Tuam councillor urges Labour to protect future of CE schemes

AN impassioned plea to protect and develop community employment schemes was made at the recent Labour Party Conference where a Tuam councillor outlined the vital role such schemes play in society. Cllr Pat O'Hora, a member of Tuam Town Council, addressed the conference that was held in NUI Galway earlier this month. As a former FAS manager, Cllr O'Hora used his experience overseeing such schemes to enforce his message that they are 'a vital vehicle for community and personal development'.[private] 'Such schemes offer training opportunities to participants that help with subsequent job placement and all this at minimum cost to the exchequer given that most of the money spent on CE would have to be paid out as Social Welfare in any case,' he told delegates. Cllr O'Hora reminded his party delegates that the then Minister for Labour, Rory Quinn introduced the social employment scheme that was a forerunner to the existing CE scheme, in the 1980s. 'Even in these straitened times, delegates, when local government and health services are so constrained in the services they can offer, especially in dispersed rural communities, we must protect the CE schemes and ensure that they can upskill participants,' he said. Target service delivery 'We need to target both the unemployed and the underemployed to increasingly deliver services into their sponsoring communities in areas like childcare and age care, neighbourhood security, rural transport, tourism promotion and environmental improvement. 'We should even go further, delegates and urge that Labour in government in looking at local government reform, ensures a central role for the concept of community employment as a tool to be used to strengthen active citizenship and involve communities at sub-county council level in combating disadvantage. 'I would urge Minister Burton to address the strategic vacuum created by the implosion of FAS and ensure that best practice is positively promulgated across communities and CE Schemes. 'I would also urge this conference to recognise the contribution of the hundreds of voluntary sponsoring committees and the help they received from my former colleagues in the FAS community development service across the country that manage and mentor the participants and, most importantly, the achievements of the hundreds of thousands of scheme participants and the contribution they have made to their communities in the last three decades.' Responding to Cllr O'Hora's motion, Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton reaffirmed her intention to preserve and develop community employment. [/private]