Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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The committee welcomes the opportunity to discuss the recent review of the rural social scheme. This scheme is an income-support scheme that provides part-time employment opportunities for under-employed farmers and fishers who receive specific social welfare payments. There are three key findings in this review. The RSS provides an important social-inclusion and income-support function for low-income farmers and fishers. The RSS delivers key community services including maintenance of sporting facilities, community recreation areas and way-marked walking routes to rural communities. The declining participation since 2019 is causing concern that rural communities may be left without key community services.

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Social Protection, Deputy Joe O'Brien, and his officials to the meeting. I invite the Minister of State to make his opening statement.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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At the outset, I would like to offer my condolences to the Chair. I did not know John Naughten, but from everything I have heard in recent days, it is obvious that his parting will not only be a huge loss to his friends and his family but to the wider community as well.

I thank the committee for its invitation to discuss the review of the rural social scheme. I am accompanied by Mr. Tony Kieran, principal officer in the Department. I know from the committee's invitation that it is interested in discussing the review of the RSS and I hope that members have found the information that was provided in advance helpful.

I will start by providing some general information on the scheme. The rural social scheme, RSS, was established in 2004 as an income support initiative to provide part-time employment in community and voluntary organisations for farmers or fishers in receipt of certain social welfare payments who were underemployed in their primary occupations. The work undertaken is primarily to support local service provision via community, voluntary and not-for-profit organisations, provided that this does not displace existing service provision or employment. In turn, communities benefit from the skills and talents of local farmers and fishers, given that these are readily adaptable to most tasks.

The RSS is delivered at local level by 36 local development companies and Údarás na Gaeltachta, which act as implementing bodies. The scheme is delivered in accordance with the eligibility criteria, policy and guidelines laid down by the Department. The places are allocated to each local area covered by the RSS implementing body based, in the main, on the proportion of persons in receipt of farm assist in that area. There are 3,350 participant places and 139 supervisor places available on the scheme. At the end of September, there were 2,699 participants and 126 supervisors on the scheme nationwide. A budget of €52 million is available this year.

Participants on RSS are contracted to work 19.5 hours per week and their rates of pay are based on their underlying social welfare payments plus an additional €27.50 per week, subject to a minimum payment of €259.50 per week. Participants may also receive increases in respect of qualified adult and child dependants. Following the budget 2025 announcement last week, I can confirm that RSS participants will see an increase to their weekly payment by €12 from 1 January next, which will see the weekly minimum payment on RSS rise to €271.50. RSS participants are subject to normal tax and PRSI deductions, including paying a class A PRSI contribution, which can help to establish entitlement to the full range of short-term and long-term benefits, including the contributory State pension at age 66.

I will now turn to the recently launched review of the RSS, the main subject of interest to the committee today. The purpose of the review was to examine the role of the RSS, its ongoing relevance to the changing landscape, the funding and resourcing required, and the appropriate governance and management arrangements. The review was wide ranging and examined all aspects of the scheme, including its rationale, societal impact and sustainability. It should be noted that the rate of payment for participants on the scheme was outside the remit of the review, as this is a budgetary issue.

A steering group was set up in February 2023 to oversee the review of the scheme. All key stakeholders were represented on the steering group, including different Departments, farming and fishing representatives, rural NGOs and the Irish Local Development Network. Representatives from the RSS supervisors national committee also participated.

The development of the RSS review and the final report were informed by an extensive consultation process that included the views of participants, supervisors, implementing bodies and project sponsors as well as Departments and industry representative bodies. This review utilised trend analysis, a wide-ranging survey, public consultation and two in-person workshop events to gain the perspective of all stakeholders.

The review arrived at a number of key findings, including: the RSS provided an important social inclusion and income support function for low-income farmers and fishers; the RSS delivered key community services, including the maintenance of sporting facilities, community recreation areas and waymarked walking routes to rural communities; and declining participation since 2019 was causing a concern that rural communities may be left without key community services.

As a response to these key findings, the final report includes 19 recommendations to address the sustainability of the RSS to continue providing income support, social inclusion and service delivery in rural communities. Officials in my Department are actively exploring the recommendations from the RSS review with a view to taking action as quickly as possible. Understandably, while the report makes 19 recommendations, I have prioritised some for immediate attention. Work is under way in the Department on six of the recommendations, focusing initially on eligibility and contracts. Work is well advanced on the proposed pilot scheme targeted at customers who are over 50 years of age, on a social welfare payment and living in a rural area. This rural dweller pilot will see 250 places ring-fenced from within the overall existing number of places on RSS. Changes to facilitate both members of a couple engaged in farming or fishing in accessing RSS are also being worked on. This will see two people being able to use the same herd number or fishing licence simultaneously. Arrangements are being made to issue three-year contracts to participants and the contract renewal process will be adjusted to be undertaken in three-year intervals. Participants who are over 60 years of age will be permitted to remain on RSS until they reach 66 without the requirement to undergo any further means test or renewal process. Promotional activity to highlight the important work on the scheme is also to be undertaken.

