Dáil debates

Tuesday, 24 April 2018

Community Employment Pension Scheme: Motion [Private Members]

 

10:30 pm

Photo of Willie O'DeaWillie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody who contributed to the debate. I thank all the parties and individual Deputies who expressed their support for this motion. We very much appreciate that. There was one aspect of community employment that has not been mentioned tonight, namely, the sponsors. I recognise the important role the sponsors play in the delivery of the community employment schemes. I also want to reassure those who have raised issues about JobPath that we produced a Bill recently to enable people who were taken into JobPath to participate in CE schemes if such a vacancy would occur. The Government has accepted the substance of that Bill, which I welcome.

Having said that, I must say I am absolutely aghast at the Government's response. This is in no way to be taken as a personal reflection on the Ministers of State, Deputies D'Arcy and Doyle, both of whom I hold in high regard. My understanding of the Government's argument is that one of the reasons CE supervisors have not been provided with pensions is that what the Minister describes as the private companies that employ these people did not make provision for pensions for them. What are these so-called private companies? The local GAA club, the Tidy Towns committee, Meals on Wheels - when they were allocated a CE scheme, they were supposed to immediately set aside funding - but not any of the public funding because they were not enabled to do that. They were supposed to hold more raffles, take up more collections, etc., and beg more people for money to provide a lump sum for a pension scheme for a CE supervisor.

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