop talking illusory economics where the psychology is that if one keeps repeating that it will be all right on the night, it will be. Is it not the position that the community employment scheme participants are disqualified from receiving rent allowance once their income exceeds €317.43? Is it not the position that this rule acts as a complete disincentive to lone parents to seek employment or training?

The best way out of poverty is through employment. Schemes, such as the community employment scheme, have provided a marginalised section of the community with the chance for further education, training and the opportunity to enter the workplace. If we are serious about bridging the gap between rich and poor, we need an imaginative approach to education, training and employment opportunities. This means the income eligibility threshold must be increased to €420 as it has not been raised for several years.

Community employment scheme participants have written to me, claiming they are the victims of the latest Government scam to reduce rent allowance greater than 50% and yet receive an increase in the scheme's benefits of €14 per week. How can anyone be satisfied with this? How could anyone have the gall to claim the peoples lot is improving? This is arising as a direct result of the failure of the Department of Social and Family Affairs to raise the income limit for tapered rent allowance.

A lone parent on a community employment scheme receives €350 and is automatically over the limit. Conditions attached to participating in the community employment schemes are strict. A participant has to be in receipt of low income to be eligible for the scheme. People in need of help are being forced to drop out of the scheme to qualify for rent allowance. Is this right? Is it right that we have not ensured those disregards have been adjusted in line with inflation to facilitate people's transition into the workplace, particularly when in the past seven years, the Department of Social and Family Affairs has returned €850 million to the Department of Finance. Some of these moneys could have been used productively for the back to education allowance and the community employment scheme.

Will the Minister undertake a review of all disregards that have been static for several years? They have only served to exclude people because of the failure to index link the bands and limits, leading to automatic deprivation of eligibility for those schemes. It is no use giving a person a coat if one proceeds to cut the buttons off it; it will not keep him warm. Let us stop the codology and raise the limits to ensure participants in these schemes get an opportunity to participate productively in the economy. We will see the fruits of it in the future.

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