Written answers

Tuesday, 10 May 2011

Department of Social Protection

Departmental Schemes

9:00 pm

Photo of Martin FerrisMartin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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Question 197: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if persons with disabilities in receipt of disability allowance and persons in receipt of lone parents allowance will be eligible to seek employment in the Tús scheme. [10565/11]

Photo of Joan BurtonJoan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The then Minister for Finance announced the introduction of a community work placement initiative for up to 5,000 persons in his Budget statement to Dáil Éireann on 7 December 2010. Work on developing the necessary implementation structures has been underway since then. The aim of Tús is to provide short-term, quality work opportunities for those who are unemployed for more than a year. Some €30 million has been provided in the Department's Estimates in 2011 to fund the roll-out of the initiative.

Participants will, in the first instance, be identified by the Department of Social Protection by applying the following conditions:

· A person must be unemployed and in receipt of a jobseeker's payment for at least 12 months, and

· Currently be in receipt of jobseeker's allowance, and

· Be fully unemployed.

The purpose of the new scheme is to focus on those people who are long-term unemployed. For this reason, eligibility is at present confined to those on the Live Register for 12 months and in receipt of jobseeker's allowance. These provisions are to ensure a targeted approach to those currently affected by long-term unemployment.

People in receipt of a disability allowance or one parent family payment have access to a range of other supports such as family income supplement, back to work enterprise allowance, back to education allowance and earnings disregards. There are also supports available from FÁS for people with disabilities wishing to access the labour market.

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