Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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Question 180: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if persons with a disability, including deaf persons, will be allowed participate on the Tús programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12557/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Tús is a community work placement initiative which will provide up to 5,000 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 jobseekers allowance, and · Be fully unemployed.

The purpose of Tús 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. There is no exclusion for a person with a disability if they satisfy the above criteria. People in receipt of a disability allowance 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. Additionally, people with disabilities wishing to access the labour market are provided with a range of supports by FÁS, including community employment.

Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)
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Question 181: To ask the Minister for Social Protection her plans to re-introduce a redundancy programme for persons employed under the FÁS jobs initiative programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12733/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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There are no plans under consideration to introduce a redundancy programme for participants on the FÁS Job Initiative programme. However, from time to time, due to operational reasons, individuals and Job Initiative team leaders have been offered redundancy on a voluntary basis. This is only done on an exceptional basis and occurs when the number of participants or team leaders is reduced, leaving the particular scheme to be no longer viable, and where participants could not be facilitated on any other programmes in their area.