Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)

I attended the official opening of Western Care's new facility in Ballina on Monday. It is brilliant to see a building in the town that was vacant for so long brought back into use for a wide range of care service users and staff. It is so welcome and I congratulate everyone involved in it. The rural social scheme supported the renovation of the building. The support of the redevelopment of the asset for use by Western Care is a great example of the use of this scheme. The scheme needs further support for its work. The key issue is that the ageing participant demographic means that the eligibility age limit needs to be increased to allow more people onto the scheme. The current retirement age is 65. It is becoming more and more difficult to get people onto these schemes. Having more eligibility and flexibility for the scheme can help more people to get onto it and is a positive net gain for social inclusion and development in communities.

The ask is that the rural social scheme extend the participation age beyond 66, all the way up to, potentially, 70, to give people more opportunity to be involved in the scheme. It would help to buy time for the rural social scheme to review recommendations and address the recruitment challenges that are faced in rural communities. I would like to highlight that and perhaps the Leader will have a discussion on it with the Minister.