Departmental officials are actively engaging with the implementing bodies, Pobal and the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform to get the required processes in place to commence the rural dweller pilot and also to allow a couple engaged in farming or fishing to both access RSS. It is expected that this work can be completed within the coming month. Officials will continue to examine the remaining recommendations. The actions recommended in the review will make a significant contribution to ensuring the sustainability of the RSS and that services can continue to be provided in our communities. The review recommends that the scheme be reviewed every five years to ensure it continues to meet its remit. This will also ensure that required changes are made in a timely manner.

I acknowledge yet again the contribution that the RSS continues to make to rural communities and to the lives of participants on the scheme. I have witnessed at first hand the commitment and dedication of supervisors and participants and the impact their work has on communities across the country.

I am conscious that my opening remarks have been brief, but I am happy to answer any questions that members may have and to provide any further detail that may be required.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I will now invite members to discuss. I remind members participating remotely to use the raise hand feature and to cancel it once they have spoken. I call Deputy Ó Cuív.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State to the meeting. I also welcome the fact that this review was undertaken. I will engage on the priority decisions, as we often get reports with 19, 100 or 200 recommendations, with most then left to lie on the shelf. What I am interested in is what the Minister of State is going to change, and perhaps we can persuade him to make some other changes as well. I am happy with certain aspects of the changes, but were I asked whether the big issues had been tackled overall, I would say “No, they have been avoided”.

I live in a rural area, so I would have thought it self-evident, but as I have often said, if those 2,600 plus workers disappeared tomorrow and no one took over what they were doing, then we would have people screaming at us within six months about the maintenance of many services, particularly physical services like community green areas, sports fields and so on.

This leads me to another point. The RSS is the best value for money the Department has ever achieved. As I have mentioned previously, there are local green areas where I live. They are fabulous. They lead down to the lake and run in parallel with it. They are maintained by the RSS, which just put in a walking route around the lake. People can make various circuits around it. The route is very popular now. Were it a public park in this city, we would have fully paid staff, contracted to retirement, to do all of that work. When I say the RSS is great value for money, that is a given, but people do not fully think through the implications of taking it away.

The gross cost of the scheme is €52 million, but each of its participants has an underlying entitlement to farm assist, fish assist or some other social assistance payment anyway.

We need to know whether the Department has an estimate of the net cost of the scheme compared with having all these people doing nothing. That is the real cost. We look at the contribution or benefit, and then the cost benefit. I think we will find that the benefit is totally disproportionate to the cost. If the €52 million was taken away in the morning, they would all fall back on farm assist, fish assist and other payments – the vast majority are farm assist and fish assist – and there would still be a large residual payment, which I reckon could be up to €40 million. Therefore, the real cost of providing these super services is about €10 million. I welcome the three-year contracts.

There seems to be in the recommendations an idea that this was an activation scheme, that is, that it was a halfway house scheme to try to activate people into a better life of PAYE employment. Perhaps I am reading the recommendations in the report wrong. The idea of the scheme from the beginning was that these were full-time farmers who were giving up - between themselves and a partner, if they had one - 19.5 hours to community work a week and getting paid for it. They really could not take up a full-time job because they were farming and that is why it was tailored to a modest contribution of hours. Therefore, the original rule said that if you went in the scheme, it was not an activation scheme because they were activated. Who are more activated than farmers? If somebody left and got a PAYE job, fine. However, that was not the purpose of the scheme. The purpose was to give social stability and a reasonable income to small farmers. Therefore, I welcome the over-60 element, but I think it is way too restrictive and we should go back to the original rule.

That particularly seems to be unnecessary. One would think there was a queue out the door from here to Galway of people trying to get into the scheme. However, we know that the pool is limited because the pool of people in receipt of farm assist is very small at present. Therefore, the problem is filling the places, as we see because the numbers permitted on the scheme far exceed the number on the scheme. My view is that as long as the companies can provide the places, there should be no quota on the companies any more. There is no need for it. If they can provide useful work for people and if people are eligible, we should fill it up to the 3,500. People should be able to stay on it indefinitely, unless a time arises that there is greater demand for the places than 3,500, or whatever the limit on the scheme is. Then we might have to ration them out, but I do not see that in the foreseeable future as long as employment stays strong in the country. Which is better, to have a farmer at home getting farm assist or have them in one of the RSS jobs doing a huge contribution to the community, which I think I have proven is the best value for money we are getting in terms of public services in the country? There has been a big debate about the cost of some public services here. This is one where there is relative output for a small net cost. Why not just take that third one out there and go for bust, and let people stay in the scheme as long as there is not somebody trying to get onto the scheme for whom we do not have a place?

