Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Tá rún rí-thábhachtach curtha os ár gcomhair inniu ag Sinn Féin. Déanann sé déileáil le ceist atá tábhachtach do a lán daoine, agus ní hamháin iad siúd atá gafa leis na scéimeanna fostaíochta pobail. Tá a lán den phobal atá ag brath ar na seirbhísí a chuireann na scéimanna ar fáil don phobal áitiúil. Muna ndéanann an Rialtas athrú cuí ar an chinneadh a ghlac sé i mí na Nollag beimíd níos boichte as mar sochaí.

Táim ag impí ar an Aire agus ar a cúlbhinseoirí tacú leis an rún seo. Níl mé ag iarraidh uirthi coimre a dhéanamh ar an chinneadh a rinneadh i mí na Nollag ach athrú iomlán a dhéanamh air, infheistíocht cheart a dhéanamh ins an gcóras, an t-airgead a sciopadh ós na scéimeanna a chur ar ais iontu agus iad a dhéanamh níos éifeachtaí ná mar atá siad faoi láthair.

They say a society should be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. A Government can be judged by what it chooses to cut or support, and this Government's priorities are becoming clearer by the day. We are focusing in this debate on the cuts to community employment schemes, but the Government has already chosen to cut funding to disadvantaged schools, to make a host of cuts to social welfare payments and to send front-line services into disarray with its ill-conceived and ill-managed early retirement scheme.

Two weeks ago, when I debated this issue with the Minister, I charged that after she had decided on the cuts in the budget, the review of those cuts was announced solely for the purpose of allowing her backbenchers to give the impression that they were active in highlighting the dangers of this attack on communities. She failed to reject that charge, which is confirmation that all this reviewing of the community employment cuts is intended simply as respite for her backbenchers and is not a genuine row-back from her mistake, and I believe it is a mistake.

If further evidence were needed to demonstrate that the outcome of the ongoing review was predetermined, it came in the form of a letter issued by the Minister on 3 February. The note enclosed with that letter stated: "It is essential that the review be completed promptly ... so that the Department has the time remaining in 2012 to achieve the level of savings agreed in the Budget." That sounds like a review for review's sake, but with a predetermined outcome of tearing the heart out of CE schemes. It is bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake, because the note goes on to outline that the human and financial cost of the administration of funding to CE schemes is about to multiply no end. Under the Minister's plans, in future, rather than having per capita grants, every penny will be argued for with the Department case by case. I suspect the Department is hoping that individual schemes will not have the time or capacity to do this and will simply close up shop.

How much money is the Government cutting from the CE budget in total? The Minister has been keen to emphasise a figure of €27.5 million, but this is a mere fraction of the actual cuts being imposed on CE schemes and their participants. The 66% reduction in the training and materials allowance is just one of the cuts being pursued. Add to this the abolition of concurrent payments, which after three years represent an annual cut of €128 million, and the cuts to allowances for child dependents, and the total is greater again. What is the real figure? Is it €27.5 million, €128 million or closer to €200 million?

Many community employment schemes have developed in recent years to plug the gaping holes in public service provision left by successive Governments, about which there is no argument. The schemes were welcomed because they provided services for local communities. These services included child care, after-school clubs and meals on wheels, as well as providing the community facility staff required to maintain our basic community facilities. One of the key programmes often forgotten when the discussing community employment scheme is the special community employment programme aimed at addressing the peculiar and challenging problems faced by those in recovery from addiction. The Government is even undermining this service safety net, while at the same time failing to introduce public services to address the gap if and when community employment schemes fail because of the recent cut.

Nobody denies the value of the community employment scheme to communities. I take it as a given that all Members agree on this; I have not heard anybody say the scheme has not played an important role in their community. If that is a given, why cut it in such a drastic fashion? Later in this debate Government Deputies will laud the programme, yet it is likely they will vote against the motion tomorrow night.

The Minister appears to want to measure community employment schemes and make funding conditional on financial factors alone. In announcing the review she promised not to close schemes that could prove they were financially viable. A cost-benefit analysis cannot easily be conducted for some projects. For some schemes their financial viability or otherwise should not even be an issue. Some are intrinsically valuable and one cannot put a cost on them, for example, projects offering recreational opportunities to people with disabilities. One such project was under major threat of closure only a few weeks ago because of the cut in its training and materials allowance. We should fund such projects because it is the right thing to do, not close them on the basis of a short-sighted economic rationale. Yes, they should be evaluated but not solely on a financial basis.

