Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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541. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she has considered making persons currently on the pandemic unemployment payment eligible for community employment schemes; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24165/21]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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Community Employment is a labour market activation programme designed to provide eligible long-term unemployed people with an opportunity to engage in work experience and training opportunities within their communities on a temporary, fixed term basis.

The priority for my Department is to ensure that all employment and activation programmes have the best outcomes for participants. The focus of CE is on the cohort of long-term unemployed people currently on the Live Register. In order to qualify for CE, a number of conditions need to be satisfied including being in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment for a specific period, i.e. for twelve months or more.

Time spent in recipient of the pandemic unemployment payment can count towards the duration of unemployment required to be eligible for CE. However, the remaining CE qualifying criteria must also be satisfied, including the need for a candidate to be in receipt of an existing qualifying social welfare payment at the time of referral to a CE scheme.

While many persons currently in receipt of PUP will return to their previous employment once current Covid -19 restrictions ease, Government are very conscious of the need to provide activation and other employment supports for those currently in receipt of PUP whose jobs will not return, post Covid-19.

The Job Stimulus Package announced by Government in July 2020 included an additional 3,000 places for state employment programmes including CE and Tus. It is important that these measures are targeted at those furthest removed from the labour market; who have been unemployed for over a year, including time spent on the pandemic unemployment payment.

I continue to support and improve the programme for the benefit of long term unemployed CE participants, including those whose employment have been directly adversely affected by the pandemic.