Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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345. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will support changes to the operation of community employment schemes to allow those who turn 66 years of age to remain on as participants in such schemes; if she will address concerns raised with me by a CE scheme supervisor around wages for the CE scheme and the material grant allocation (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [60266/22]

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. CE sponsoring bodies receive state funding to cover the salary costs of supervisors, assistant supervisors, and participant remuneration, along with training and material costs from my department.

If participants were permitted to remain on CE after they have reached state pension age, it could undermine CE as an active labour market programme - with the objective of helping people back to work. 

I place great value on the role played by CE supervisors, assistant supervisors and participants in local communities across the country.  CE supervisors and assistant supervisors are not employees of the department and are not public servants.  They are employees of individual schemes. The department is the funder of schemes.  This means that any discussions on employment related matters including pay are complex. 

In this context, my department officials continue to follow-up on this issue with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and continue to engage with Fórsa and SIPTU, the Trade Unions representing CE supervisors and assistant supervisors. Fórsa and SIPTU have recently referred a pay claim to the conciliation service of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the WRC has issued an invite to the department to take part in the conciliation process. 

Any increase in pay rates that would potentially increase the overall cost to the state of funding schemes, or state funded activities in the wider community and voluntary sector, must take into consideration the potential cost to the exchequer.  Given these budgetary implications, and the referral of other similar claims to the WRC, the Department is following-up with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, prior to responding to the invite from the WRC.  

Responding to the issue raised in respect of materials funding for CE, the materials grant is a contribution towards the running costs of the scheme and covers consumable services and materials necessary for the effective operation of the CE project. The rate is individual to each scheme and is determined by scheme costs and participant numbers. It is expected that the sponsor group will cover any shortfall that arises. Where a CE sponsor organisation is experiencing difficulty with rising costs and is seeking further funding under the materials grant, they should make an application for further funding through the Community Development Officer assigned to their CE scheme.

It is estimated that the expenditure on materials grants will be of the order of €12.3 million this year and I am very pleased that the provision for material grant funding was increased in Budget 2023 to €13.5 million next year.

I trust this clarifies the issues raised for the Deputy.