Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of the rural social schemes, RSSs, and the Tús programmes that are running. Last Monday night in Athenry we had over 400 people present at a meeting, comprising of community groups, sporting organisations and RSS and Tús participants and supervisors. At the meeting the main issues of concern were that the RSS participant numbers are declining and will decline rapidly next year as the six-year rule will kick in for new participants in the scheme, leaving us short of a huge amount of people in the communities where the RSSs are the fabric of society in delivering much-needed services that the local authorities do not provide now. It is not a job activation scheme but an income support scheme for farmers and fishermen. It was introduced by a Fianna Fáil Government under Deputy Ó Cuív. It was and it is a great scheme but with the way it is structured at the moment it will die a death in a short number of months.

See this speech in context