An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Dail Éireann — 2022-06-28
============================================================

Claire Kerrane (SF), Roscommon-Galway

The Taoiseach will be aware of the thousands of organisations in our communities that are supported by and rely on the rural social scheme. Of the 2,969 participants on the scheme today, nearly half of them will be forced to leave next year should the six-year rule go ahead. This is on top of 380 current vacancies. Galway Rural Development provided us with a list of 172 organisations in County Galway alone, from schools to the parish council in Ahascragh and from GAA clubs to Brothers of Charity services across Galway, that have either insufficient support, are going to lose support or have no support at all. That figure relates to just one county. When existing places cannot be filled, we are going to let 1,400 people go next year, thereby creating 1,400 vacancies when they cannot be filled in the first place. Will the Government abolish the six-year rule?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-06-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:53+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-06-28