Dr. Ray Griffin:

I thank the Chairman and the members of the committee for inviting us to present our research and contribute to the discussion on JobPath. I am joined by Dr. Aisling Tuite, an Irish Research Council post-doctoral researcher who is working on the Waterford unemployment research collaborative project at WIT Since 2012, we have interviewed 121 unemployed individuals as part of our aspiration to capture the experience of unemployment. Our work over seven years has captured the considerable transformation of welfare services under the Pathways to Work policy initiative. Since 2014, in our data we can clearly see a significant shift towards a less supportive, more conditional, less empathetic and more pressurising welfare system in which the threat of sanctions is ever-present. The individuals who are subject to this system are forced to perform as directed by Intreo case officers or JobPath providers, often against their better judgment and usually without any positive outcome for themselves.

Since 2016, many jobseekers have distinguished between their experience in Intreo offices and their experience after being referred to JobPath. They feel that the pressure on them intensified distinctly after this referral. They moved from a bureaucratic system which could be unsympathetic and was often given to autocratic direction and demands to a system that actively and capriciously patronises, cajoles, threatens, manipulates and, at times, bullies them. Many of them believe this service represents a deliberate attempt by the State to lower their expectations of work in terms of their reservation wage and an interference in their family and caring responsibilities. They believe that long-term concerns for career development and life balance are notably absent among JobPath providers. They consider that while welfare services may be intended to support re-entry into work, many aspects of various schemes compound the negative experience of unemployment.

In our research, we encountered 25 individuals who reported direct personal experiences with JobPath, largely through Turas Nua. We did not seek positive or negative experiences. Instead, we looked for authentic accounts of the contemporary experience of unemployment. We encountered reflections on the service that are very different from those in the evaluations of the Department and of JobPath providers. All 25 interviewees recalled being forced to undertake futile bureaucratic routines, such as mandated and monitored job search activity. For example, they were watched over while they sat at a computer for a number of hours to ensure they did Internet searches for jobs. When they had their CVs rewritten for them, they considered that their CVs were massaged to orient them towards existing job interviews without reference to long-term career development, personal circumstances or responsibilities. All of the people to whom we spoke reported that they were forced to undertake coaching, personal effectiveness and confidence training that was delivered largely by unqualified and inexperienced trainers and served to undermine their confidence and sense of self-worth. They were asked over and over again to provide proof of job searches, under suspicion of duplicity. They felt intimidated over technical or minor infractions of the Byzantine rules of these schemes. They were often required to accept employment that they considered incompatible with their career ambitions or family responsibilities.

I would like to provide some specific examples. More detailed cases are set out in our submission. We encountered a woman who was sanctioned and ended up relying on a food bank and on high-interest debt. We encountered a Traveller who, despite a decade of full-time schooling, left the education system with low levels of literacy. He was enrolled in mandated training that required high levels of literacy. He had his name amended on his CV against his wishes to conceal his ethnicity when searching for a job. We encountered an aspiring architect with carefully husbanded career ambitions who found that her job search was micromanaged in a way that undermined her carefully laid plan to develop a reputation with local employers. She was directed to reduce her expectations and accept other types of work. We also encountered a pregnant woman was directed, under threat of sanction, to accept work at a call centre in a location some distance away which she had absolutely no means of getting to. There was no public transport. She was advised to make friends with people so that she could car-share, car-pool or something.

We should emphasise that all respondents gave details of the continual threat of sanctions, which had the effect of making it appear that it was compulsory to engage and comply with the various tasks they were encouraged to undertake. Our data demonstrate that beyond the application of sanctions, the process of activation under threat of sanction is in and of itself a negative experience. The process is a punishment. Our qualitative data is commensurate with international experiences. If we compare the percentage of individuals sanctioned against international benchmarks, we will find that JobPath is not a harsh sanctioning regime. However, we know that the ever-present threat of sanctions has negative long-term consequences for the well-being and future earnings of individuals. Officially, sanctioning decisions are made only by the Intreo office but the experience of jobseekers is that in practice, a recommendation of sanction by a JobPath provider appears to be a fait accompli. When we spoke to counter staff and case officers in welfare offices as part of prior research, JobPath providers were described as making decisions on sanctions, with Intreo simply implementing them. In our interview data, we did not encounter any positive experience that we could report to the committee today.

My colleague, Dr. Boland, will detail our policy evaluation of JobPath.