Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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2111. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her plans to make changes to community employment schemes to disregard the time a person has been on the scheme prior to 2010 when calculating the total time a person has spent on the scheme. [28967/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Following the publication of my Department’s Report - An Analysis of the Community Employment Programme – earlier in the year,the Government approved a number of changes to the terms and conditions around participation on Community Employment (CE). The main purpose of these changes is to broaden the availability of CE to a greater number of people on the live register and to standardise other conditions around the length of time a person can participate on the programme.

The changes include making it easier for previous participants who have exhausted their CE entitlement to requalify, as participation on CE prior to the year 2007 will now be disregarded (currently the year 2000 applies).

My Department has been consulting with key stakeholders throughout the country during the last month regarding the changes, the implementation of which will commence very shortly.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.