Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for his support for the scheme. It is a success on the ground and I thank those participants in the scheme who did such Trojan work during the bad weather at the start of January.

We can be clear about one thing, we have been paying €11.63 per week since 2009. Of that, €4.63 goes directly to paying PRSI, leaving €7. If we multiply that by 50 and add €14, it amounts to €364 per year for participants. That should be more than enough to buy all the rainwear, safety boots and direct, personal paraphernalia someone would need.

I had the choice to reduce the number of participants or to reduce slightly the money for materials. I still believe €364 is quite adequate to provide personal safety equipment. We must also recognise that many of these workers are working for local committees, for sports clubs and Tidy Towns organisations. If a voluntary committee has access to free labour, it is a huge head start on the old days when it had to provide the labour and the materials. It is not unreasonable to expect community groups, if they need some cement or some blocks, to come up with the money as a community. That is the spirit of rural Ireland. One of the amazing things I find in CLÁR and Gaeltacht areas that community groups are queuing up with money, telling me they have the funds if I can match them, far more than was the case during the heyday of the Celtic tiger. Perhaps they realise there is no more free lunch. The right decision in all my policies is to keep participants on the schemes.

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