The Government has been roundly criticised by the Opposition following the disclosure that the Tánaiste had been prepared last year to cut Community Employment Scheme (CES) numbers in half.
The Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, yesterday accused both the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach of misleading the Dáil about their plans.
The Department of Finance had demanded €80 million worth of cutbacks in the CES programme, a move which would have meant just 15,000 places being available this year.
Following protests from FÁS, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment eventually managed to find enough money to keep 22,000 on the popular scheme.
Places on the CES are available to over-25s if they have been out of work for more than a year, or if they have been a lone parent for the same length of time.
In addition, places are put aside for unemployed travellers, over-18s in receipt of disability benefits, ex-offenders, widows and widowers.
Offered 39 hours' work a fortnight, CES workers hold on to many of their social welfare benefits and are also able to take up other work.
Last night Mr Rabbitte said there was evidence that the Taoiseach seriously misled the Dáil on a number of occasions about the extent of the cuts contemplated.
In the Dáil on November 6th last, the Taoiseach, replying to Mr Rabbitte, said that he did not believe that a cutback to 13,000 or 15,500 was under discussion.
"We now know that not only were cuts of this scale under discussion, but the Tánaiste had earlier agreed to cuts in funding that would have brought the numbers on CE down to less than 15,000 by the end of 2003." the Labour Party leader said.
"It is also clear that a suggestion made by the Tánaiste that these cuts were being made as a result of a review undertaken by FÁS was deceitful nonsense and that these cuts were being sought by the Department of Finance and agreed by her purely for budgetary reasons," he added.
The Labour leader said he had issued warnings in late October about the prospects for the CES.
"I believe that it was only because of the repeated raising of this issue by the Labour Party with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste and the shock expressed by voluntary and community organisations at the implications for disadvantaged communities that the Government pulled back and significantly reduced the scale of the planned cuts," he said.
However, files released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act do not make it clear when the Tánaiste changed her mind about the 15,000 ceiling.
In a detailed briefing paper, FÁS bluntly told the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment that it could not make cutbacks on this scale in such a short time.
Meanwhile, the Sinn Féin Dublin South West TD, Mr Seán Crowe, said it had come as no surprise that the Tánaiste had been prepared to "wield the axe" on the CES.
Accusing the Government of dealing "a devastating blow" to those seeking work, Mr Crowe said it had proved time and again that its interest in the unemployed was non-existent.
The usefulness of the CES was proved by the fact that 100,000 people had already benefited from it. "This obviously means little to Mary Harney," Mr Crowe declared.
