Paul Connaughton (Galway East, Fine Gael)

As Members understand, in many communities, both rural and urban, the community employment scheme can be the glue that sticks the local community together. The people in the scheme are the people that assist a whole range of community development groups to see their goals through to fulfilment. While community development groups can often have the ideas and ideals to improve their community, they do not have the skills to bring those to fruition. This is where the local community employment schemes provide the missing piece of what is a crucial community jigsaw.

Since the announcement of the budget last year, all scheme operators understood that there would be cuts, but the nature and extent of those cuts has remained very clouded for scheme operators, and poor communication has compounded the problem at all levels. As someone in constant contact with CE schemes, I recognise that it is important that all training provided represents up-skilling of people for jobs, yet I feel that the hugely valuable social element of many of these schemes is being overlooked. Whether it is a drugs rehabilitation scheme in inner city Dublin or a community employment scheme in Eyrecourt, County Galway, these schemes are providing an extremely important service to the locality. Their actions are instigated from the ground up and this bottom-up approach to development has empowered local communities to spend their scarce resources of employee hours in the areas where they feel it is most necessary and worthwhile.

The mental health benefits of such schemes are constantly being overlooked. In the past year, I have been approached on innumerable occasions by people seeking to get places on CE schemes. Many people found themselves out of work for the first time in their lives as a result of the property crash and found that the daily grind of unemployment made life much more difficult to cope with than the tough physical work they had been doing previously. Getting out to work and making a valuable contribution to the community is the cornerstone of these schemes, and this must be continued.

I commend the Minister on her decision to instigate a review of the measures as announced in the budget. If savings must be made, then it is better that they be made in the training and materials element of the scheme, as opposed to cutting the number of schemes or the number of people on those schemes.

Community employment schemes are an immensely valuable resource to every community in Ireland; to community employment groups and the participants and their families. The number of schemes and number of participants must be retained if the valuable work being undertaken by these schemes is to continue and both training and materials are crucial to the continuance of these schemes.

Since the changes have been announced and this review process has begun - I welcome the Minister's decision in this respect - there are quite a number of schemes under financial strain at the moment. I would like to see Department officials and the Minister talk to people involved in the schemes over the next few weeks, because these schemes must be allowed to continue to do their work.

We know that savings have to be made for the review to take place. However, each scheme should individually be consulted on that. The schemes will come up with the savings so they can keep going, but that is the point that has been missed so far.

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