Ms Bríd O'Brien:

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the invitation to address them about access to activation supports for people who, from our perspective, primarily are not in receipt of a payment. It was important to put this in the context of the major changes that are under way. Since January 2012 the Department of Social Protection has incorporated FÁS employment and community services. It has reconfigured the system and rolled out the Pathways to Work approach, which aims to provide a more targeted income and support system to people who are unemployed and, in many respects, some of this is as a consequence of criticisms coming from organisations such as the OECD over many years. One of the difficulties with much of that reconfiguration, and that has been raised with us by individuals members and affiliated organisations, is that to access income and activation supports - in effect to access the public employment service - one must be in receipt of a jobseeker's payment, be it jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance. That leaves many people unable to access those supports; I refer to people who are not in receipt of either of those payments - people who are in receipt of a one-parent family payment or people who are in receipt of disability payment. One of the concerns that has been raised with us by affiliates is the current lack of access to a public employment service.
We are conscious that the services were in need of reform but we would like to see that such reform has as its core a person-centred approach and that the principles of equality and social inclusion are embedded within that approach. To roll out such services, it is important that the staff who provide them have good training and supports because they need a good working knowledge of social protection, education and training, and employment programmes and then of job opportunities in the wider labour market, which, from an activation perspective, is critical. A question we are regularly asked by unemployed people and others is: "Activation for what?", and without there being jobs, that is a very good question.
As the members are no doubt aware, SOLAS published Ireland’s first further education and training strategy in May. One of the aspects of it we welcome is its learner-centred approach. In its mission statement it states "enable individuals and communities to achieve their developmental, personal, social career and employment aspirations". There is that important role that further education and training and activation in those areas can play in terms of supporting people to be able to find work and in terms of their own personal health and well-being.
At our annual delegate conference in 2011 the following motion was put to conference: "The INOU calls on the Government to ensure access for unemployed people not included on the Live Register to the full range of employment, training and education supports including the Training Allowances and other supports." It was put to the conference by the general branch, which is the mechanism through which individual members can engage with the formal structures of the INOU. To be an individual member a person must be unemployed, regardless of whether she or he is in receipt of a social welfare payment, or the nature of that payment. There would be a number of people in receipt of other social welfare payments, be it the one-parent family payment or a disability payment to our individual members.
Mr. Michael McNamara, who is a member of the general branch, spoke at the time - this was prior to some of the changes that have come through with the reconfiguration of the system - of being offered opportunities of re-education and retraining but of not being able to access them because he could not access a payment because his wife was working and he then found it very difficult to participate on the course. That closed off an opportunity for him to be able to reskill and re-enter the workforce. In many respects, his circumstances reflect a space in which a good number of unemployed people find themselves - their jobseeker's benefit has come to an end and they do not make the transition to jobseeker's allowance. Approximately one third of those who leave the live register fall into this category.
In the case of a person aged under 25, their parent’s income is taken into account and in the case of a person over that age, the income of their spouse or partner - or the means of the person concerned if they have means - is taken into account and that can mean that the person concerned does not make the transition to jobseeker's allowance. The person may find that after six or nine months they are unable to access activation supports and in many cases people find that were not able to access such supports because they would not have been deemed officially unemployed long enough to be able to do so. The other category in this respect are people who are self-employed. These people were not entitled to a jobseeker's benefit payments because they were not paying the necessary social contributions and may not have applied for a jobseeker's allowance payment because they may have assumed they were not entitled to one although they may have been, or they may not have been able to access it because of the means test. They are in a very similar space to somebody coming to the end of their jobseeker's benefit payment.
We are conscious as a result of the issues raised with our welfare rights section through our individual members and affiliated organisations and the training work we do that many people fall into these two categories and many people who have worked ten, 20 or 30 years feel very badly let down by Ireland's social protection education and training and employment support services. This is very much captured by an e-mail we received from a woman in Tipperary who asked us:

Are there others like me? I am currently unemployed but not in receipt of any SW payment as my husband is in full-time employment. I have no problem with that but what does annoy me is that I cannot apply for any Employment Schemes, FÁS courses etc. because I have to be in receipt of a payment. I really want to get employment and would happily work in a scheme but find the situation very unfair ... I feel as if I am the forgotten unemployed!!

On the situation the lady in question and Michael raised, prior to budget 2010 people were able to access a FÁS training allowance and were able to participate on a course. In that budget access to such a payment ceased and since then with the way the system has been reconfigured, access has been further tightened and it is now very difficult if one is not in receipt of a payment to apply for a scheme or FÁS course.

Feedback from affiliates, individual members and others highlight the importance of being able to participate on a programme for people’s health and well-being and the negative impact when people cannot access a course or scheme. Likewise, we are conscious that being forced to participate on something that one does not deem suitable or feel is going to improve one’s chances of getting a job can have equally negative consequences for people. We feel choice is really important and people being supported to make an informed choice. Being unemployed impacts on people’s confidence and their ability to network. We regularly hear that it is difficult to hear about a job if one is not in a job. As we all know, so much information in Ireland goes around informal networks. It is critical to have the choice to be able to access supports and could make such a difference to people. It is an important issue to address and it is critical that if Ireland is to emerge out of this crisis that it would have a more equitable and inclusive society. We recommend that the matter is addressed urgently; that access to programmes is based on wider criteria than a person’s live register status; that programme participants are given the wherewithal to support their engagement; and that the public employment service develops the capacity to respond to the needs of all people of working age seeking employment.