Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Community employment, CE, and community involvement schemes are a vital part of our community. The caring sector, Tidy Towns associations, sports clubs, schools and so on are having major difficulty in terms of their sponsors and sub-sponsors due to Covid-19. They cannot fundraise and are ending up with deficits. They have to pay insurance costs, bank charges, IT costs, payroll and all the other charges even though some of them are not currently operational. Will the Taoiseach ask the Minister in charge to give them an increase of at least €6 per week for the materials, even if only for the Covid period, because it is vital that those schemes continue? They are a lifeline for communities in terms of visiting the vulnerable, meals and wheels and everything else. They need political funding at the moment because they cannot fundraise. They always fundraised previously but they cannot in these times. They need to be supported.

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