Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 175: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding an unemployed person who is anxious to take up a community employment scheme (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25854/10]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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Community Employment (CE) is an active labour market programme designed to provide eligible long term unemployed people and other disadvantaged persons with an opportunity to engage in useful work within their communities on a fixed term basis. The purpose of CE is to help unemployed people to re-enter the open labour market by breaking their experience of unemployment through a return to a work routine and to assist them to enhance/develop both their technical and personal skills.

The criteria for participating on the Community Employment programme are based on age and length of time in receipt of various social welfare payments. In general, the Part-time Integration Option is for people of 25 or over who are receiving social welfare payments for 1 year or more, and people of 18 years or over in receipt of disability-related payments. The Part-time Job Option is for people who are 35 or over and in receipt of social welfare payments for 3 years or longer.

Those persons not meeting the criteria under the Part-time Integration or Part-time Job Options, or who are signing for credits, or are receiving social welfare benefits from a different country, are not eligible to participate on Community Employment.

CE is not designed to cater for short-term unemployed persons as they are not as far removed from the open labour market as the main client group for the programme. FÁS provides a range programmes aimed specifically at the short-term unemployed, details of which are available from any FÁS Employment Services office, Local Employment Service offices or from the FÁS website www.fas.ie.