Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim mo chomhghairdeachas leis an bhfoireann peile faoin mbua anocht agus gabhaim mo chomhghairdeachas leis an Aire.

I congratulate the Minister on his new appointment. I wish him well and I look forward to working constructively with him on many issues. I hope he will bring some of his imaginative style to this portfolio. My colleague Deputy Danny Healy-Rae has covered nearly everything from the cradle to the grave but I have a couple of words left to say. I compliment my colleague for his frankness.

Reference was made to the situation of carers. They are the unsung heroes, as described by Deputy Penrose, and work from morning to night 24-7. I am delighted that the respite grant was reinstated. However, if one considers the amount of hours worked by a carer in keeping hospitals going, in keeping accident and emergency units cleared and in keeping hospital beds and respite beds free and empty for other people who have nobody to care for them, carers would not be earning €3, €4 or €5 per hour. The minimum wage would be out the window never mind the living wage. Carers are a dedicated bunch of people that I cannot help but salute. I do not have my carer's badge on tonight. I always wear it but I mislaid it somewhere recently. We need to salute the carers, support them and energise them because they have a very difficult job.

I also want to acknowledge the self-employed. I stand here as a self-employed person myself and speak for the self-employed on the issue of PRSI, which I know is in the programme for Government, the negotiations of which both Deputy Healy-Rae and myself are involved in. It is envisaged that there will be a benefit for the self-employed who do not mind paying PRSI as long as they get something for it. Many self-employed people have contributed so much: sole traders and their spouses who work long hard hours doing a lot of hard work. Many projects in rural and urban Ireland bear the footprints and fingerprints of self-employed people. Many self-employed people employ others with gainful employment. When the downturn comes, or God forbid if ill-health comes or an accident, a self-employed person can be left with nothing and penniless. Many of them are literally hungry because they do not have the money to support themselves or their families. That situation must be looked at. They do not mind paying PRSI at whatever class level is required if they get some return. The current situation is totally unfair.

Social welfare fraud must also be tackled. I had a PQ reply recently from the Minister for Social Protection and I was astonished at the amount of fraud that has been detected. These people are taking money from those who really need it and who cannot get it in many cases. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae made reference to people who are waiting 16 weeks for carer's allowance and domiciliary allowance. Social welfare fraud must be stamped out at all costs and cannot be allowed to continue. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong. I could never condone that kind of activity.

With regard to community employment schemes, there should be an evaluation of the CE scheme system. This should involve an audit as to the value of those schemes to our urban and rural communities. The schemes are much needed now in cities and towns in drug projects and diversion projects, etc. The CE scheme is the backbone of many communities. I am the chairman of a scheme which has been in existence since 1998 in villages local to me in Waterford, Kilnagrange, Newcastle, Ballybacon and Ballymacarbry, all of which do great work. I salute the sponsors - I am one - of all the schemes up and down the country because it is a very onerous task which includes audits, and rightly so. Not a penny can be misused and we expect that. However, with labour employment laws, health and safety legislation, anti-bullying policies, etc, it becomes very onerous and sponsors have to deal with all of this on a daily basis.

I have a concern about the appointment of CE supervisors and the high level of training that is expected of them. I know the Minister is dealing with it but it might not always be the person with the FETAC Level 6 major award that can do a job that involves dealing with several different committees in communities across GAA, child care, churches, schools and all kinds of community games, covering all sorts of issues. Sometimes you cannot legislate for that. One needs a person with hands-on experience who could do the job and who is amply qualified. I salute many of the CE scheme supervisors who may not have qualifications like that because they came in to the positions during previous times. They are working with sponsors and do a great job in keeping the whole thing in motion which is very important. It is not as though one can walk in with a briefcase, collar and tie and do the job. One needs to understand the needs of the communities which can be very different and varying all around the country. I understand the Minister is looking at that situation. We need flexibility there and those who need to gain qualifications should be given time to gain the accreditation. There should be a level playing field for those who wish to enter the scheme.

I will turn to the Tús scheme which is too short year on and year off. Again, I salute the supervisors and the people who co-ordinate it. In my area, it was the South Tipperary Development Company, which is now in abeyance due to the legacy left by big Phil Hogan, the former Minister and now European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development. Tús also needs to be reviewed. With regard to the rural social scheme, I know it is also envisaged in the programme for Government and that it came up in talks. It is a huge issue. The agriculture sector has never been in a worse place with such a low income. Given the prices for milk and other commodities, the farmers are under pressure. These are people who are willing and able to work if their spouses could swap at busy times of year - it is all one family's income and it is just a matter of being more flexible, more understanding and allowing those people to work.

Rural land has been transformed by CE schemes and Tús. County councils have abandoned those communities and do not have the outdoor staff. Consider all the maintenance work the councils were doing in communities. The Tidy Towns committees, the sponsors, CE and Tús workers are now doing all of that highly valuable work. An audit should be kept as to the value of that work. It would cost billions of euro to do that work.

The schemes also offer valuable training. Schemes like the one I was involved in were very progressive and many people moved back into employment or self-employment and that is the way it should be. There was a rule on CE schemes where a scheme could retain 10% of participants who are over 55 years but now it is very hard to keep anyone. If one was to keep the over 55s off schemes many of them would not get jobs in rural or urban Ireland and they need to be kept on until at least pension age. They are doing valuable work and are only getting €20 extra on top of their benefit or jobseeker's allowance for doing the work. It is a similar situation for those between the ages of 25 and 35. The packages are too inflexible and schemes are finding it hard to get eligible applicants who want to come out and work. It is getting harder to get them or they are not there. It will also become difficult to find supervisors if the Minister insists on carrying on with the same high level of regulations and qualifications which, in my opinion, are not always necessary to do those jobs. A scheme needs to keep the books right, adhere to employment legislation and health and safety rules and the supervisor needs to be able to take instructions and develop a good working relationship with sponsors and indeed a good relationship with social welfare officers and FÁS, whom I salute and who also do a lot of hard work. I deal with officers from the Waterford office and the Tipperary office who perform dedicated work which is time-consuming because there are so few of them and they have so many audits to do. In my area I deal with Michael Ormonde and Stephen Burke who perform much dedicated work on behalf of the Department of Social Protection and on behalf of taxpayers. There is good value of money delivered by schemes like that, from carers and from the self-employed who all supported this country through the worst recession we have ever seen. If we want to have self-employed people involved in kick-starting our economy in rural and urban areas then they need our support. We need them to know that there will be some benefit for them if they fall ill or if they had a period of bad trading, if they do not get paid from big companies or inadvertently go into liquidation. They need something to thank them for their service, a cushion which they have paid into. I wish the Minister well in his ministry.

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