I want to raise the issue of the rural social schemes, RSSs, and the Tús programmes that are running. Last Monday night in Athenry we had over 400 people present at a meeting, comprising of community groups, sporting organisations and RSS and Tús participants and supervisors. At the meeting the main issues of concern were that the RSS participant numbers are declining and will decline rapidly next year as the six-year rule will kick in for new participants in the scheme, leaving us short of a huge amount of people in the communities where the RSSs are the fabric of society in delivering much-needed services that the local authorities do not provide now. It is not a job activation scheme but an income support scheme for farmers and fishermen. It was introduced by a Fianna Fáil Government under Deputy Ó Cuív. It was and it is a great scheme but with the way it is structured at the moment it will die a death in a short number of months.

I am glad that the Deputy acknowledged the work of Deputy Ó Cuív when he was Minister and when he brought in that scheme. He brought in a number of imaginative and creative schemes for rural Ireland. I was responsible for bringing in the six-year rule in its first form when I was Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to deal with people of a certain age who were coming off schemes and to exempt them from coming off schemes. That said, I understand that the Minister is looking at the six-year rule because I can understand why numbers and participation rates are probably problematic, given the fact that the economic recovery plan, which was published by the Government, has been successful to the extent that over 2.5 million people are working. Notwithstanding all the challenges we face, that has been a significant development, much earlier than we thought it would happen according to the recovery plan, and there are a lot of vacancies so there must be pressure on the schemes.