RSS will keep the light on
Remoteness and poor infrastructure and low population densities have kept major employers away from some of our most disadvantaged areas.
Instead, the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, has stepped into the breach with its Rural Social Scheme (RSS).
It recognises that there is much work to be done in the countryside, and even if most people are employed to some extent, there is under-employment.
Meanwhile, there is a shortage of workers to look after the elderly, community after-school groups and community pre-schooling groups; for maintenance and enhancement of waymarked ways, walks, bog roads; for village and countryside enhancement; for environmental maintenance work and maintenance and caretaking of community and sporting facilities; and for duties in not-for-profit cultural and heritage centres.
These are the work areas which will now be tackled through the Rural Social Scheme.
And its main source of workers will be under-employed and underpaid farmers and their spouses.
The 2,500 Rural Social Scheme places around Ireland will be allocated to each county on the basis of the number of farmers in receipt of Farm Assist.
Participants will work 19.5 hours per week in a flexible way to fit into their farming duties.
Although the Government has reduced its Community Employment (CE) schemes drastically due to falling unemployment, its Rural Social Scheme incentive should be welcomed as an ideal fit for rural areas where it is hard to find willing hands for necessary work, and where low farm income is an increasing problem.
(As farmers and fishermen transfer out of the Community Employment schemes to the RSS, new CE places will become available for others who need them).
The recent introduction of the RSS was timely, more than six months before the decoupling of farm subsidies. Low income farmers will be able to avail of additional income and develop useful skills, while decoupling will allow them to more easily fit in their new 19.5 hours of work per week.
The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, anticipates that the number of applicants for the new RSS will exceed the number of places available - not surprising, because 8,700 farmers are currently on Farm Assist.
That high number is a testament to hard times in farming but RSS is a major new option for those being squeezed out.
Not only is it likely to be over-subscribed.
Because the Rural Social Scheme is a top up to the level of Farm Assist payable, it will be now worthwhile for more farmers to avail of Farm Assist, even at a very low rate of payment, and carry on into the RSS.
Decoupling may kill off some life in rural Ireland, but the Rural Social Scheme will keep it ticking over, at least.
