An action group in Galway has called on the Government not to reduce the number of places on the FÁS Community Employment schemes, which are the major source of employment in most of the villages in the area.
The group is also urging the Government not to permit breaks in the schemes and to have special consideration for people over 50 who are involved in them.
The chairman of the East Galway Community Employment Action Group, Cllr Jimmy McClearn (FG), pointed out that there had been some 4,000 participants in these schemes in the Galway/Mayo region three or four years ago, but the number had now fallen to 2,600.
"The Government is proposing to reduce this number by another 500 or 600 by the end of 2003, so there will have been a 50 per cent reduction in the number of people involved in the schemes over the period," he said.
The group held a public meeting in Ballinasloe last night to discuss the Government's decision to cut 5,000 places from the CE schemes nationally.
The schemes, which were established in the mid-1980s, were responsible for a lot of valuable work in rural areas, including the building of walls, the maintenance of green areas and other community-enhancing projects. They employed a considerable number of middleaged people.
Cllr McClearn pointed out that a decrease in the number of places on the schemes would mean that many people would be forced back on to social welfare. He claimed that this would amount to an average weekly saving to the Government of only €24.40 per person.
He said: "We have no difficulty with changes where they are needed, but we are concerned about the breaking of schemes and the embargo on training any more supervisors. If a scheme is broken for a month or six weeks, people will have no income for that period, and it is likely that the supervisors will take their training and qualifications and seek employment elsewhere, so that when the scheme resumes there will no nobody to supervise it.
"In east Galway, we are talking about rural communities which have in no way benefited from the Celtic Tiger. The Celtic Tiger has not created jobs for this area in the past and it is not likely to create any in the near future. In villages like Killimor and Eyrecourt, these schemes are the major employer."
