A decision to cut 4,000 places on the Community Employment Scheme has been criticised this evening by Labour’s Mr Pat Rabbitte.
He said the move, which he claimed was in breach of the PPF agreement, was a serious blow to participants and to projects doing valuable work in the community.
According to Mr Rabbitte a creche in his Dublin Southwest constituency which provides backup to a community based drugs treatment centre is set to close and over 100 places will be cut in Tallaght.
Earlier today 17 people employed by the scheme in a Dublin city centre drug rehabilitation programme protested at a Progressive Democrats press conference, over threatened job cuts.
PD leader Ms Mary Harney later said drug projects would not be affected by the cuts and their scheme was secure.
The Community Employment schemes were introduced in the mid-1990s to help the long-term unemployed return to work.
The Government recently decided to reduce the scheme from 28,000 to 24,000 places because of the drop in the numbers of long-term unemployed.