Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is a very good article in today's edition of The Kerrymannewspaper by a top journalist, Dónal Nolan, highlighting the plight of local communities trying to get by with the help of community employment, CE, schemes. This has been raised many times and we all know the CE schemes are a vital part of the social fabric of rural Ireland in particular. They keep local development and local endeavour going, whether it is cleaning graveyards, maintaining local football pitches or, as in the case of Ballylongford in north Kerry, the local laundry service. The problem is that the model and set-up of CE schemes have not kept up with the times. Most voluntary committees now are facing skyrocketing charges for their insurance, energy costs and so on, yet the funding for CE schemes has remained static at €13.80 per participant, I think. That problem is compounded by the fact that participants are becoming increasingly difficult to source. Communities find they cannot get suitable applicants. Perhaps the entry requirements should be changed as well. There are many suitable people, like Ukrainians, who would be very interested in working on CE schemes but many of them are debarred under the set-up of the schemes. I hope the Leader will bring that to the attention of the Minister and maybe we will get a discussion on it here in due course.

I commend the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, on the statement he made yesterday in which he insisted that any group that puts forward nominees for State boards in the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine will not be considered unless 40% of the nominees are female. That is a very important statement by him and one we all agree with. There is one flaw that I see, however. Applications for all State boards will not be accepted now from anybody over the age of 70. I know many people in the community who have great wisdom and experience and would be prepared to contribute on various State and semi-State bodies. Uachtarán na hÉireann can be over 70, as can a Member of the Seanad or the Dáil. I know one or two who are over 70.