Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 12 June 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection

Eligibility for Employment Activation Measures: Discussion

10:00 am

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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The topic of today's meeting is consideration of the case for extending eligibility in respect of certain employment activation measures.
I draw the attention of the witnesses to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. I also wish to advise witnesses that the opening statements they submitted to the committee will be published on the committee's website following the meeting. Members are likewise reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that I have outlined.
I ask everybody to ensure their mobile phones are on flight or aeroplane mode or switched off as they interfere with the broadcasting equipment.
The Department of Social Protection has put in place a range of activation measures in recent years to facilitate unemployed persons, which include the JobBridge scheme and so on. Concerns have been expressed by groups that certain people who could benefit from such measures are currently not eligible to apply for them, and members of the committee have raised that issue a number of times.
To brief the committee on this matter, I am pleased to welcome Ms Bríd O'Brien and Ms Lorraine Hennessy representing the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed; Ms Alice-Mary Higgins and Dr. Mary Murphy representing the National Women's Council of Ireland; and Mr. John McKeon, Mr. Niall Egan and Mr. Eoin O'Sheaghda representing the Department of Social Protection. To get the discussion under way, I invite Ms O'Brien to make the presentation on behalf of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed.

Ms Bríd O'Brien:

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the invitation to address them about access to activation supports for people who, from our perspective, primarily are not in receipt of a payment. It was important to put this in the context of the major changes that are under way. Since January 2012 the Department of Social Protection has incorporated FÁS employment and community services. It has reconfigured the system and rolled out the Pathways to Work approach, which aims to provide a more targeted income and support system to people who are unemployed and, in many respects, some of this is as a consequence of criticisms coming from organisations such as the OECD over many years. One of the difficulties with much of that reconfiguration, and that has been raised with us by individuals members and affiliated organisations, is that to access income and activation supports - in effect to access the public employment service - one must be in receipt of a jobseeker's payment, be it jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance. That leaves many people unable to access those supports; I refer to people who are not in receipt of either of those payments - people who are in receipt of a one-parent family payment or people who are in receipt of disability payment. One of the concerns that has been raised with us by affiliates is the current lack of access to a public employment service.
We are conscious that the services were in need of reform but we would like to see that such reform has as its core a person-centred approach and that the principles of equality and social inclusion are embedded within that approach. To roll out such services, it is important that the staff who provide them have good training and supports because they need a good working knowledge of social protection, education and training, and employment programmes and then of job opportunities in the wider labour market, which, from an activation perspective, is critical. A question we are regularly asked by unemployed people and others is: "Activation for what?", and without there being jobs, that is a very good question.
As the members are no doubt aware, SOLAS published Ireland’s first further education and training strategy in May. One of the aspects of it we welcome is its learner-centred approach. In its mission statement it states "enable individuals and communities to achieve their developmental, personal, social career and employment aspirations". There is that important role that further education and training and activation in those areas can play in terms of supporting people to be able to find work and in terms of their own personal health and well-being.
At our annual delegate conference in 2011 the following motion was put to conference: "The INOU calls on the Government to ensure access for unemployed people not included on the Live Register to the full range of employment, training and education supports including the Training Allowances and other supports." It was put to the conference by the general branch, which is the mechanism through which individual members can engage with the formal structures of the INOU. To be an individual member a person must be unemployed, regardless of whether she or he is in receipt of a social welfare payment, or the nature of that payment. There would be a number of people in receipt of other social welfare payments, be it the one-parent family payment or a disability payment to our individual members.
Mr. Michael McNamara, who is a member of the general branch, spoke at the time - this was prior to some of the changes that have come through with the reconfiguration of the system - of being offered opportunities of re-education and retraining but of not being able to access them because he could not access a payment because his wife was working and he then found it very difficult to participate on the course. That closed off an opportunity for him to be able to reskill and re-enter the workforce. In many respects, his circumstances reflect a space in which a good number of unemployed people find themselves - their jobseeker's benefit has come to an end and they do not make the transition to jobseeker's allowance. Approximately one third of those who leave the live register fall into this category.
In the case of a person aged under 25, their parent’s income is taken into account and in the case of a person over that age, the income of their spouse or partner - or the means of the person concerned if they have means - is taken into account and that can mean that the person concerned does not make the transition to jobseeker's allowance. The person may find that after six or nine months they are unable to access activation supports and in many cases people find that were not able to access such supports because they would not have been deemed officially unemployed long enough to be able to do so. The other category in this respect are people who are self-employed. These people were not entitled to a jobseeker's benefit payments because they were not paying the necessary social contributions and may not have applied for a jobseeker's allowance payment because they may have assumed they were not entitled to one although they may have been, or they may not have been able to access it because of the means test. They are in a very similar space to somebody coming to the end of their jobseeker's benefit payment.
We are conscious as a result of the issues raised with our welfare rights section through our individual members and affiliated organisations and the training work we do that many people fall into these two categories and many people who have worked ten, 20 or 30 years feel very badly let down by Ireland's social protection education and training and employment support services. This is very much captured by an e-mail we received from a woman in Tipperary who asked us:

Are there others like me? I am currently unemployed but not in receipt of any SW payment as my husband is in full-time employment. I have no problem with that but what does annoy me is that I cannot apply for any Employment Schemes, FÁS courses etc. because I have to be in receipt of a payment. I really want to get employment and would happily work in a scheme but find the situation very unfair ... I feel as if I am the forgotten unemployed!!

