Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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58. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of the take-up of the additional 3,000 places for employment support schemes announced as part of the 2020 July Stimulus package; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48649/21]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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75. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of the additional 3,000 places announced for community employment; the way these places are broken down by county; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48629/21]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 58 and 75 together.

The Department of Social Protection delivers a range of active labour market employment support schemes including Community Employment (CE), and Tús to provide opportunities for long term unemployed persons gain valuable work experience by working within their local communities.

Building on the July Jobs Stimulus and as part of the new employment services strategy, Pathways to Work Strategy, the Government is providing 3,000 additional places on Community Employment and Tús. Of the additional places, 1,475 places have been assigned to existing CE schemes recently and 1,164 to existing Tús schemes. CE schemes will benefit from the additional placements in every county while the applications for Tús schemes have been approved for the 19 counties that applied. Full details on the county profile for the schemes are listed in Table 1 below. Further work has now commenced in assigning the remaining places.

These new places will be made available to existing and more recent long-term unemployed persons, including those whose employment was adversely affected as a result of Covid-19. Time spent on PUP will count towards persons eligibility for CE and Tús. Intreo Offices are working with CE and Tús schemes to fill these new places.

I am fully committed to the future of CE and Tús and will continue to support and improve the programmes for the benefit of both the CE and Tús participants and the valuable contribution being made to local communities throughout the country.