Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I send our thoughts and prayers to the families of Mícheal Roarty, John Harley, Shaun Harkin and Daniel Scott today for the unimaginable grief they are going through, as are their friends, wider families and all of the people of Donegal.

I want to raise the issue of pension entitlements for community employment supervisors. This issue has been raised previously and a motion calling on the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to take a personal interest in the issue was passed by the Dáil last April. It is more than ten years since the Labour Court ruled in favour of community employment supervisors regarding their pension entitlements. That recommendation was very clear. It ordered that an agreed pension scheme should be put in place for community employment supervisors and assistant supervisors. It is ironic that yesterday the Minister for Health was calling on nurses to go back to the Labour Court but the Government ignores recommendations that it does not like. The fact that the Government thus far has ignored the recommendation of the Labour Court and a motion of the Oireachtas tells us a lot about its attitude to the community employment scheme.

The Department has lost sight of the community employment scheme's original purpose and wants to hive it off to JobPath and Tús and not have it on the books any longer. This pensions issue is directly related to that agenda. I know of many schemes where the workers have given long years of service and have reached the end of the road on this issue. Many of these workers are loyal to their communities and have spurned other employment opportunities themselves to continue to contribute positively to their communities. They are an absolutely essential and integral part of communities the length and breadth of the State, not only because of the work they do but because of the leverage they provide to activate other initiatives and the social and economic benefits to communities.

Will the Leader ask the Minister to come to the House to tell us how he can continue to ignore the Labour Court ruling and the successful Dáil motion to provide community employment supervisors and assistant supervisors with their pension entitlements? This cannot go on any longer. I commend the work of SIPTU and Fórsa on this issue but we have run out of road. This is an economic injustice for community employment supervisors and assistant supervisors who can no longer continue. I ask the Leader to ask the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to come into the House next week to deal with this issue once and for all.