John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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253. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if consideration is being given by her Department to the rationalisation of the various employment activation schemes currently in operation as unemployment has fallen so substantially and community employment schemes are having grave difficulty filling places due to the range of other activation measures extant; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20554/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The labour market in Ireland has experienced a welcome recovery following the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated public health restrictions. The most recent figures from the Central Statistics Office (the Labour Force Survey for Q4, 2022) reports that there are 2.57 million people in employment in Ireland, which is the highest recorded level for the State since the series began. The seasonally-adjusted monthly unemployment rate for March 2023 was 4.3 percent. This unemployment rate has remained stable and below 4.5 percent since the last of the COVID-19 emergency support measures ceased.

Pathways to Work 2021 - 2025is the national employment services strategy which was published in July 2021. It has the twinaims of supporting people made unemployed during the pandemic in returning to work, and also people who faced barriers in the labour market even prior to the pandemic, in accessing and sustaining employment. External oversight of the strategy is carried out by the Labour Market Advisory Council, an independent advisory body of labour market experts, employers and trade union representatives. Their first annual report on progress in the implementation of commitments was published in December 2022 on www.gov.ie.

Community Employment (CE) is an active labour market programme designed to provide long-term unemployed people and other disadvantaged people with an opportunity to engage in useful work within their communities. CE schemes across the country play a vital role in providing essential services to local communities.

Since December 2021, my Department has introduced a number of reforms and enhancements to CE, to minimise the impact of the recovery on schemes and the services they provide. One of the changes introduced granted CE sponsors some flexibility to extend individual placements and to retain existing participants in cases where no replacement is immediately available.

In order to address existing and upcoming vacancies on CE, the candidate referral process for CE has been reviewed and changed. Schemes have been given new flexibility to allow them to directly recruit eligible candidates to fill 30% of places but are also mandated to accept and place at least 60% of people referred by Intreo.

The most recent changes include the extension of the criteria of those who can participate on CE to the adult dependants of those in receipt of Jobseeker’s Allowance and, in support of Ukrainian nationals living here, a reduction in the Live Register qualifying period from 12 to 9 months.

These changes will support schemes by widening the pool of people eligible for CE with the intention of increasing participation and ensuring the continuity of the essential services they provide.

While there are no current plans to rationalise employment schemes, a Mid-Term Review of Pathways to Work is currently underway, with the support of the Labour Market Advisory Council. This review aims to ensure that the strategy continues to be relevant for the current labour market context.