Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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647. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if consideration will be given to transferring responsibility for community employment schemes from employment affairs to community affairs in view of the community gain being provided by community employment schemes. [27719/19]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department operates a number of employment support schemes one of which is the Community Employment (CE) scheme.

I am fully committed, as are all of my Ministerial colleagues, to the future of these community services and the valuable contribution they make to local communities. We want to see them sustained. I believe that we need to take a wholly inclusive approach for people who participate in CE and to include an appropriate focus on their ongoing contribution to the provision of services in local areas.

As the Deputy will be aware, the Government agreed to establish an Interdepartmental Group (IDG) to explore how social inclusion schemes might best be organised into the future including which Department should hold lead responsibility for sponsoring CE schemes focused on social Inclusion. The Interdepartmental Group was charged with the task of examining the options in this regard and I expect to have a final report shortly.