Seanad debates

Tuesday, 11 October 2022

Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters

Community Employment Schemes

2:30 pm

Photo of Mark DalyMark Daly (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy English, for coming into the House.

Photo of Sharon KeoganSharon Keogan (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House. The issue on the table is the exclusion of those aged 18 to 20 from participating in the community employment, CE, scheme. It is generally accepted that the Government should reward the behaviour we want to encourage in our citizens, and being an active citizen in our economy is one such behaviour we should champion. While this has been the case for years, the events of budget 2023 led me to think about what message the Government is trying to achieve through the CE scheme. Budget 2023 saw a €5 increase in the CE top-up payment from €22.50 to €27.50 from January 2023. Meanwhile those in receipt of a weekly jobseeker's payment will receive an increase of €12 per week.

The CE scheme is designed to help people who are long-term unemployed or otherwise disadvantaged to get back to work by offering part-time or temporary placements in jobs based within local communities. Participants can take up other part-time work during the CE placement. The work is community based. The training provided through CE is delivered with a quality assurance framework. When a person's CE placement ends, the person is encouraged to seek a job elsewhere using the skills, experience and training gained while participating in the CE scheme. The duration of a CE scheme placement is for 12 months, with some exceptions. The general qualifying age for CE is 21. There are exceptions to this, of course. The CE drug rehabilitation programmes are available for persons aged 18 or over who are in recovery or referred for a rehabilitation place on a CE scheme. Members of the Traveller and Roma communities can qualify from the age of 18. Ex-offenders aged 18 or over are referred by the following agencies: the Probation Service, the linkage service, the gate service, the resettlement service and the Irish Prison Service. Refugees aged 18 or over who are authenticated by the Department of Justice, have a valid work permit or Garda National Immigration Bureau card with stamp 4 and are in receipt of any Department of Social Protection payment for any length of time, can quality for a CE scheme.

I ask the Minister of State to advise whether the current influx of refugees over the age of 18 will be in a position to take up a CE scheme. After all, this would encourage social integration of refugees within communities. The current social welfare payment for 18-year-olds is €117.70. This payment will increase to €129.70 in January 2023. Approximately 20,000 people under the age of 25 were getting jobseeker's allowance at the end of September 2022. Why are we saying to 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training that they cannot avail of our work support scheme, and all they can do is collect their dole money? It is not empowering to our young people to reward them for doing nothing. It is lazy governance. As a Government, we must do better for our teens and our young people. One will never get a career or an opportunity by lying in bed all day and we should not reward it either. Given that the take-up of CE and Tús programmes is at an all-time low, surely these programmes should be opened up for this age cohort as a matter of urgency.

Photo of Damien EnglishDamien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Keogan for raising this issue. I am responding on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, who could not make it to the debate.

I acknowledge the excellent work that is done on the full range of schemes supported by the Department, including community employment schemes, Tús and the rural social scheme, and the contribution these schemes and their workers make to communities throughout the county. We see in every county, and the Senator and I certainly see it in our county of Meath, high participation across the schemes.

Currently, more than 26,000 participants and 1,635 supervisors are employed on the three main schemes. Overall, these schemes have a budget allocation of €540 million in 2022. Work schemes such as community employment and Tús are positive initiatives that enable the long-term unemployed to make a positive contribution to their communities while upskilling for prospective future employment. The role they play in our communities is well recognised. At present, more than 18,500 places are supported on community employment, with a budget of over €375 million available to support the scheme in 2022.

The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, and I announced reforms to the community employment scheme on 21 December 2021 and again on 29 June last. These changes were introduced to improve the operation of the employment support schemes and maintain vital services within our communities. These changes included provision to allow community employment scheme participants who reach 60 years of age to remain on the scheme until they reach State pension age. Reducing the age from 62 to 60 to allow participants to remain on the community employment scheme until they reach State pension age was considered on the basis that this cohort of participants is least likely to progress to employment in the open labour market. It was also part of a type of consultation based on a number of visits by the Minister, the Minister of State and me to the community enterprise offices and community employment offices, engagement with supervisors and managers over a long period as well as many debates in both Houses of the Oireachtas. We have had considerable discussion on this matter in recent years. We all see the value of these schemes to our communities and to people in their 60s who want to stay in schemes and do not want to have to go back into the work environment.

Currently, 27% of community employment scheme participants are between the ages of 60 and 66 and almost half of community employment scheme participants are aged over 55. Community employment was originally only open to participants over the age of 25 until a change was introduced by the Department of Social Protection back in 2017, which reduced the eligible age for participation to where it is today, at 21 years. However, the community employment scheme is already available to those in receipt of disability-related payments and is also available to members of the Traveller and Roma communities, refugees, ex-offenders and inhabitants of offshore islands from the age of 18.

