Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairman and the Office of the Ceann Comhairle for giving us permission to raise this matter. It is a cross-party group and one which might not come together on many other subjects. It is appropriate that the Minister for Education and Skills is taking the matter because he will have good knowledge of it also. It is about valuing the work of community employment schemes, as we all do in the House.

Community employment schemes do superb work the length and breath of this country but they are absolutely dependent on the quality of their supervisors for the skills imparted to participants and the benefit for the community through the sponsor. For many years, supervisors have been left in abeyance in relation to their pension entitlements. In 2008, the Labour Court decided that supervisors should have received pension entitlements and FÁS put aside €10 million to put a pension scheme in place. Since then, however, nothing has happened and supervisors, many of whom have retired, are getting incredibly frustrated and feel completely abandoned by the system. They are being abused in terms of their relationship with the local community which is being exploited by forces unknown which know they will not walk out on their local communities. Their commitment to their schemes, which goes way beyond normal employment hours, is phenomenal but it is not being recognised.

I understand that there is a meeting next week of the high-level forum. I also understand that former Deputy, Jack Wall, designed a pathway to a resolution for this, although Deputy Penrose might know more about that. Why have we not proceeded with that pathway and why have we not shown these individuals the respect that we all have for them? Why does the State not show them the respect of rewarding their lifetime effort with a decent pension and a recognition of the benefit they have given to many generations, in some cases, of participants and to their local communities? This is why the cross-party group has come together. There are many other Deputies who would like to be associated with this. The Minister and Deputies Gallagher, McConalogue and Scanlon approached me today. We could have got 159 Deputies to come in behind this. We need it resolved and we want an update from the Minister this evening about next week's meeting.

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