On the situation the lady in question and Michael raised, prior to budget 2010 people were able to access a FÁS training allowance and were able to participate on a course. In that budget access to such a payment ceased and since then with the way the system has been reconfigured, access has been further tightened and it is now very difficult if one is not in receipt of a payment to apply for a scheme or FÁS course.

Feedback from affiliates, individual members and others highlight the importance of being able to participate on a programme for people’s health and well-being and the negative impact when people cannot access a course or scheme. Likewise, we are conscious that being forced to participate on something that one does not deem suitable or feel is going to improve one’s chances of getting a job can have equally negative consequences for people. We feel choice is really important and people being supported to make an informed choice. Being unemployed impacts on people’s confidence and their ability to network. We regularly hear that it is difficult to hear about a job if one is not in a job. As we all know, so much information in Ireland goes around informal networks. It is critical to have the choice to be able to access supports and could make such a difference to people. It is an important issue to address and it is critical that if Ireland is to emerge out of this crisis that it would have a more equitable and inclusive society. We recommend that the matter is addressed urgently; that access to programmes is based on wider criteria than a person’s live register status; that programme participants are given the wherewithal to support their engagement; and that the public employment service develops the capacity to respond to the needs of all people of working age seeking employment.

10:10 am

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I thank Bríd O'Brien very much. The next speaker is Alice-Mary Higgins.

Ms Alice-Mary Higgins:

Thank you, Chairman. I also thank the committee for this opportunity which we appreciate. I represent the National Women’s Council of Ireland, NWCI, which is the leading national women's membership organisation in Ireland. We represent 175 member groups across a diversity of backgrounds that have different interests in this area. We also represent a growing and committed individual membership. Economic independence for women, which is key to the discussion, is a core priority of our work.

The NWCI has long argued, most recently in the Careless to Careful Activation Report, produced by Dr. Mary Murphy who is present, that the limited focus on the live register on jobseeker payments cannot reflect or address the full picture of joblessness in Ireland or the levels of unemployment or underemployment among women of working age. While the live register may illustrate some important trends in terms of gender - men, for example leave the register at four times the rate for women, a large number of women who are jobless fall outside its scope. This is a useful opportunity to move the public and political debate on unemployment beyond the rise and fall of the live register and on to the question of joblessness.

We hoped to contribute perspectives on two aspects of context and then to make a couple of specific recommendations for the committee. The first important context is that wider access to activation will be needed in order for Ireland to meet its obligations and commitments on the increased economic participation of women. Increased economic participation of women is a core objective of Ireland’s national women’s strategy. It is also a key requirement within the Europe 2020 strategy. Earlier this month, the first country specific recommendations, CSRs, for Ireland delivered under the EU semester process strongly emphasised the need for new measures to support women’s economic participation. The CSRs noted that "Ireland has one of the highest proportions of people living in households with low work intensity in the EU." The rate moved from 14.% in 2007 to 24.% in 2011. The CSR also highlighted "the unequal labour market participation of women at 67.2% in 2013, as compared with 83.4% for men." It is worth noting that participation rates fall to 55% for married women.

The ESRI also noted a reversal in the long-term rise in female participation rates during recent years. Child care and access to child care must be tackled in order to ensure that Ireland’s targets for participation are to be achieved. That can be seen when we look at the Central Statistics Office's annual Women and Men in Ireland 2011 report. It is an important report that must be maintained on an annual basis. I am aware the matter is currently under discussion. In 2011, labour market participation for men and women aged 20 to 44 was equal at 85% for those without children. However, for those with a youngest child aged under three, women’s participation rate plummets to 57%, and even after the youngest child has reached the age of six, women’s participation still remains at only 58%. Clearly, that is a point at which women are falling out of the labour market and remaining out. The NWCI would strongly recommend that child care, and access to child care support such as the extension of child care supports currently available to those accessing various jobseekers schemes and projects, including afterschool care, should be considered as an essential as part of non-income activation support within the committee’s proposals.