I welcome the three-year contracts. The reason there were one-year contracts is there was some worry in the Department at the time about employment rights and so on that might accumulate. I am glad it appears that has been overcome. It is big step in the right direction. Initially, the means test did not take place every year. I think for the first five years of the scheme it did not take place at all. I again welcome that it will be for three years.

The final big point of this seems to have been avoided in the review. I am awfully surprised at all the interested parties. I often wonder about these reviews compared with, say, the experience I would have, or the participants, who are a bit shy. I often find that people are shy about their own affairs. They will tell us but they will not tell everybody. They will not get up on a soapbox. The reality is that, for some reason I cannot understand, a rule came in at one stage that if I go on it and am a single person, without a dependent adult, as they call it, under the social welfare payment, I will get the €259.50. Even if my farm income is €258.50, I will get the full €259.50 bonus for going on the scheme. If my farm income is €100, I will still get the €259.50. Allowing partners to go on at the same time will do some good, but some of those have part-time work. If I have a dependent adult or dependent children, the maximum net gain I can get by going on the scheme is the top-up, which I think is €27 a week. Therefore, I am getting €27.50 for 19.5 hours’ work. I have asked the Minister of State for this before but the Department has never provided them and I should have perhaps pursued it. I asked a few times. Since the rule changed, has the ratio of new entrants into the scheme between people with dependent adults and people without dependent adults changed? In other words, are the people with dependent adults the reason we have this number on farm assist? There is no logic in having anybody on farm assist if the scheme was the old way because it is so attractive. I have a suspicion that the people getting left on farm assist now are the farmers or fishers with dependent adults who will not work 19.5 hours for €27.50. Therefore, I am very disappointed that we do not revert to the original rule. I do not think it needed a review. I think this should be the Minister of State’s private review, and we just go back to the original rule and say that if you go on the scheme, you get the full rate, that is, the full person rate with dependent adult or dependent children, according to the normal rules of the scheme. If you are half rate for the children, then you get the full half rate on the scheme.

I welcome the proposal here but I noticed something. There was initially a capital allocation for whatever need the scheme had – it depended what work they were doing. Some of that was abused and we got it back. However, there needs to be some capital allocation rather than going around to other Departments. It is only one Government. The Minister of State knows that there is much fighting between Departments over funds. Everyone is trying to get it off the other Department. However, at the end of the day, to those who sit around the Cabinet table, there is only one pot. Let us keep it simple. The Minister of State’s Department would pay a capital allocation where there is a case to support the scheme and increase the productivity of the scheme.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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The Deputy made a few points that I will come back on. Regarding the ratio of people with children on the scheme then and now, we have looked into this. We are able to ascertain who we have now, but we have not been able to get the comparative figures for before, when the rules were different. My understanding is, though, that if we were to operate on the previous rules, it would increase the budget very significantly. We estimate it would be close to doubling it. I would say-----

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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How can the Minister of State justify that if Senator Murphy and I went on the scheme, and I am single and I have €200 plus income from a farm, I still get the €259 payment and Senator Murphy, who has the same income from his farm, because has a dependant adult and children and more responsibilities, no matter what he does cannot get more than €27.90 unless his partner goes out under the new arrangement? Regardless of what it is costing, it is unfair and unjust, and objectively discriminatory.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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I do not want to get knotted up in a hypothetical case but in that situation Senator Murphy would be entitled to a range of payments in respect his family members as well. On what the Deputy presented there, we would not be comparing like with like.

I agree with the Deputy on value for money. It is extraordinary that not only those on RSS but people on CE and Tús come out every week and do what they do for the financial compensation they get. It is obvious that those involved in any of these schemes generally are not in it for the money and they are getting something else out of it. For CE, sometimes that is the training and the pathway that produces. For others, it is being involved in their community and wanting to contribute. That is clearly something that people want to do. However, I will not argue with the Deputy on the value for money that we get out of RSS, and the other schemes as well.

Effectively, there is no quota or limit. If demand shoots up for the RSS, we will facilitate it. It is not a constraint on anybody finding a place on the scheme at present. There is no threat to the scheme. The Deputy is talking about the hypothetical case of the RSS disappearing and what it would leave but, to reassure people in case they got the wrong end of the stick, there is absolutely no threat to that. In fact, some of the changes going forward will ensure that there is a bright future for the scheme.

