Dr. Tom Boland:

The issue of the Traveller who had his name changed was brought up by several Deputies. Those data are protected by the Waterford Institute of Technology research ethics board and we are not in a position to share it in a straightforward way. We publish reports and books which have anonymised data which deals with these matters in brief. We have submitted several papers to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and the Minister. We will hopefully produce more in the future. It is important confidentiality is respected in this case. Basically what happened was that the man was attempting to co-operate. Then somebody told him this was his CV. It was changed online more or less in front of him and submitted. They took over the whole process for him. He had no agency whatsoever. They just did it to him without his consent.

Despite all the talk, JobPath is not really payment by performance or outcome. What is performing is not the JobPath provider but the Irish economy. If the economy performs, people get better jobs. One can tell from the quantitative data, even though there is an initial bounce of people making commencements of employment, 25% which is higher than that without JobPath, these are people who do not stay in employment for any longer time. The negative effects of using the stick with the threat of sanctions will have negative effects in the long term. It only acts as a sort of an intimidating middleman which makes sure people apply for whatever jobs are going. It is not intervening in a natural market but creating a market. It is what we call market coaxing. It forces people to enter the market and apply for jobs below what makes sense economically or personally for them. It is a significant problem.

We have talked a great deal about what we want and come back to the fact that activation is an OECD and EU-wide policy. For decades the Irish system was criticised for being too passive, which, to an extent, was a misunderstanding. We were active, in that we provided training and back to education supports. This conditionality was missing. As several people have suggested and in replying to Senator Higgins, a system of work first does not work. Human capital building, educational opportunities and training, in terms of whatever people choose, do work. A system will be designed to follow up with activation of some form. The question is what form that activation should take. It is clear from what we have heard that it needs to be professionally run and focused on training and so forth, but we need to think about it realistically. Even if they are properly administered legally, backed up and passed by the Oireachtas, with proper oversight by the Attorney General, sanctions are and were a part of the welfare regime, except that they were a nuclear option in that a person's entitlements were taken away entirely. We now have smaller sanctions that can be applied with due caution. We need to look at how they are applied. We will not remove them entirely because then there would no stick whatsoever, but we need to look at how we apply them. They need to be signposted clearly. We must identify things that are compulsory such as attendance at meetings, but as far as possible everything can be optional. There should be a way to include proportionality such as leniency for a first offence or a warning. In France, there is a three refusal system. I have talked to people in Brittany and their system appears to be that someone can refuse three jobs before he or she can be sanctioned. They are regulated properly to ensure a job is suitable for the individual concerned. We could do this. We can photocopy a better policy than the UK policy. A reoriented and changed welfare system which would be trumpeted in some way must undo a lot of the damage done to the economy by low wages and precarious work and also restore people's faith that someone will be helped and not subject to caprice. The rules must be clear and explained. Everyone should be given a chance and there should be a generous interpretation. We need to renew the sense that social welfare is a safety net that can be relied on and that the regime builds cohesion and a better economy, with decent work for people and an expectation that, if one falls on hard times, there will be solidarity, that the system will help and that the State will offer support.