Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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1133. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of a matter (details supplied); if further discussions have taken place with unions on the matter; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [2877/20]

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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1172. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans to address the issues regarding the pension and gratuity status of community employment supervisors; her further plans to implement the Labour Court recommendation issued in 2008; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3539/20]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1111, 1133 and 1172 together.

I wish to acknowledge the valuable and dedicated service that Community Employment (CE) sponsor organisations provide in running CE Schemes all over the country.  CE supervisors, as employees of these organisations, are an integral part of that good work.  We simply could not sustain a lot of our local community services without their work and it is, of course, a concern to me that the Supervisors feel compelled to take industrial action.

The industrial action relates to a claim by CE supervisors and assistant supervisors who have been seeking for a number of years, through their union representatives, the allocation of Exchequer funding to implement a 2008 Labour Court recommendation relating to the provision of a pension scheme.  

Last year my officials and I met with the unions to establish a process for the related discussions and to agree on the terms of reference.  During the meetings that followed, the parties undertook a detailed analysis of each of a number of potential solutions tabled, mindful of the broader environment in which any solution found would need to operate.

Related discussions have also been taken place between officials from my Department and their counterparts in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) and I have asked that my officials continue these discussions.