Senseless cuts to Community Employment Schemes
HOW much return can we expect for each cut the Government makes to an individual programme?
Not much, judging by the potential fallout of the massive cuts the Community Employment scheme is being forced to make.
It is one of the most effective statesupported initiatives at community level. It appears to be administered by very able and responsible individuals locally and provides over 400 workers in north Kerry alone to a wide range of groups and services.
It doesn't cost the world, but it provides vital work for charities and community groups that can ill afford it.
Tidy Towns groups across the county, for instance, benefit hugely from the number of working days they get each week from the scheme. These workers are not remunerated hugely for their efforts, getting €20 extra on jobseekers' benefit per week. But the CE scheme offers them a chance to retrain in the hope of being of fulltime service to the community and economy at a later date. It also offers them activity — supporting mental health at one of the bleakest periods in recent Irish history.
A question mark hangs over the future of the CE work at present, with the scheme forced to take a hit of 66 per cent since January. In straight savings to the jobseekers' benefit, the State will recoup around €450,000 in north Kerry alone, as an example, this year.
Let's put this figure in context. It is exactly the same as individual Permanent TSB bankers were given in payoffs after the Irish taxpayer bailed the bank out last summer and the state introduced redundancies.
Banking is a big money game as we well know to our detriment. But what kind of an economic system do we have in this country that can pay one individual that amount in a single payment, on top of their salary, while depriving an entire region of the same amount in a measure that will have disproportionately massive knock-on effects?
It is the latest in a series of cuts at rural level in Ireland that leaves us in no doubt as to the kind of political and economic system we live in.
