Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. O'Sullivan for coming before the joint committee and her presentation which was most interesting. A lot of what she said resonated strongly with me. The committee has discussed these matters occasionally and I note the points she is making. It is not just a question of providing access to education. I take her point about the difficulty in receiving SUSI grants, jobseeker's allowance and so on when one is returning to full-time education because I regularly deal with this issue on a constituency basis.

During the years I have known people who had to forgo access to further education simply because they could not afford it. The issue is wider than access to education or being in a dead-end job. I strongly believe activation services should not be linked with compulsion. In this country we have an activation service which is directly linked with compulsion. I know of no evidence that a person placed in a low-paid job will be incentivised to improve himself or herself. As Dr. O'sullivan said, that policy does not help social mobility.

As I said, it is not just a question of providing access to education.

I have come across cases of people who were interested in getting involved in a particular line of work but were forced by the system into another type of job that had absolutely no relevance to them whatsoever. They did so on pain of incurring the relevant penalties if they did not take up a particular offer. We have been trying to argue those policy points with the Minister and the Department and we have been trying to get the Department to understand what we are saying. Dr. O'Sullivan's personal experience, which she was good enough to share with us today, will be a powerful additional argument because it shows how what we are saying theoretically works in the real world. I thank Dr. O'Sullivan for a very interesting presentation.