Earlier this week I received an email from a CE scheme supervisor who has been left with no option but to resign. She was running a scheme with 32 participants, supporting 20 sponsors, covering an area of 85 km and responsible for €500,000 in Government funding through the scheme. She was working without the support of an assistant supervisor because they have not been able to recruit anyone due to poor pay. She is not the only one. I heard what was said with respect to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and I ask that this is treated with a sense of urgency before more good people go. These are critical supports and services in our communities and many of the services would not exist without the schemes. I ask that all schemes be reviewed, including the RSS and Tús, because they are so important to our communities. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform needs to give the go-ahead for engagement to begin. A sense of urgency is needed in this matter.

I appreciate the Deputy pressing that sense of urgency. There are approximately 1,200 CE supervisors and assistant supervisors around the country. They provide an enormous service to their communities. They open pathways to work for people, provide a social inclusion service locally for people who would not otherwise be looked after and run key local services. We need to look after them. As the Deputy has said and as I said earlier, we need to look after Tús and RSS supervisors as well. We have had quite a bit of communication with unions this year. It is being dealt with by the WRC now and we are waiting for an invitation to a conciliation process. It is important we engage in that conciliation process but there is no point in us walking into the room unless we have sanction from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to negotiate in a realistic way with some funds.