If the Government parties are determined to deal only in economics, I ask them to consider the consequential cost of cutting community employment schemes. If community employment and other community programmes are cut, there is the consequential cost of increased imprisonment and crime, the effect some closures will have on mental health services, the cost of a lifetime on social welfare that faces many people who previously found a safety net, a way out and social inclusion based on their participation in community employment schemes, and the cost of lengthier dole queues because people cannot afford child care. The community child care centres will be in danger of collapse, a point to which I will return. There is also the issue of isolation both for people living in rural areas and for people with disabilities who will suffer social isolation if they cannot participate in community employment schemes. These schemes were successful in the past, but they could have been better organised, financed and resourced to provide greater outcomes for the community, the participants and society in general.

By voting for the budget cuts targeted at community employment schemes the Labour Party and Fine Gael are undermining the fabric of Irish society in more ways than one. They are undermining the overstretched, underfunded, yet efficient community infrastructure. They are undermining their own activation agenda, as well as recovery and rehabilitation. They are condemning lone parents and their children to long-term social welfare dependency. The Government claims to be all about activation, but it is actively undermining one of the main activation planks. The community employment scheme must be treated and fully funded as an integral part of a successful activation agenda. It is not just about the progression of the community employment scheme participants themselves; the scheme also enables the activation of others. The Minister says she wants people on dole queues to actively engage and avail of options to keep them close to the labour market and get back to work as soon as possible. For many on the dole their sole meaningful advice is actually supplied by community employment scheme participants trained by the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed and operating out of community resource centres and so forth.

Accessing training, education and work is also contingent on the availability of affordable child care and the community employment scheme is the bedrock of community child care. Community child care services are in serious jeopardy as a consequence of the Government's cuts; by extension, the entire activation agenda is in jeopardy. It costs more than €500 a year to bring someone to the FETAC level 5 required. Does the Minister want children to be minded by unqualified persons? Obviously, she does not. However, this requires investment.

Community child care services also rely heavily on lone parents who staff centres. However, by abolishing concurrent payments and the community employment qualified child increase the Minister is making participation in the programme unaffordable for lone parents. I have been speaking with community employment scheme supervisors and other organisations and I am aware that already they cannot fill posts in child care services as a consequence of recent cuts. As one person put it to me in an email last week:

the eligibility criteria are rigid in such a way that [CE] has become "Sheltered Employment Scheme" as the majority of the participants joining schemes do so because they are unable to access the Labour Market; this is because they may have health issues (mental & physical), education difficulties (learning difficulties or early school leavers), social issues, addiction issues, lone parents, carers etc... The review of course is going to prove that CE does not progress participants as the vast majority of participants who want to come onto CE to progress are excluded.

There should be two forms of community employment scheme - one focused on progression into the labour market and the other focused on community-based service provision. The Government must start creating jobs, not shirking its responsibilities by saying it is its role to create an environment in which jobs can be created by others. It must create jobs, not leave it to others. Certainly, the environment is important, but given that there are already 440,000 on the live register, the Government must create some jobs. Expanding the community employment scheme should be part of the job creation programme, given that, as we heard last week, there are 26 people unemployed for every vacancy in the State.

I had intended to say a great deal more about other aspects of the community employment schemee, but I wish to focus on lone parents. The Government's first budget placed the burden of recovery squarely and unfairly on the shoulders of social welfare recipients. Within this it targeted lone parents and people with disabilities in a particularly vicious manner. Following a public outcry and pressure, it paused some of the cuts to disability allowance. However, lone parents have been hit very badly. The community employment scheme was one of the few activation measures open to lone parents, but the associated social welfare cuts now make it unaffordable and are closing it off to them. Likewise, special rules designed to make work pay for lone parents have been targeted by the Government; for example, the earnings disregard has been drastically reduced, while the transition payment has been abolished. So much for its activation measures. A total of 60% of lone parents are in employment of some form, but the cuts will force them back into full welfare dependency. The Minister is reinstating old unemployment traps, and she knows it well. She is condemning lone parents and their children to poverty and isolation.

I urge the Members of the House to support this motion and reverse, not review, the cut announced in December.

See this speech in context