Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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555. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if legislation was amended to enable persons working one day per week to avail of local community employment schemes, such as in the case of a person (details supplied). [3888/19]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, 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 persons with an opportunity to engage in useful work within their communities on a temporary, fixed-term basis. CE helps unemployed people to re-enter the active workforce by breaking their experience of unemployment through a return to a work routine and to assist them to enhance or develop both their technical and personal skills.

People in receipt of jobseekers payments for 12 months or more may be eligible for CE. However, if a person works more than 30 days during the 12-month qualifying period, they become ineligible. This is because persons who have gained work in excess of 30 days are not considered to be as far removed from the workforce as persons who have worked less than 30 days and are therefore better suited to other interventions instead of CE.

If a person has exceeded the 30 days, they may become eligible again in the future if they are still signing on when the number of days worked within the 12-month qualifying period has dropped below 30 days.