Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this issue. Most Members will be aware of the new Tús scheme that has been announced. It has been welcomed in many communities and we look forward to it being established and introduced. I have previously raised with the Minister and am glad to raise in the House that the eligibility criteria for applicants, especially for the position of supervisor, are excessively restrictive.

I will give some examples. One gentleman, who was unemployed from January 2010 until February 2011, commenced a FÁS course and as a result has now been told he is not eligible. In effect he appears to have been punished for taking on the FÁS course by being excluded from the recruitment process for supervisors for the Tús programme.

I received another query from a woman who was also very interested in the position of supervisor. She is currently signing on but not in receipt of job seeker's allowance. She was means tested resulting in her no longer being eligible for job seeker's allowance. That said, she was still allowed to sign on, keep her records alive and get credits. Officially she is unemployed but technically is not receiving a payment. However, she is ineligible to apply as a supervisor.

Another gentleman who telephoned me was in receipt of job seeker's allowance for approximately 14 months and three weeks ago he was offered a full- time job, which he took. He is not happy there and not certain he wants to stay. He would be very interested in the supervisory position.

I understand the well-intentioned efforts of the Minister and her Department but the reality on the ground is that too many people have been adversely and unfairly affected by the excessively restrictive guidelines attached to this scheme. I respectfully request the Minister to take on board the evidence to date which suggests that a substantial number of eminently qualified and suitable applicants have been excluded from the competition for posts at both supervisory and participatory levels. I am particularly concerned about the effect the excessively prescriptive eligibility criteria will ultimately have on the success of the scheme owing to the negative effect it will have on the quality of the supervisors, who will be very important to the success of the scheme.

I understand that the number of applications for the very important supervisory positions have been below what was anticipated. This substantiates my argument that the Minister should re-examine the eligibility criteria for the positions.

It is extremely difficult for me to explain to a former site manager who worked in the construction sector and has unfortunately now been unemployed for more than 16 months that he is not eligible to apply for the position of supervisor because he undertook a FÁS course to upskill and improve his prospects of gaining employment. It seems ridiculous that the State would punish anyone for taking the opportunity to improve his or her prospects through FÁS training courses and that this would subsequently be used as grounds to exclude him or her from advertised positions such as those in the Tús programme.

I earnestly ask the Minister to address this anomaly to allow a fuller pool of candidates to apply for the positions advertised under the Tús programme, in particular the supervisory positions.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I thank the Deputy for affording me the opportunity to discuss this matter.

Tús is a community work-placement initiative which will provide up to 5,000 short-term, quality work opportunities for those who have been unemployed for more than a year. The placements will be with community-sector organisations to support the delivery of their services. The Government has allocated €30 million for this initiative in 2011 with full-year costs growing to €100 million in 2012.

The first supervisors have been employed this week. Over the course of the next fortnight, the 100 or so supervisory or team leader posts will be filled and the first 60 or so participants will commence work with local development companies across the country. The criteria applying to recruitment to the supervisor or team leader position and to the selection of participants for work placements are the same. In order to qualify, a person must satisfy the following conditions. He or she must be unemployed and in receipt of a jobseeker's payment for at least 12 months, currently in receipt of jobseeker's allowance - this is the difficulty to which the Deputy refers - and fully unemployed.

As I have said before, this country faces many challenges at present with unemployment presenting a significant and urgent issue. The need has never been greater for innovative thinking and focus on how we can provide opportunities for those who have lost employment. Tús presents one of a range of opportunities to meet the Government's aim of keeping people work ready and, at the same time, providing and supporting valuable support services in the community and voluntary sectors.

The availability of job opportunities, even short-term work placements with some financial incentives, is important. In addition to any financial benefit, we all know the benefits to the individual and his or her family of being involved in work.

The following are some of the key features of Tús. Some 5,000 work placements are being identified in the not-for-profit, community and voluntary sectors. Local development companies have been working to identify quality work placements within suitable organisations across a broad range of services of benefit to communities. Participants will be paid their social welfare entitlements plus an additional €20 per week. Those under 25 years of age will be paid the maximum jobseeker's allowance plus €20 per week. This will make Tús attractive to this age group. Participants will work for 19.5 hours per week with some degree of flexibility in terms of the schedule of hours.

Recruitment to the supervisory or team leader positions with local development companies has been ongoing for some weeks.

These personnel will be in place shortly. The Department has in place arrangements to randomly select participants from the live register who meet the criteria. This selection will be undertaken at local level in co-operation with each of the local development companies.

It is important that we maintain the focus on the long-term unemployed. For this reason, eligibility is at present confined to those on the live register for 12 months and in receipt of the jobseeker's allowance. These provisions are to ensure a targeted approach to those currently affected by long-term unemployment. As with all new initiatives, the operation of the scheme, including the eligibility criteria being applied, will be kept under review and will inform the evaluation process in due course.

I listened to what the Deputy had to say with interest. If we need to extend the scope for the recruitment of supervisors, I will review the matter. The current criteria for the scheme are being addressed by my Department and individuals are interested. When I entered Government, I was very surprised to learn that, although there were 5,000 places in the Tús scheme, which was announced around the time of the budget, and a comparable number of supervisors, not one person had actually been engaged either as a supervisor or as a participant. I have been to Tullamore to meet the local development managers. I have met them here also and am really anxious that we get this scheme up and running. Based on what the Deputy said, I will keep the scheme under review to determine how it is progressing. I appreciate his insights and those of other Deputies.