Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We were at a meeting last night with Galway Rural Development. There were more than 400 people in the Raheen Woods Hotel in Athenry for a meeting to assess the rural social scheme, RSS, and of the Tús scheme. Many points were raised, one of which was that it is becoming more difficult and challenging for people to get onto the schemes. This is something that has to be raised. We have been talking about it with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and with the Department of Social Protection, but we have to look at how these programmes are attractive for people who are unemployed.

We need to look at things like the time it takes for people to become eligible to be on these programmes. It is not enough that there is such a long waiting time before people can go onto these programmes. We heard many examples last night of people who have done these programmes, be they Tús or RSS, who have then gone back to education to do a degree, a certificate or a diploma. These programmes are very good at re-engaging people who may have been out of the workforce for a while, or giving them the confidence to get back in, perhaps take on a new career or do something different.

One of the examples we heard last night was of someone working with the Brothers of Charity, which is a phenomenal charity based in the west, but in particular we have many residential units in Ballinasloe. The person started working there, was doing administrative work but started then to think about developing a social caring role. This person was able to develop a new career out of this.

There are many positive benefits but we need to look at the challenges. There are so many people going back to work and we have a higher percentage and number of people coming back to work than we had pre-Covid-19. We still have people on our live register and we need to look at how to make it attractive for those people to start doing programmes like RSS and Tús. RSS is linked to farm assist and affords farmers an alternative form of income.