Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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438. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her engagement with stakeholders regarding the provision of an occupational pension for community employment supervisors; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [56442/22]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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As the Deputy will be aware, following an agreement between the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and the Minister for Social Protection, a final settlement was reached with unions representing CE supervisors and assistant supervisors at the end of 2021 in settlement of this specific 2008 Labour Court recommendation. This settlement resolves the long-standing issue through a once off ex-gratia payment to eligible CE supervisors and assistant supervisors. At the end of last year, both unions involved confirmed acceptance of this settlement which will benefit approximately 2,500 people employed by CE schemes going back to 2008. It is estimated to have a total cost of over €24 million.

Generally, under the terms of this settlement, on reaching retirement age, eligible CE supervisors and assistant supervisors will receive a once off ex-gratia payment in respect of time employed by CE schemes since 2008.

Following Government approval earlier this month, legislative provisions for these payments has been included in the Social Welfare Bill, which will, once enacted, facilitate the payment of processed ex-gratia applications. It is my intention that these payments will issue before the Christmas break, subject to the safe passage of the required legislation. I can confirm that 624 claims have been received to date, with 480 payments processed and ready for payment. Work is ongoing to process the remaining cases as soon as possible. The recipients will receive notification when their payments are issuing.

I can also confirm that the pension auto enrolment process will also apply to CE workers, once operational. CE supervisors and workers also have access to the standard State Contributory Pension and this will also continue in the future.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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439. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the measures that are being taken to ensure that the CE scheme is working optimally. [53842/22]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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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. Participation on the scheme is part time - 19.5 hours per week.

We are all very conscious of the important role that CE plays and we all wish to support them as best we can. In addition to providing valuable occupational experience and training as a stepping-stone to employment for people who are unemployed, schemes such as CE and Tús also provide important and, in many cases essential, services to their local communities.

Thankfully, given the strong labour market performance the number of unemployed people dependent on social welfare payments continues to fall. While this is very welcome it also means that the number of candidates available for CE also falls. This creates an obvious challenge.

Having said that, it is not an insurmountable challenge, and working together with CE sponsors we can, and have, devised changes that will help the schemes to continue to support their local communities.

For example, following engagement with CE sponsors Minister Humphreys and I have announced a number of reforms and enhancements to CE over the course of the past twelve months.

These changes included a provision to allow CE participants who reach 60 years of age to remain on CE until they reach state pension age. We also updated the baseline year for CE which opens the scheme to a cohort of people who had previously participated in the scheme. Extensions have also been granted to participants where the Department has not been in a position to provide new referrals to fill vacancies.

More recently as part of Budget 2023 we announced an increase of €5 per week in the weekly CE allowance. This increase is in addition to the increase in the core social welfare payments of €12 per week, meaning the minimum payment on CE will amount to €247.50 per week. This is the lowest rate of payment and people with children or other dependents receive additional payments, which are also increasing as part of our budget measures. For example, a person with an adult partner and one child aged over 12 will receive €443.50 per week, equivalent to about €23 per hour. These are attractive rates of payment and will help to encourage participation on the schemes.

We also changed the candidate referral process for CE. Schemes have been given new flexibility to allow them to directly recruit eligible candidates to fill 30% of places but are also a mandated to accept and place at least 60% of people referred by Intreo. This is to ensure that places do not go unfilled when there are candidates available from the Live Register. CE sponsors have also been granted some flexibility to extend individual placements and to retain existing participants in cases where no replacement is immediately available. Plans are also at an advanced stage for a new pilot scheme to extend CE eligibility to people who are Qualified Adults on a jobseeker claim; these are generally unemployed partners of people in receipt of a payment in their own right. Legislative provision for this initiative has been included in the Social Welfare Bill and it is intended that this pilot will start early in 2023.

More widely, while on CE participants complete an individual learning plan (ILPs) which is designed to identify and develop the individual’s education and training needs through one-to-one meetings with the CE supervisor, with an aim to help them upskill for a move into the open labour market. As participants come to the end of their time on the programme, the supervisor works with them on their exit plan to ensure the best use is made of their experience.

As I have already said, both Minister Humphreys and I are very conscious of the need to support CE and we continue to meet regularly with representatives of the programme.

I trust this clarifies the position for the Deputy.