Nolan seeks reforms to ensure older and special needs people can remain on CE Schemes

INDEPENDENT TD for Laois Offaly Carol Nolan has said the application of ‘inflexible’ age limits that are currently being applied to participants in local Community Employment (CE) schemes, is having a seriously detrimental impact on the service and must be urgently reviewed by the Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys.

Deputy Nolan was speaking after attending a meeting of CE Scheme participants in Cloghan

Hall along with local election candidate, Jonathan O’Meara.

The Independent TD said she has been urging the Minister Humphreys and the Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development, Joe O’Brien, to adopt a more flexible approach in line with the calls that CE supervisors have been making for a number of years now:

“I want to thank all of the participants who took part in the meeting in Cloghan Hall for engaging with myself and Jonathan on this issue,” said Deputy Nolan. “They are advocating for precisely the sort of changes that I have consistently supported over the years.

“I do appreciate that some changes have been introduced allowing CE participants over the age of 60 to participate on a continuous basis. But that only applies until they reach the State

Pension age. That needs to be reviewed not least because the vast majority of participants at that age want to remain active and contribute to the community.

“Government should be doing everything it can to support such activity and not limiting it

through the application of what are essentially fairly arbitrary age limits.

“Another issue that emerged quite strongly from our meeting was the need to address the

inadequacies that exist around the CE scheme options that are available to people with special needs.

“It was made clear to both myself and Jonathan that these participants relish their work at the community level and many of them want to be able to continue. This is an aspect of the issue that I will be engaging with Minister Humphreys on.

“Government says it values the contribution of the CE scheme structure. Well, now is the time to prove that by enabling and supporting ongoing participation rates among those who want to continue providing their skills at this level”, concluded Deputy Nolan.