Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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685. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans to allow persons with mental health problems who wish to stay indefinitely on community employment schemes with the support of their health care providers do so; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42874/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Community Employment (CE) is an active labour market programme whose aim is to enhance the employability and mobility of disadvantaged and unemployed persons by providing work experience and training opportunities for them within their communities. It helps participants to re-enter the active workforce by breaking their experience of unemployment through a return to work routine. All CE participants are subject to a participation limit. This limit is based on CE participation since 2007 and is 6 years in total. Persons qualifying for CE via a disability-related payment can qualify for 1 further year - in other words 7 years in total since 2007. These limits are necessary to ensure places are available to other eligible social welfare recipients. The Deputy will appreciate that if a person was eligible for one year on CE but was retained for three, this would deny two more eligible persons the opportunity of a year’s placement on CE.

Overall, the aim of CE is to progress unemployed and other disadvantaged persons into full-time sustainable employment and/or further education and training.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.