THE Government is to extend a scheme for the unemployed initiated by the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) and increase the number of placements throughout the State from 1,000 to 14,000. It will effectively be used as a model for the existing Community Employment (CE) scheme used by FAS, although the state training agency will continue to fund all schemes.
The Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton, praised CORI for proving that a new approach to finding jobs for the longterm unemployed could work. The pilot scheme was set three years ago and half of participants found full time jobs elsewhere, compared with 36 per cent on FAS run schemes.
The main difference between the two schemes is that the CORI project, which is run by the Institute for Action and Research on Work and Employment, pays the "going rate" for the work participants are, doing, rather than the lower FAS rates. This concept is now being extended to CE schemes.
One of the architects of the pilot project, Father Sean Healy SMA, said yesterday: "Twenty hours on Community Employment schemes will now be transformed into a real part time job."
The new scheme will be introduced on a phased basis from next September and it will be fully implemented in 2000.