Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

----community employment schemes, many of which involve a social investment and create social employment, are extremely important in the context of the delivery of local services and in respect of providing individuals with the opportunity to contribute. To use President Obama's phrase, these schemes also allow people to keep themselves "job ready" in order that, as the economy recovers and as employment becomes more available, they will be in a position to participate in the employment market.

As Minister, I would like to continue the commitment to community employment. There is an absolute commitment to the continuation of the number of places for both participants and supervisors. This is an important aspect. There are also a number of ring-fenced places in the area of community employment for individuals, and their families, who have experienced difficulties with drugs. These places mainly relate to urban areas. There are also such places in respect of people with disabilities and there are further places set aside for child care and child care training. All of these are vital.

The most important aspect of this matter is the fact that, alongside fiscal consolidation in respect of social welfare, there must be a strategic approach to social investment and social employment. If we can create a strong social employment and social investment impetus from the €20 billion to which I referred on a couple of occasions earlier, we will at least be able to put in place - if not the kind of high-paying jobs people would like - a framework for socially-useful and important employment.

The Tús scheme was developed by my predecessor but there was no one on it when I became Minister. In other words, it had not been initiated in any way. The experience in this regard has been interesting because there are now something over 2,000 people on Tús. There are those who compliment this scheme highly, while there are others who are rather critical of it. We are learning as we go. Essentially, Tús is for people who have been on the live register for more than 12 months. These individuals can become supervisors or participants.

The Government's internship scheme came into operation last July. What is interesting with regard to this scheme is that between 8,000 and 9,000 employers have offered to host interns. These employers comprise private sector companies of all sizes - small, medium and large - and community and voluntary organisations. For example, sporting organisations have, on a county basis, been putting forward proposals and have begun to take on interns in respect of sports development. Similarly, many proposals are coming forward from organisations in the social amenity area in respect of internships. Again, it is interesting that this has created another avenue of opportunity in the context of obtaining specific experience. People are either seeking to change fields - for example, they were previously employed in construction but they are seeking to move into another area - or they have completed qualifications but, due to the prevailing economic circumstances, they have not been able to obtain work experience and the internship scheme fills a gap in this regard.

Reference was made to local authorities. It could be possible to encourage even more expansion in this area. Obviously, I would be obliged to obtain the agreement of my colleagues in the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform. However, a great deal of possibility exists in the context of changing the social welfare spend from being passive to being much more active and locally-oriented in nature. With the Pathways to Work initiative, I hope employers - be they in the public, private, voluntary or community sectors - will make known to their local social welfare employment offices either the vacancies that exist within their organisations or the needs they require to be met. Ultimately, this would allow us to build a system which incorporates a flexible response rate. Under the initiative, if private sector employers have jobs to offer, they will advertise them and if there is a particular need in an area, then local voluntary or community organisations, sporting bodies or local authorities could indicate what they require. This would eventually lead to a matching of requirements at local level. In other words, those who are available and unfortunately on the live register could be matched up to the vacancies or opportunities that exist. This is a matter I am interested in progressing. I will communicate further with the Senator when the review is completed.