Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to speak to the motion and thank my colleagues in Fianna Fáil for bringing it forward. Community work schemes are at the bottom of the Government's list of priorities. This is the Government that set up the anti-rural Turas Nua scheme run by a company that has acted like a vulture in local communities. Communities that have willing workers who want to enter Tús, community employment and rural social schemes have had them grabbed from them. After months of pleading, some small moves have been made in the past week, whereby Turas Nua can refer persons to Tús and community employment schemes, but many great workers who want to take part in the rural social scheme are still kept in the system where they are going nowhere.

The motion is very much based on supervisors and assistant supervisors who, as we all know, are tireless workers day and night. I call on the Government to abide by the Labour Court ruling and allow the great people who are present their basic human right - a right to a pension. I am a member of Goleen and District Community Council which has benefited from the community employment scheme throughout west Cork. I thank the supervisors for the great work they have done.

I also concur with Deputy Michael Healy-Rae that it is a disgrace that the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection is not here. For the past six weeks the Rural Independent Group has been looking for a meeting on the issue and others that affect people working on community employment schemes, but up to now the Minister has refused to meet up us, which is a disgrace. It is also a disgrace that she is not here to speak to the people who have come from all over the country.

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