Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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398. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the cost of increasing the lifetime participation on community employment for persons under 55 years of age from 156 weeks to 182 weeks; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21073/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Community Employment (CE) is an active labour market programme designed to provide eligible long-term unemployed people and other disadvantaged with an opportunity to engage in part-time work and training within their communities on a temporary, fixed-term basis.

The pattern of participation on CE is dependent on the individual circumstance of each person and the length of time s-he has been in receipt of a CE-qualifying social welfare payment. The current participation patterns have been in place since CE commenced in 1994. In general, a person must be 12 months or more in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment to be eligible for one year on CE. If a person is three years or more in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment, and over 35 years of age, they are eligible for three consecutive year’s participation on CE.

The CE budget allocation for 2016 is €376.5m and it allows for 23,752 participants and 1,375 supervisory staff. The effect of extending participation time limits on CE would be to decrease the number of places available, rather than increase the cost. The current eligibility rules and maximum durations allowed for participants are strictly enforced to allow the maximum number of people to benefit from the opportunity of a CE placement.

The Department keeps the eligibility criteria for CE places under on-going review to ensure that they are effective in targeting long-term unemployed jobseekers and other specific disadvantaged groups.