Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for her update on the joint reviews. For years there were attempts by the Department which was formerly responsible for community employment schemes to dismantle them by bringing into focus an exclusively economic rationale, with cost benefit analyses, a reduction in participant numbers and terminations of those schemes deemed less than optimally effective. In that context, I am considerably heartened at the decision to bring the schemes within the remit of the Minister's Department. I am particularly encouraged by her reference, both at the beginning and end of her contribution, to the social dimension of the schemes.

I was part of a group of what might loosely be described as dissident backbenchers under the Fianna Fáil Administration who fought tooth and nail against the then Minister's attempts to reduce the schemes purely on the basis of an economic rationale.