Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this issue. Most Members will be aware of the new Tús scheme that has been announced. It has been welcomed in many communities and we look forward to it being established and introduced. I have previously raised with the Minister and am glad to raise in the House that the eligibility criteria for applicants, especially for the position of supervisor, are excessively restrictive.

I will give some examples. One gentleman, who was unemployed from January 2010 until February 2011, commenced a FÁS course and as a result has now been told he is not eligible. In effect he appears to have been punished for taking on the FÁS course by being excluded from the recruitment process for supervisors for the Tús programme.

I received another query from a woman who was also very interested in the position of supervisor. She is currently signing on but not in receipt of job seeker's allowance. She was means tested resulting in her no longer being eligible for job seeker's allowance. That said, she was still allowed to sign on, keep her records alive and get credits. Officially she is unemployed but technically is not receiving a payment. However, she is ineligible to apply as a supervisor.

Another gentleman who telephoned me was in receipt of job seeker's allowance for approximately 14 months and three weeks ago he was offered a full- time job, which he took. He is not happy there and not certain he wants to stay. He would be very interested in the supervisory position.

I understand the well-intentioned efforts of the Minister and her Department but the reality on the ground is that too many people have been adversely and unfairly affected by the excessively restrictive guidelines attached to this scheme. I respectfully request the Minister to take on board the evidence to date which suggests that a substantial number of eminently qualified and suitable applicants have been excluded from the competition for posts at both supervisory and participatory levels. I am particularly concerned about the effect the excessively prescriptive eligibility criteria will ultimately have on the success of the scheme owing to the negative effect it will have on the quality of the supervisors, who will be very important to the success of the scheme.

I understand that the number of applications for the very important supervisory positions have been below what was anticipated. This substantiates my argument that the Minister should re-examine the eligibility criteria for the positions.

It is extremely difficult for me to explain to a former site manager who worked in the construction sector and has unfortunately now been unemployed for more than 16 months that he is not eligible to apply for the position of supervisor because he undertook a FÁS course to upskill and improve his prospects of gaining employment. It seems ridiculous that the State would punish anyone for taking the opportunity to improve his or her prospects through FÁS training courses and that this would subsequently be used as grounds to exclude him or her from advertised positions such as those in the Tús programme.

I earnestly ask the Minister to address this anomaly to allow a fuller pool of candidates to apply for the positions advertised under the Tús programme, in particular the supervisory positions.

See this speech in context