All places on the drugs rehabilitation CE scheme are available to persons aged 18 years or over who are in recovery and referred for a rehabilitation place on a community employment scheme. While the scheme is not open to all customers between the ages of 18 and 21, a wide range of supports in the Department of Social Protection is available to this cohort of young people. It is certainly not the case that there are no supports or that these young people are left to their own devices. These supports include Tús, the work placement experience programme and the JobsPlus scheme, along with a broad range of education and training programmes. I ask any young person in this age cohort to engage directly with the Department of Social Protection and the Intreo offices because a team of caseworkers is ready to work with and assist them on a journey back to work or into a training course or work placement experience programme.

At every business event I attend on behalf of the Department, I stress the importance of giving young people a chance through these schemes and that supports are available to assist the future employee as well as the employer. Strong subsidies are available to both sides to make it worthwhile for everybody to engage with these supports, no matter what age they are, and to follow the pathways to work programme set out in the document.

To give an example, Tús is an employment support scheme, similar to community employment, and, as I mentioned, it is open to those between the ages of 18 and 21. It is worth looking at the participants in that scheme to give some background on research for the lowering of the age on CE schemes. The level of participation on Tús for 18- to 21-year-olds is just over 3% and for 22- to 25-year-olds, it is just over 6%. To be clear, the Senator is asking us to open up schemes for which there does not seem to be great demand because the age group in question avails of the other support schemes, generally the work placement experience programme. The low take-up figures for Tús indicate that such an employment support scheme is not a preferred option for this age group. Coupled with the range of other educational, training and work placements available to this age group, this indicates that extending community employment schemes to all customers in this age group would not make an appreciable difference to participation rates.The live register figures show that 63% of long-term unemployed jobseekers are between the ages of 25 and 54. Community employment placements are an ideal opportunity to provide these older potential participants with relevant work experience and training to help them to move closer to open labour market employment.

Every business owner I talk to tells me he or she cannot find enough people to work in his or her business. There are many jobs on offer and many supports to help people of every age to avail of them, go on training or upskilling programmes or do whatever it takes. We would love to be able to join the dots for everyone, be that person 18, 19, 20 or 21 years of age, through the various supports that are in place. I ask everybody concerned to engage with their caseworkers through the Intreo offices, in addition to the businesses with the gaps.

Photo of Sharon KeoganSharon Keogan (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. Why are almost 20,000 people under the age of 25 unemployed? Can they not avail of the Tús, JobPath and work placement programmes?

Photo of Damien EnglishDamien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

They can-----

Photo of Sharon KeoganSharon Keogan (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Of course they can but if that is what the Minister is proposing, why are we encouraging them by giving them more money – an extra €12 – through the budget? They are not being encouraged to work. They are being given an extra €12 per week to stay in unemployment, to remain as a jobseeker, when we should be encouraging them to get on the programmes. In fact, the longer they are on jobseeker’s allowance, the more we should decrease their payments.

I would like to live in a society in which everyone who is able participates. I refer to people of all abilities. Those who may have some disabilities also want to participate, so we need a society in which we can encourage people to work. If there is more that can be done to encourage the cohort in question to work, I would really welcome it.

Photo of Damien EnglishDamien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this matter for discussion. I necessarily agree that we should encourage everybody who is able to work to do so if at all possible. That is why every effort is made by the Government, including the Tánaiste and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, to make the case that work always pays and should always pay. That is why much of the work of the Government in the past two and a half years has been on strengthening pay and conditions and the work environment. The protections are in place. There is sick pay legislation coming into effect, there is auto-enrolment, and the minimum wage has gone up by 80%. Therefore, every effort is being made to make sure it is worthwhile going to work. In the majority of cases, it absolutely is. A range of supports is available to the cohort in question to take up work or obtain training and skills. We constantly work to encourage people to take up work. There are extra caseworkers assigned under Pathways to Work to work with the newly unemployed or long-term unemployed so they can find their way back into work, avail of the supports and join up the dots.

The job placement programme is a really useful one to encourage people to get used to a work environment again and get close to a job. We try to encourage everyone to participate in the schemes. When someone is at work, everyone generally benefits, including the community, business and the person’s family.

With regard to the payments of €12, the response in the budget is a cost-of-living initiative to recognise that everyone on a fixed income, regardless of the reason, is under extreme pressure when it comes to paying bills. Likewise, anybody who is going to work is also under pressure. That is why we made changes to the tax system, the working family payment and other payments, again recognising there is a cost-of-living pressure. The argument in this regard is different from the argument as to who can avail of what scheme in normal times. That is what the response is about.

Pathways to Work is a document that tries to focus our efforts on encouraging everybody who could be at work but who is not to return to work. It is to make it easier for them. Everybody has a unique story, and our caseworkers understand that. The range of schemes allows the journey to happen in different ways for different people. I encourage everybody not in work to return to work through education, training, placements or apprenticeships. There is a range of initiatives. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, is very much behind these and driving them, along with other key Departments, including the Department of Education and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.