Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that when Fianna Fáil established it, it established it as an employment activation measure which is why it sits neatly into the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. What the Department does not do is provide employment; we provide social inclusion measures. The difficulty with trying to do what I wanted to do before Christmas is that we cannot neatly separate all the people on all the schemes. It is not the case that, for example, a host company in Donegal is doing only social inclusion and a host company in Letterkenny is doing entirely work experience and activation and, therefore, we could separate them. That is not the reality. The reality is that on every single scheme, we have people who are doing social inclusion measures and people who are doing employment activation and training measures. How do we have different rules for the same people who are on the same schemes? It is not possible. If we bring it back to the higher power, which is what the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is, it is statutorily responsible for employment activation and the welfare of people who are required to be looked after by the State.

At no point does it state that I am responsible for providing services to communities. Therefore, I cannot separate them out even if it was physically possible for me to do it because it would not be within the remit of my Department. I am trying to reflect the reality that some people who are involved in Tús and CE most likely will never work again in full-time employment because of their age or other difficulties they might have. I am trying to be flexible with the terms-----

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