Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

It is welcome to see Deputy Gay Mitchell back in the House. He has not lost any of his energy. I am delivering this reply on behalf of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Martin, who has responsibility for community employment, CE, schemes. CE schemes are active labour market programmes designed to provide eligible long-term unemployed people and other disadvantaged persons with an opportunity to engage in useful work within their communities on a temporary basis.

CE as an active labour market programme has the emphasis on progression into employment. This programme, with its focus on the needs of disadvantaged persons, forms a major response by FÁS to tackling the social exclusion of such groups as persons with disabilities, lone parents, long-term unemployed people and drug abusers, with a view to their reintegration into the labour market.

Changes have been made to CE so that it responds to the needs of disadvantaged people. CE health sector places have been ring-fenced from any reductions that have taken place since March 2002 and FÁS makes every effort to ensure places are maintained at the agreed level on ring-fenced schemes. In addition, projects in RAPID areas are given priority. However, it is important to remember that the primary purpose of CE is to provide short-term work experience and training opportunities for long-term unemployed persons and other disadvantaged groups with a view to facilitating their progression to work in the open labour market. It is imperative, therefore, that CE positions be vacated on a rolling basis to facilitate new participants.

To cater for older workers in particular, in November 2004 the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment raised the three-year participation limit to allow those aged 55 years and over to avail of a six-year period on CE schemes based on participation since 3 April 2000. This was done in recognition of the fact that older participants may find it more difficult to progress into the open labour market.

In July of this year, my Department published its sectoral plan under the Disability Act 2005. One of the key highlights of this plan is to increase participation rates of people with disabilities on CE over the period of the plan and to raise the CE participation limits for people with disabilities to provide additional training to assist progression to employment. In the case of people with disabilities under 55 years of age, the participation limit was raised by one year from three to four years, while for people with disabilities over 55 years of age, the participation limit was also raised by one year from six to seven years.

A new individual learner plan is also currently being rolled out nationally in FÁS which is designed to track and record an individual's progress from programme entry to exit. Beginning with the identification of learning needs at induction, through to project and progression skills development, this new approach addresses the personal, social, vocational and specific work-related skills needs of each participant.

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