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

CE schemes across the country play a vital role in providing essential services to local communities. Since December 2021, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and I have been pleased to announce a number of reforms and enhancements to the scheme including, most recently, the extension of the criteria of those who can participate on CE schemes to the adult dependents of those in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance and, in support of Ukrainian nationals living here, a reduction in the live register qualifying period from 12 to nine months. This reduction is designed to take into account the fact that many Ukrainian refugees spent a number of months on supplementary welfare allowance prior to transferring to their jobseeker's payments. As a consequence, if we had not reduced the qualifying period, many people who arrived last March would not be eligible for a CE placement until June 2023. This change enables the Department and CE sponsor organisations to work with and provide further support and assistance to Ukrainians to improve their language skills and integrate with their communities while also supporting those schemes in continuing to deliver vital local services.

CE is an active labour market programme designed to provide long-term unemployed people and other disadvantaged people with an opportunity to engage in useful work within their communities. It is important that the scheme continues to be available for those who would benefit most from their participation. This continues to be those who have been out of work for a year. There are no plans to change the 12-month eligibility rule at present. The eligibility criteria for CE continue to be kept under active review by my Department to ensure the best outcomes for individual participants, to support vital community services and to take account of changes to the labour market.

See this speech in context