Mr. Padraig Hannafin:

May I just come in there as well? The Senator mentioned the reticence of people to enter employment. We in the rehab area are holding focus groups with our service users in preparation for a pre-budget submission and one of the questions we asked them was what is their biggest barrier to entering employment. Our service users believe that the greatest barrier to them entering employment is fear and anxiety about losing supports such as the medical card and travel pass and the fear that they would eventually end up paying to work rather than being paid to work when the losses they would incur as a result of losing supports are taken into account.