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Community Employment Cuts national |
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news report
 Tuesday December 10, 2002 16:49 by Community Activist - from Dublin
 The Government are presently dismantling CE projects throughout the Country. This has implications for literally hundreds of organisations, most of that are run by local communities providing essential services that they have decided are vital to their area. No one appears to be harnessing opposition to CE cuts or attempting to organise the people who will be effected by them. Mostly, CE projects services are targetted at the people who have been forgotten by society. The, so called, community pillar of the social partnership have done little to insist on the protection of these projects. Also the workers on such projects are either long term unemployed, lone parents or people with disabilities and therefore have no power to resist the cuts. The only intervention by Unions has been to negotiate redundancy for supervisors. While I have no objection to this, some supervisors are now actively encouraging the closure of projects and
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Back to work allowance 'refocused'
December 10, 2002
(15:47) The Department of Social Community and Family Affairs has told RTÉ News that from next January the back to work allowance will only be available to people who have been unemployed for five years.
Up until now the scheme had been available to anyone who was unemployed for 15 or more months.
The 'refocusing' of the back to work scheme was announced in the budget estimates, but the details of how that 'refocusing' would be implemented were not disclosed at the time.
It provides them with a financial cushion by allowing them to keep a declining percentage of their payments for their first 3 years in a job.
The Government-commissioned report of the so-called Three Wise Men, which reviewed estimates for public services, proposed phasing out the scheme entirely to save €24.5.
It argued that the rate of longterm unemployment had dropped from 8.9% in 1993 when the scheme was introduced to 1.2%.
The Department says people who are already on the scheme will not be affected.
The Labour Party's Spokesperson on Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Willie Penrose, has strongly criticised the announcement.
Deputy Penrose said that Minister Mary Coughlan's announcement effectively marked the abolition of the Scheme.
He makes a good point, summary box or no. 5,800 CE workers laid off this year, 5,000 more to be laid off next year along with the 5,000 to be laid off from the public service over the next three years. That's almost 16,000 workers thrown on the scrap-heap.
There are CE schemes organised and protests taking place, there was a march on Leinster House some time back and there have been local protests and pickets. It's one of the main criticisms we made and are making of the Budget from a social welfare perspective.
One of the most basic points I would like to make is that a majority of people who voted, voted for this Government. I most certainly did not. It is a bit late to complain now. Not to mention the fact that there has been little or no protests to the series of cutbacks announced by our "Government", with the exception of students. The is also the matter that these "schemes" have been used as a source of cheap labour by local authorites.