The review examined the context as well. The starkest, most challenging context in all of this is the situation faced by small farmers and fishers in that it is increasingly economically less viable for small farmers and fishers to stay on the land. RSS can play a small part in helping out but the key recommendation coming out of this that will cut through that stark and difficult context is the rural dwellers pilot. What we are proposing, basically, for the first time, which is quite a dramatic change, especially if it progresses, is that we are decoupling the connection with the farm or the trawler in the pilot. That will open it up to I know not how many more people but the eligibility pool will be multiplied exponentially. That could change the scheme dramatically going into the future as well. On the rural dwellers pilot, there will be 250 places initially. We will assign seven of them per IB. We will see how that goes after six months. I suspect we might need to do some reallocation. IBs in both members' parts of the country might be able to fill a lot more than seven but we can reallocate based on that. That rural dweller recommendation will change RSS dramatically if we can feed it into the wider scheme, learn from the pilot and bring the learnings from the pilot into the mainstream scheme.

In terms of the initial policy purpose of the RSS, the Deputy will know that better than me. It has evolved over time. The way we frame it now is that it is not necessarily prioritising activation but recognising underemployment in that for a lot of small farmers it is a part-time job, they want and need to do something else and, as I said, it can act as an incentive to keep people on the land. The main benefit that I see people getting out of it is the social connection with the community. In Senator Murphy's part of the world, which was one of the first RSS projects that I visited, it was clear there were a lot of single older men who relied on it has their outlet or one of their main social outlets. It has got huge importance in that regard as well. Policy-wise, it has more diverse strands outside of activation or the narrow activation way of looking at things.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Could the Minister of State get us the figures? I would like two sets of figures that are readily available. He knows how many people are on farm assist, how many of those are only getting an individual payment and he knows how many are getting an individual payment plus some dependant increase for a qualified adult, IQA, or a child dependant allowance. Will he then give me the same figures for the current cohort on the RSS and we will see is the balance different.? Therefore, we will have some idea is it acting as an inhibitor.

It is interesting what he said about the 250 places for the reason that ideas we have sometimes take a long time to gestate. He will have heard of Tús. If he gets one of his officials to dig back into the original files of 2010 - he might remember 2010 was not the best year for the economy - what I had proposed at the time was expanding the eligibility to the RSS to both urban and rural people who were unemployed as a scheme based on work rather than a scheme based on training, which CE was. The idea is that if you were a non-farmer, that is, you did not have employment, you would have gone on CE for three years and you would go on to what were to call the "RUSS". The Department of public expenditure, or the Department of Finance as it was at the time, kicked up. They would not allow this change of rule take place and they wanted a new scheme that we called Tús rather than expanding the eligibility for RSS. At the very last minute, in typical Department of Finance fashion, the officials put in a one-year work limit on it. It was meant to be like RSS in that people could stay on it forever because what is the point of throwing them back on social welfare dependancy when the Department knew that unemployment, particularly for the people who have no employment - at least the farmer has some employment - is hugely detrimental to physical health and mental health. It is absolutely lethal. As well as the good for society, we get the good for the individual as well. It saves a lot of medical costs. I remember getting documentation stating that lack of employment leads to higher morbidity and higher mortality but the one great thing about it is employment gives a 99% cure. It is interesting. I welcome that as a pilot. It is very small. It is very ginger but at least it is a start to do what we were trying to do a long time ago.

As an aside, we need to reform Tús because Tús was never meant to be the way it is. I had a choice. I had a gun to my head because there was an election coming up. The Minister of State might remember. The Greens left government and we were up against the wall in January 2011. Did I take the Tús - which the Minister of State would probably say I was right to - with ridiculous rules or not take it all in the hope that somebody succeeding I would manage to bring it back to where we wanted? The Minister of State is doing this a little bit and I welcome that.

I worked in community for a long time. I got more praise for doing it but, as I used often say, it did not put money in the bank. All of us, and society, benefit massively from working.

One of the heartbreaks for me as I decide to retire is that I will miss the interaction of this place. I think everybody benefits from employment. Pride of work and all the rest does not just go for RSS workers. The Minister of State might remember there is also a quotation in the bible that "the labourer is worthy of this hire." I believe we are not treating the RSS workers with dependants as worthy of their hire. He also said that anyone who wants to get on the scheme can get on it. I have no doubt about that. It is open house. He did not say that anybody who has been on it for six years and is under 60 years of age can stay on. I cannot see why they cannot stay on it indefinitely. What is the point in throwing them back on the social welfare? That undermines the stability of farm families.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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On the last point, there is an entitlement to stay on after 60, subject to means tests.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Do you keep renewing? Was there not a six-year cap on the participation in the scheme for young people?

