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

The Deputy will be aware that, particularly over the last 18 months, that we have been highly responsive and adaptive to the needs of organisations who depend on CE and to the reality of the labour market itself. We have adapted and changed the eligibility for CE a number of times. We would like to see a little bit more evidence in terms of the definability and scale of the group as well but it is important to say that when Intreo officers across country sit down with someone, they develop a personal progression plan that is tailored to that individual. There are good supports available there in trying to find mainstream work for those people. There is a training grant of €1,000, and qualifications such as Safe Pass that might be of interest to the group we are talking about can be covered. We will keep the Deputy's point under consideration and, as I have said, we have adapted and changed it over time.

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