Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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120. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to provide an update on the operation and effectiveness of the Department’s community employment and work activation schemes, including Tús, community employment and the rural social scheme; his Department’s assessment of their impact on participants’ progression to sustainable employment, education or training; whether there are plans to modernise these programmes to align with emerging labour market needs and Ireland’s green, circular economy, and biodiversity objectives; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [61986/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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My Department offers a range of employment schemes and other supports to encourage long-term unemployed people to return to work, while also assisting communities across the country in the provision of vital services. They are targeted at people who have been on an unemployment payment or certain other social welfare payments for a specific period of time.

CE and Tús are employment activation measures 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. RSS is an income support initiative that provides part-time employment opportunities in community and voluntary organisations for farmers or fishermen who are in receipt of certain social welfare payments and who are underemployed in their primary occupation.

The OECD in a recently published review of the CE and Tús schemes found a positive impact on the employment and earnings of participants, especially for older participants on CE and younger participants on Tús. The review also found that participants are less likely to rely on disability payments and are more likely to find employment after their participation.

There are currently 19,564 participants on CE, 4,503 participants on Tús and 2,604 participants on the RSS. Government investment in the schemes will amount to over €515 million in 2025.

Tús is focused on shorter term work experience and skills development and the contract duration of 12 months applicable to the Tús scheme ensures that as many people as possible, who are eligible to participate, can benefit from the scheme. The eligibility criteria for Tús has been extended to provide immediate access to

• Customers aged 18 or over in receipt of Disability Allowance.
• Customers aged 18-year-old with a low probability of work, in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance (JA) or a Beneficiary of Temporary Protection (BoTP).
• Refugees aged 18 years or older in receipt of JA and unemployed Traveller/Roma customers.

CE projects are in diverse areas and include the development, regeneration and enhancement of community spaces, environmental maintenance, early years, and after-school supports, heritage, arts, culture, tourism, sport, green economy, biodiversity projects, recycling and repair of equipment, visitation, friendly call, and befriending programmes for older people.

A number of changes have been introduced in recent times to support CE sponsors in their recruitment and retention of participants, including

• CE participants who reach 60 years of age can remain on CE until they reach state pension age.
• Flexibility granted to CE sponsors to retain existing participants for extended periods in cases where a replacement can’t be recruited immediately.
• Changes to eligibility criteria extending CE eligibility to the adult dependents of those in receipt of Jobseeker’s Allowance.
• A new pilot scheme to extend CE eligibility to those over 50 years of age in receipt of credits or a combination of credits and Jobseeker’s Benefit.

More recently, I announced that three further recommendations will be implemented from 1st January 2026 , namely:

• RSS will be extended on a pilot basis to include rural dwellers who are 50 years or over, in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment and whose primary residence is in a rural area.
• RSS eligibility will be extended to people engaged in farming or fishing who are not the holder of the herd number or fishing licence but who have a defined connection to the farming/fishing enterprise.
• RSS eligibility will be extended to members of a couple jointly engaged in farming /fishing using one herd number/fishing licence.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.