Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the work done by the more than 840 community employment schemes nationwide. CE provides vital services to local communities in areas such as the delivery of meals to older people, assisting in childcare provision and environmental work and in keeping towns and villages across the country maintained and looking well.

There are more than 20,000 places available on CE, with a budget of more than €375 million in 2022 and 1,230 people are employed by schemes as supervisors and assistant supervisors. The Department of Social Protection funds CE through the provision of grant funding to sponsor organisations that run schemes. The Department is not the employer of supervisors; they are employees of individual sponsor organisations.

I am, of course, aware of ongoing employment-related issues for CE workers. The first relates to an ex gratiapayment to CE supervisors on their retirement. I am pleased to say this issue has been resolved, with a settlement reached with unions. The first group of ex gratiaapplications are with the Department. These relate to persons who retired since 2008. In total, 630 completed applications have been received. The processing of payments is under way in respect of these claims, with payments starting to issue from this week. I expect all of the first batch to be issued before Christmas.

In relation to pay rates for CE workers, the Department, as the funder of CE schemes, received correspondence earlier this year from Fórsa and SIPTU seeking a pay increase. Fórsa and SIPTU referred this pay claim to the conciliation service of the Workplace Relations Commission. The WRC has issued an invitation to the Department to take part in a conciliation process.

Any increase in pay rates that could potentially increase the overall cost to the State of funding schemes must take into consideration the potential cost to the Exchequer. The Department has been in ongoing contact with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on this issue, given the potential cost and the knock-on effect it would have on the increased grant funding required to run schemes. Both the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and I fully agree that there must be a process in place to deal with this pay claim. I am aware that the WRC process was used in the past to look at pay claims in the State-funded community and voluntary sector. However, the Department can only participate in this process on the strict understanding that this is in its role as funder of the schemes. We are of the view that the WRC conciliation process could be very useful in identifying a solution to this specific issue.

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