Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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728. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason employees of a community employment scheme project (details supplied) in County Donegal were transferred to placements supported by a number of other separate organisations following the withdrawal of the original host organisation from the scheme; the efforts made to source an alternative community employment sponsor willing to manage all these placements to avoid the division of this workforce; the reason an official from his Department who is liaising with these employees has so far not accepted requests from those previously employed on the scheme to meet to discuss this matter further; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25330/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Each community employment (CE) sponsor organisation is a legal entity with which the Department enters into an individual contract and, therefore, any formal negotiation about a scheme is with the sponsor. Officials of the Department have been working closely with the sponsors to which the Deputy’s question refers, to address the issues arising from expected closure of the scheme.

The Department’s focus from the beginning has been to ensure that there is no loss of jobs or services as a result of the decision by the sponsor in question not to renew its contract with the Department. The Department’s preferred option throughout has been for the current sponsor group to remain, however this has not proved possible. The Department’s wish to keep the existing scheme in place and to ensure there was no loss of jobs or services is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the existing contract was extended on two occasions and, in addition, an offer was made to renew the contract for a full year on two occasions. However, this was declined.

The transfer of participants or a CE Supervisor to another CE sponsor is subject to the agreement of the receiving CE sponsor and also Departmental agreement. The current position is that the Department made contact with other CE Sponsors in the area to establish if they would accept some or all of the existing participants on transfer, as well as the CE Supervisor. To date, agreement has been reached to transfer a number of participants to alternative schemes. Negotiations are ongoing in relation to the remaining participants and the CE supervisor.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.