Brendan Smith
Question:54. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Social Protection his plans to provide increased flexibility to local community employment schemes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46238/26]
View answerThursday, 18 June 2026
Questions (54)
Written answers
The objective of Community Employment (CE) scheme is to enhance the employability of disadvantaged and long-term unemployed persons by providing work experience and training opportunities for them within their local communities on a temporary fixed term basis.
In addition to providing eligible people with valuable occupational experience and training as a stepping-stone to employment in the open-labour market, schemes such as CE also support important and, in many cases essential, local community services.
The OECD in a 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.
At the end of May 2026 there were 19,641 participants and 1,226 supervisors employed through CE across 805 sponsor organisations. The 2026 budget for CE is €415.00 million.
A number of changes have been introduced in recent times to support CE sponsors in their recruitment of participants, including:
• A provision to allow CE participants who reach 60 years of age to remain in CE until they reach state pension age.
• Some 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 & Pay Related Jobseeker's Benefit.
I recognise that employment, activation and income support programmes such as CE enable participants to make a significant contribution to their communities whilst up-skilling themselves for prospective future employment. I wish to re-iterate that the eligibility criteria, the duration timelines for participation and the referral process for CE continues to be kept under active review by my Department.