Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Cutbacks totalling €41.5 million in the CE programme will impact on services throughout the country and act as an impediment to long-term unemployed people looking to upskill and re-enter the workforce. The budget contained measures that will reduce the training and materials grant from €1,500 to €500 per participant per annum. These schemes include prominent community programmes such as crèches, community and family resource centres, elderly and disabled supports, sporting, social and cultural clubs, Tidy Towns, etc. There are 23,000 places on the schemes, which are sponsored by voluntary boards of management, with running costs covered by the materials and training budget. The cut means that sponsoring a scheme may no longer be variable.

The Taoiseach in reply to me yesterday said the Minister's review will not slow down the legislation relating to the budget, which will give effect to the 66% cut in the training and material grant for the schemes. Why did she not engage with the sector? Why did she not inform the schemes of a review before the budget, which cut their grant by 66%? How can scheme administrators prepare work plans for next year knowing such a grant cut will leave them in no position to prepare or cost a plan, let alone implement it? When will the review take place? Who will carry it out? What are the terms of reference it will adhere to? How long will the review take? If the costs associated with the schemes are cut by €41.5 million and the Minister says they will all survive, where will the funding come from within her budget to fund the schemes that are not viable? Is the cut in her budget, therefore, €420 million rather than €475 million? Will she clarify how much her Department's funding was cut by in the budget?

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