Women also face significant obstacles to re-entering the labour market after any period of absence, as described by Bríd O’Brien. Those who have been out of the labour market for a period find avenues of activation have been closed to them. One of the few initiatives that was previously available was the spousal swap. The focus on the INOU’s presentation was on activation supports through means testing or due to their partner's employment. That has a strong gender dimension and particularly impacts on women and household insecurity. Given the increasingly precarious nature of much employment, including much employment available to women, for example, who may be offered precarious employment, there can be a reluctance to take it up if it inhibits the access that others in the family, including a partner, might have to activation. It is worth noting that by limiting activation in that way one is pushing families into a situation of relying on one partner to work which might be precarious and households can easily may slip into joblessness. We support the extension of training supports so that households have resilience and that they are job ready, and that one is looking at two job-ready individuals within a household.

Voluntary access to certain activation supports would also be welcomed by many women on disability payments. An option to seek out training or career planning supports could prove important to many women on one-parent family allowance to ensure they feel job ready after a period of absence. That should be a resource that is made available around career planning and training programme access.

Those are some of the issues of importance but in the limited time available I wish to focus on the specific question of qualified adults. In many ways they are a legacy of the social protection system’s origins in the idea of a single, usually male, breadwinner who is also the financial decision maker. Under the arrangement, recipients of social welfare payment such as a contributory pension or jobseeker’s allowance may receive an increase in their payment in respect of a qualified adult, previously known as an adult dependant, usually their spouse or partner.

There is a strong gendered dimension to this arrangement. More than 90% of qualified adults are women and, although in certain circumstances direct payment to the qualified adult is facilitated, the overall arrangement of payment to the usually male claimant for both partners contributes to an imbalance in the power and decision-making dynamics within families and households, including the decision to return to work. Those concerns were highlighted by women themselves in recent research by Creegan and Murphy. One quote is: "Sure I can hardly go to the shops without him wanting to know where I am, never mind working".

That power dynamic needs to be addressed, and extending access to activation supports is a way to ensure that women do not have to move through a filter.

Given that women are not in the system in their own right, very little is known about qualified adults. The National Women's Council has long called for a comprehensive data survey on the numbers of qualified adults and their circumstances. We strongly support the policy recommendations made by the Department of Social Protection, in its 2006 report, which suggested administrative individualisation as an important step towards an individualised social welfare system and concluded that "each person will have access in their own right to our system". Such administrative individualisation could be introduced. I am aware Dr. Murphy has a number of proposals as to how administrative individualisation could be incrementally and practically introduced, and we might address those during questions. These non-income activation proposals are a positive step in the right direction.

Currently, almost no activation schemes are open to qualified adults. Previously, the spousal swap was a very limited scheme that allowed a jobseeker claimant to transfer their entitlement to accessing community employment, CE, or back-to-education allowance to a partner. That was concluded in January of this year and the scheme has ended. Even though that scheme was flawed in that the decision rested with the usually male partner claimant, it allowed some families to negotiate a transfer between the breadwinner or carer roles in a family and to examine how those were allocated. Are we running out of time?

10:20 am

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Yes. I must ask Ms Higgins to conclude and she can deal with some of the other issues later.

Ms Alice-Mary Higgins:

Could I make my three recommendations?

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Yes.

Ms Alice-Mary Higgins:

Apologies for running over time. The key point I would make is that research has found that where jobseeker claimants are claiming an extension for qualified adults there is only 67% of the normal rate of claim closure. These are jobless households which are not closing claims. Reports have also found that 50% of qualified adults make use of a small income disregard available to them. That shows that many women are keen to engage with the labour market. That is the reason qualified adults in many cases may have more to gain and contribute in terms of access to activation or training opportunities. Opening up opportunities to both partners could have a positive impact on reducing the number of jobless households.

I will not elaborate on them but there are four factors to be considered in this regard. Choice is fundamental. It must be voluntary and decision-making must lie with qualified adults. An appropriate range of options must be made available. I referred to individualisation earlier. Education first approaches are often most appropriate for qualified adults, and the 2010 reversal in access to training could be revisited. Child care, as I discussed, is another factor and also the question of training for case workers because research has found that job centre staff specifically lack knowledge in engaging with internal decision-making in households around the power dynamics to which I referred.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Mr. John McKeon is the next speaker.

Mr. John McKeon:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before it today for the discussion on the provision of activation supports. I am joined by my colleagues Niall Egan, who is a principal officer with responsibility for policy in respect of the provision of income supports for people of working age, and Eoin O'Sheaghda, who is our assistant principal officer working in our illness and disability policy division. The purpose of my opening statement is to provide the committee with an overview of the various activation services available to jobseekers and others. As usual, we are happy to take any questions at the conclusion of the statement.

