Persons in receipt of unemployment benefit currently represent 25.3% of total current participation on community employment, followed by lone parents at 22.8%, persons in receipt of unemployment assistance at 22.6% and persons with disabilities at 15.5%. Some 62% of community employment activity in 2002 supports community services such as health care assistants, community centre staff and ICTU employment centres. Other areas supported include services such as those relating to the environment, sport and coaching. Community employment was originally conceived as an active labour market programme intended to assist the progression of long-term unemployed persons back to work by providing market related work experience. However, over the years, and particularly during periods of high unemployment, community employment has been used to address a much wider range of problems utilising the high availability of labour. As community employment participation expanded, a whole range of community services developed a dependency on a large and steady supply of community employment participants.