Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to revise a figure. I confirm that the FIS spending figure for next year will be €350 million.

We did have these discussions and our dear departed advisers may have had a lot of ideas on how to simplify things. We examined all the ideas. My overwhelming political priority is to get people back to work. The reform of the FIS scheme has made FIS much easier to avail of. Also, it is simpler, the response rate is rapid and there is an awful lot more information available on FIS. As a consequence, we are now talking about 100,000 children and 48,000 families benefitting from the scheme.

Let me be very clear about the reason for the back to work dividend. When I was previously involved in the Department I developed a back to work scheme which was strongly supported by the then Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Michael Woods. The scheme lasted for a long period and it was highly successful on the ground, particularly in local communities. I have been very anxious to develop a number of targeted schemes which give people an up-front incentive to transit from unemployment to work. I hope that the back to work family dividend will be one such initiative.

As the Deputy said, there were proposals on the troika menu in areas such as disability. The proposals were left in a menu of previous agreements between the previous Government and the troika. We examined the proposals but I was not convinced of their merit, although the previous Government was convinced. The consequences for individuals and families could potentially, in some cases, have been extremely severe.