Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Dea for sharing time. I also thank the Minister for his presentation, which I appreciated. I thank the two civil servants sitting here tonight.

I will focus on Tús, the rural social scheme, community employment schemes and Intreo offices. East Galway, where I live, is very different to Dublin because people could not have it harder when it comes to Pathways to Work. The reason for this is because someone trying to access Intreo offices faces a problem with transport before they even get off the ground. Therein lies the problem because we are short on numbers on the ground and are struggling to fill Tús and community employment schemes even though we have numbers on the live register. Why are we struggling to fill them? It is because the service is outsourced to an English company, the name of which escapes me. This company is taking people off the live register and the supervisor on the ground in charge of a Tús or community employment scheme is failing to get people employed in their own area because they must go to the Intreo office in either Loughrea or Galway city. This is where they are being serviced. They are forgetting about local communities. The idea behind Tús, the rural social scheme and community employment schemes was to support rural communities and be a part of their rejuvenation but, regrettably, the Department is forgetting about the smaller towns and villages in rural Ireland.

Approximately 4,500 people are waiting to get on the rural social scheme. In Galway, 154 people are waiting to get on the scheme. This includes the county and the west. That would mean that we would need seven schemes along with seven supervisors and seven assistant supervisors. Most of the people on farm assist or jobseeker's payments possibly already receive €188 and to increase it by a couple of euro to €233 would involve in the region of €175,000 for Galway. We talk about financial well-being, which was referred by the Minister, but it is also about mental well-being. These people want to go to work. They are farmers on farm assist, which the Minister needs to look at because the IFA spoke in detail about it yesterday. They are not farmers who do not want to work. They just do not have enough work and are making themselves available but there are no spaces on the schemes throughout the country. I ask the Minister to look at this element of it. It can give a lot back to communities. The knock-on effect is that the men on those schemes are contributing to the community and are going home in the evenings in a better state of mind because they have been out working and communicating as opposed to sitting at home thinking that they have not been providing.

When those responsible are assessing whether there is a vacancy on the rural social scheme, they look at the family circumstances. A single man finds it much harder to get on such a scheme than a married man because of the allowances and attempts to get them the grants. I know the Minister is looking at me but it is a choice when they are trying to see how they support the family in the community. I can only credit the supervisors and people involved in Tús, the rural social scheme and community employment schemes.

Regrettably, I think we might have got it wrong with Tús because there is no progression. People are only there for 12 months. By that time, they have done their work for 12 months and they have nothing to move on to. Can we move them to community employment schemes because they have only just learned a skill, such as stone wall building, for example, when they finish? If we could provide a pathway to progression in the community, the good people will come through and will find jobs out of it. It is very hard for someone who has taken part in a Safe Pass programme for 12 months to find anything as result of it.

Intreo is a fabulous service but I would make one suggestion. Can we put some Intreo case officers out in the field as opposed to having everybody travelling to the main towns? Can we bring them out to rural communities where there are people on the live register? They should come out and meet and assess them where they can. This would mean that there would be a continuation. In respect of not being able to get through on the phone, some people have problems with reading and writing. They need someone to spend time with them because this is the sector we are trying to support. They do not have that capability and it is sometimes easier to stay at home than go and sit in an office.

The rules for women who stayed at home to rear their children were changed in 2012 and it appeared that it would halve their entitlements or allowances. We should look at this. We spoke very clearly about Gateway and activation for people with disabilities. We should look at the mobility allowance and when we do so, we should look at the family situation. I have a huge problem with the primary medical certificate. The person driving a disabled individual could be his or her mother, father or wife but we must look at the broader family.

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