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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It is gone. The six-year rule is gone.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The only change being made for the over-60s is that they will not be means tested again.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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That is correct.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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They can win the lotto and keep it. That is it. They have got a 6 million to one chance.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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We will have a look for the comparative figures again, but we had difficulty. I asked about this. There was difficulty finding figures we have now to compare, but-----

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I am only asking for current figures. The Minister of State knows what farm assist is, so he knows exactly.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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I have current ones here for farm assist and jobseeker's. I am not sure if these are the ones the Deputy is looking for, but 46% of people on RSS are on farm assist.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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That is not the question. I am looking for the number of people now on the RSS scheme who are getting an adult or child dependant payment - of the 2,699 - against the number of people on farm assist who are getting an adult or child dependant payment. They know that in the Department. The computer will tell them that in two minutes. Can we get that? I want to see if the percentage of people with dependants is higher on farm assist because people are balking at going on the scheme because they are not going to give up 19 and a half hours per week for €27.90 of a bonus.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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It is doable.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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In the next fortnight?

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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Suppose the election is called.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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In the next fortnight.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State and his officials. I acknowledge that this document is brief, and it is good. Sometimes we have a lot of material being read out by people. They made their points here and that is important. Deputy Ó Cuív made the points very well and I will not labour them because Deputy Ó Laoghaire is here and there are other people online who want to make a contribution. I first want to say that I think we agree across parties that Deputy Ó Cuív has made such a contribution to these schemes. He was Minister of State from 1997 to 2002 and then was Minister for rural affairs and the Gaeltacht from 2002 to 2010.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Is that right?

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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He brought in a lot of these because he saw schemes like these were needed in rural Ireland and the west of Ireland. They fill an important vacuum. The Minister of State is correct that he was down in County Roscommon and had a look at how the schemes were working and so on. For rural areas, particularly in the west, the community aspect of this is important. I know he understands that because I acknowledge that in his own role, he is giving money to a lot of rural causes - bits and pieces here that are important. It might not be huge money, but it is important. In a similar way, these people play roles in a community sense, by helping out with traffic, Tidy Towns and in a community centre. My God, it is invaluable. I think Deputy Ó Cuív referred to the fact that if we did not have those people how would the rest of us get around and do it with our busy lives? Now and again, we help out, but they are the people on the ground. I watch these schemes. I look at Kilbride Community Centre in County Roscommon, which the Minister of State knows of. It is extraordinary what they do with the help of schemes like this. There is also Kilmore in the same county.

First, I welcome that over-60s will be permitted to remain on the RSS until they reach 66 and there will be no requirement for a means test. When is it envisaged that will happen? Will it happen immediately or will it be on an onward basis before we get that announcement? Second, I want to throw something out with regard to childcare and childcare facilities and the difficulties many communities have getting workers in their excellent childcare facilities. I know the situations in one or two of them where young people - mainly young women - wanted to train in childcare. The local group was prepared to take them on. It appears to me, although I stand to be corrected, that with Tusla that is not allowed. I suggest that the Minister of State takes this back. If somebody is training in childcare, then this year of working 19 and a half hours per week would be part of their training. I throw that out because I think it would fill a vacuum. All of these childcare facilities are run by trained, professional people. If some young person is going in there, he or she will be under somebody who is supervising him or her. It could be a way to bring more workers into the system. I get it every week, despite all the improvements in childcare and what the Government is doing in that regard. I am told they cannot get staff. Is there a way we could have a radical shift and make this part of the training? We should look at that to see if it can happen. If it can, it might solve a huge problem for us in many parts of Ireland.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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While the Senator was speaking, I was trying to clarify the parameters.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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That is okay. I know it was not bad manners.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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I think this may relate more to CE than RSS in terms of potential and the facilities the Senator is talking about.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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Can we look at it or can his officials look at it?

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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We can take it on board for sure and have a look at that.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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Through the Chair, I understand we have to be careful but these childcare centres are well run by professional people who would love to take some younger person under their wing to let that be part of his or her training and let him or her get the payment. I think it could uniquely change the difficulties we have with getting staff at the moment. Young people are generally good with younger people.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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There are quite a few CE participants working in those facilities. We will take what the Senator is suggesting on board. On the means test for over-60s, that is policy now, which means it is pretty much done.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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It is done now.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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Yes.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I thank the Minister of State and his officials for attending.