Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At the moment there are 350 unfilled vacancies in the rural social scheme, 4,850 in the community employment scheme and 1,849 in the Tús scheme. It is not that there are not people who want to go on the schemes. It is that the rules, particularly in regard to Tús and CE, are ridiculously strict. I could never get my head around the logic of why we prefer to pay people on condition they do not work but seek work, rather than pay them on condition that they do work. The reality is that the difference between a Tús worker and somebody getting jobseeker's allowance is about €5,000 a year, which is quite small. The Minister of State might say €5,000 is a lot but if we take the 2,000 Tús vacancies and multiply that by €5,000, it gives us €10 million a year. To the Minister of State and me, that is a lot of money, but when we take it that the budget of the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is €20 billion, then €10 million out of €20 billion is the equivalent of €10 out of €20,000, and we would not think spending that was big expenditure. If we spent just that much, we would say we have not spent any of it yet.

How can the Minister of State deal with this issue practically? He could say that where there are Tús vacancies that cannot be filled by eligible people, those who are on the scheme could stay for a second or third year on the Tús scheme. It is as simple as that to resolve this and fill all the places.

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