Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Many people believe that community employment schemes are very much linked to the economic state of the country. Generally, when the economy is flourishing, the need for community employment schemes is less evident, while the opposite is true in times of recession when these schemes become hugely important for many members of local communities. While unemployment impacts on people of all ages, in recent years when technology has become so relevant and important to so many industries, people of a certain vintage are more often than not finding it difficult to match their skills or lack thereof, to the needs of potential employers.

While the younger generation have the potential to seek out the appropriate training to upskill themselves to meet the needs of those potential employers, more mature people often find themselves unable to bridge the technology gap. As the country experiences an economic revival and renewed growth, many of this mature group redirect their skills to their locality and the opportunities provided by the local community employment scheme. This is evident in the mid-Louth community employment scheme, which caters for a large rural area and, with the benefits of the recently introduced new categories, has become an excellent opportunity for those unemployed mature people to use their skills for the benefit of the local area. It is vital that this employment opportunity continues and hopefully expands.

In addition to the satisfaction experienced by the community employment scheme workers, the benefits to the rural areas where the schemes exist is evident to all, including local residents and the ever-increasing number of tourists who visit. The national Tidy Towns competition has been and continues to be a wonderful example of the improvement that is evident throughout the country. The backbone and major contributor to this movement is the local community employment scheme working hand in hand with the Tidy Towns volunteers. In the mid-Louth community employment scheme, the village of Tallanstown is a prime example of the opportunities presented by the co-operation between CE workers and local volunteers when after almost 30 years of endeavour, Tallanstown was honoured by winning the national Tidy Towns title in 2010.

We hear about the problems associated with data protection almost daily and the need for all organisations to put in place a suitable policy to protect this data. Community employment schemes are not exempt from this. The larger schemes hold various information and personal data on their employees. Scheme secretaries play a vital role in the protection and maintenance of this data and at present these important employees could potentially be replaced annually. It is very important that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection evaluate this situation and look at the implications of providing a considerably longer term of employment or perhaps permanency to some of these secretaries, particularly those working in larger schemes. This change could be reviewed in conjunction with the possibility of giving recognition to the Trojan work undertaken on a voluntary basis by many sponsors in keeping theses schemes in operation. Perhaps a process could be put in place where these hardworking sponsors could be rewarded, particularly on the larger schemes, by allowing them have “a chosen employee” - one might call it something else - who might be, say, a person who is of vital importance to the scheme, such as a scheme secretary or a scheme employee who regularly goes above and beyond the call of duty and who is an example for others to follow. While many see this as problematic, it is a suggestion that I hope might be given further consideration and that all concerned can create an opportunity for discussion to further develop this possibility.

We all agree that CE supervisors and assistant supervisors are not public service grades but are employees of community employment schemes funded through Exchequer grant aid. As the Minister of State noted, a detailed scoping exercise was carried out with input from the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service on the potential cost of providing Exchequer support to establish a pension scheme for employees across the community sector. This exercise found that there was a potential cost to the State of €188 million annually.

The community employment scheme is a wonderful scheme. I am a firm believer that people who work hard deserve what they get. I believe that CE supervisors and assistant supervisors deserve to have a pension put in place. I will fight hard with the Minister to work on that.

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