Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that considerable progress has been made in increasing the number of participants on the community employment drug rehabilitation schemes. A key first step in securing this improvement was the establishment of a stakeholder group which assists the Department to identify and implement enhancements to the scheme. In addition, workshops have been held with the scheme supervisors and departmental staff to ensure that the schemes meet the needs of participants. To complement these changes, an improved vacancy notification system and referral process was introduced. In January 2012, the schemes were transferred to the Department of Social Protection and 578 drug rehabilitation places were filled. This is a disappointing number as I said at the time. This increased substantially to 790 places by the end of December 2013. In addition, there are now 161 support workers, giving a total of 951 community employment places dedicated to drugs rehabilitation.

There were 23 available places advertised on the JobsIreland.iewebsite on 22 January last. The annual turnover on the scheme is just over 400 places. During any given year, participants can exit for many reasons, including illness or relapse, gaining employment, maternity leave, retirement, emigration, transfer to another scheme, exit to a training programme or full-time education or exhaustion of CE participation limits.

Data on the age profile of participants and participation duration is contained in the tables. All CE referred drug rehabilitation places participants are eligible for three years duration on the programme. In exceptional circumstances, there is provision for an extension of the duration on a mainstream CE project subject to the Department agreeing to that.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

Drug rehabilitation schemes are primarily focused on social rehabilitation and improving educational and vocational development. The Department is currently developing a social inclusion strand on CE and the drug rehabilitation projects will be considered within this strand. The CE drug rehabilitation scheme plays an important role in helping recovering drug users to develop their personal and employment skills. In this regard, I am pleased that the number of places filled increased substantially last year.

Table 1: Age Profile of Participants on Community Employment Drug Rehabilitation Scheme.

Age Band	Gender		Total	%
-	Male	Female	-	-
Under 20	15	12	27	3.4
20-24	106	47	153	19.4
25-34	145	88	233	29.5
35-44	186	68	254	32.1
45-54	53	34	87	11.0
55 and over	22	14	36	4.6
Total	527	263	790	100.0

December 2013: CSM IT Extracts (Referred clients only)

Table 2: Duration of Participants on Community Employment Drug Rehabilitation Scheme.

Completed Years on CE	Participants	%
Under 12 months	393	49.7
One Year	164	20.8
Two Years	140	17.7
Three Years or more	93	11.8
Total	790	100.0

December 2013: CSM IT Extracts (Referred clients only)

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