Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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120. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the mechanism by which a community employment scheme employee who has worked a number of years and whose term is now ending can extend his or her time on the scheme in view of the fact that the employee is now over 62 years of age. [16336/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Community Employment (CE) is a positive initiative that enables the long-term unemployed to make a contribution to their communities whilst up-skilling themselves for prospective future employment and gaining valuable work experience. The scheme helps to break the cycle of unemployment and improve a person’s chances of returning to the labour market.

A number of new conditions were introduced on CE in July 2017 to further support progression and broaden access to CE to a wider range of people. Included in these changes was the opportunity for participants over age 62 to participate on a continuous basis up to the State Pension age via the Service Support Stream (SSS), subject to availability of places on the SSS, satisfactory performance by them on the CE scheme and subject to annual approval by the Department.

The CE participant you refer to should apply for a place via the SSS but it should be noted that places allocated for these participants, within each individual CE scheme, are subject to limitation criteria.