Paul Connaughton (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. All sides of the House should welcome legislation that makes it easier for people to return to work. Over the past few years I have dealt with constituents who have been offered short-term contracts or jobs but they did not want to take the chance of taking the offer in case they lost social welfare support. Those who did and who subsequently lost their jobs had to start all over again, which was hugely frustrating. The provisions in the legislation are, therefore, a welcome step forward.

In fairness to the Department and the Minister of State, much of what they are trying to do relates to labour activation in addition to providing social welfare payments. They want to help claimants into full-time employment, which is a welcome step. However, I am concerned about community employment, CE, schemes, which have been a huge success. I have written to the Minister of State about this in the past week and I hope to receive a response outlining what can be done in this regard. My concern relates to a cohort of CE participants who are in their late 50s and early 60s. CE schemes work and they are an invaluable resource for participants and communities. As CE has became more of a labour activation scheme and the period participants can stay on it is reducing, the focus has turned to training participants and, hopefully, moving them on to a job, which is ideal.

However, let us be honest. Those in their late 50s and early 60s will not find employment easily. They attend my clinics in Tuam and Loughrea and they are frustrated. Some of them have left schemes at the age of 62 or 63 only to go back on jobseeker's payments for three or four years before they are eligible for their pension but that is the last thing they want to do. As far as they are concerned, they have provided an invaluable service in their communities and they want to continue to do that, if possible. While I welcome the fact that the scheme is changing to mirror what we need as a country moving forward, we must address a scenario where these people are being told they are finished on the scheme, there is no future for them and they should find a job. Opportunities do not exist for them currently, particularly for those who were never trained or had skills. They may have had a job for 20 or 30 years before taking up a CE scheme. We need to be more creative in how we deal with them. For example, could we engage in some joined up thinking and move some of them on to the rural social scheme, RSS, or Tús until they reach pension age? I acknowledge there is a cost to this.

CE has more to do with labour activation than being just another statistic on the road to getting a job. Mental health is a major issue. The lives of many people changed remarkably when they joined a CE scheme because they had somewhere to go every day and they could meet like minded people of the same age. They were getting out of the house and doing work on the ground. This was of huge benefit to them. The Minister of State is well aware of these issues but I have had a number of calls over the past few weeks since I began to highlight them. CE supervisors say do not feel safe taking people off a scheme because they know what it means to them. They could be going through a tough time in their lives at a delicate age. The Department should be more creative. Labour activation is a hugely important element of CE but mental health and self-esteem are important issues. Many of the participants are unable to handle being told that they should return to a jobseeker's payment. I do not say this is easy. Members can make plentiful observations to the Minister of State and say it is easy to implement this and that but it would be nice if we could acknowledge that people in their late 50s and early 60s will not find it easy to get a job. Given what they have done on these schemes is important and their communities have benefitted, their participation on the scheme should be extended for a few years until they get to pension age. I understand the Department has a limited budget and while "labour activation" are, rightly, buzz words, a cohort of people in this age bracket need to be protected and facilitated. A little joined up thinking would make a huge difference to their lives.

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