Written answers

Tuesday, 15 June 2021

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

Departmental Schemes

Photo of Seán SherlockSeán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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917. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if there will be an extension for those on community employment schemes beyond 2 July 2021 after receiving little or no training due to the Covid-19 pandemic. [31838/21]

Photo of Heather HumphreysHeather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, 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.

As the Deputy is aware, my Department supported CE schemes since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. CE participants, whose contracts were due to end during the periods of restrictions, have had their contracts extended for the duration of those restrictions.

With the successful continuing roll-out of the vaccine programme and in accordance with the phased re-opening of the economy by Government, my priority and the priority of the Department is to get all CE and Tus schemes back up and running so that they can fully re-commence activities, providing work experience and training opportunities to long term unemployment participants and delivering vital services to local communities. I met with a number of CE and Tús schemes last Friday and we had a very constructive exchange of views on the very real challenges facing these employment support schemes, as the economy and society begins to recover from the pandemic over the coming months.

At the end of last week, the Minister for Social Protection, Minister Humphreys and I announced that the current CE and Tús participants' contract extension date will be further extended until 29 October 2021. This will bring to over 11,000 CE and Tús participants, benefitting from various contract extensions going back to October, 2020. There will be further transitional arrangements for the cohort of CE and Tús participants whose contracts are due to come to an end from the start of November 2021 to February 2022. These final contract extensions will provide all participants with additional time to complete their training and benefit from work experience on CE.

The conclusion of CE and Tús participant contracts after the 29 October 2021 will be undertaken on a coordinated and phased basis over a number of months up to February. This approach will support the recruitment of new participants while also ensuring the ongoing delivery of important community services.

In order to ensure that all employment and activation programmes have the best outcomes for participants, CE will continue to be made available to support those who are long term unemployed and furthest removed from the labour market, including those whose employment has been impacted by COVID-19.

I am fully committed to the future of CE and will continue to support and improve the programmes for the benefit of the participants and the valuable contribution being made to local communities through the provision of services.

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