The activation services provided by the Department of Social Protection can be categorised under three broad headings: employment services, employment programmes and employment supports. Employment services are personal advisory services such as those provided at our Intreo centres and those services funded by the Department and provided by local employment services and job clubs. These services include advice on job-search activities, personal support with the development of a personal progression plan, assistance in the development of curricula vitae and interview skills, the provision of guidance on education and training opportunities, and the provision of online job search tools. These services are, subject to resource capacity, available to all people regardless of their social welfare status. However, given the current level of unemployment, and in particular long-term and youth unemployment, resource capacity is prioritised to serve the needs of people who are unemployed and on the live register.

Apart from employment services, the Department provides a number of employment programmes to help jobseekers acquire and-or retain and maintain the currency of their employment skills. The programmes include temporary employment programmes such as community employment, Tús, the rural social scheme and Gateway; support for entry to self-employment through the back to work enterprise allowance; internships and work placements such as JobBridge and the work placement programme; and income maintenance support for return to education through the back-to-education allowance scheme.

In addition to employment services and programmes the Department operates a range of employment supports to assist jobseekers and employers. These include the JobsPlus subsidies for recruitment of long-term unemployed people; in-work income supports including family income supplement and income disregards for groups such as lone parents and carers; and a range of supports specifically for the recruitment and retention in employment of people with disabilities. These include EmployAbility, the wage subsidy scheme, the work equipment adaptation grant, the employee retention grant, the disability awareness scheme, and partial capacity benefit.

Expenditure by the Department on these activation services and supports is considerable and it is estimated that it will reach approximately €1.36 billion for 2014. Large numbers of participants are involved, for example, average budgeted participation in 2014 is just under 25,000 on community employment; just under 8,000 on Tús; just under 11,000 on the back to work allowance; just under 24,000 on the back-to-education allowance; and just under 7,000 on JobBridge.

Outside of the Department, the other main form of non-income activation support is through the provision of a range of training programmes by SOLAS and the education and training boards. These include programmes specifically tailored for young early school leavers; mainstream day and evening courses for unemployed people; and training specifically for people with disabilities provided through specialist training providers.

The Department of Education and Skills through the general education system also provides return to education options at second and third level that are availed of by unemployed people and people looking to re-enter the workforce. In the case of people of working age in receipt of a social welfare payment, income support in the form of the back-to-education allowance is available to sustain them for the duration of the course.

The Department of Education and Skills also provides through the Springboard programme a mechanism whereby unemployed graduates can undertake a third level conversion programme to acquire qualifications that are in demand in the labour market, for example, the conversion to IT programmes. Such graduates can avail of the back-to-education allowance scheme provided by the Department of Social Protection.

Eligibility for access to non-income activation services can be considered as falling into three categories. The first category is made up of people who are unemployed, not engaged in any employment activity and receiving a jobseekers welfare payment. Such people have access to the full range of employment services, subject in some cases to requirements in respect to the period of unemployment. The distinguishing feature of this group of people is that they declare themselves to be fully available for and genuinely seeking work and as such they are prioritised for, and are required to engage with, our activation services as part of the job search and availability conditions attaching to their welfare payment.

The second category is composed of persons in receipt of other working age welfare payments, for example, those related to disability, long-term illness, caring, casual-part-time working, and lone parenthood. In general, people in receipt of such payments do not declare themselves to be available for work. In the case of disability payments, recipients have declared themselves unfit for full-time work and have been assessed as such by the Department's medical assessors. Similarly, those people in receipt of carer's payments have self-declared that they are not available for full-time work. Accordingly, people in receipt of the payments mentioned are not required to engage with an activation support scheme as no job search or availability conditions are attached to their welfare payment. However, the Department is anxious that, in so far as resources allow, people in receipt of these payments should have access to supports from the Department so that they may have an opportunity, without obligation, to pursue employment options.

Accordingly they have access to the full range of supports, with the exception of Tús, JobsPlus and MOMENTUM or in other words, those payments or services which require a minimum duration of unemployment and where eligibility is limited to long-term recipients of jobseekers’ payments.

As for the jobseeker payment group, when participating on a scheme they receive a payment either equal to or higher than their prior welfare payment. It should in particular be noted that there is a number of specific activation services, such as the wage subsidy scheme and the EmployAbility service, provided to support people with disabilities access the labour market. We have set these out at appendix 1 to the opening statement. Recent changes to one-parent family payments also have introduced a category of transitional jobseeker payment specifically designed to address the employment services and activation needs of lone parents migrating from one-parent family payment status to jobseeker status as their children get older. Again, this is set out in appendix 2.

The third category is made up of people who are not in receipt, in their own name, of a working age welfare payment such as, for example, a person in respect of whom a spouse or partner, who is in receipt of a welfare payment, is claiming a qualified adult allowance. This group also includes people who, although they are seeking employment - for example are looking to re-enter the workforce - may not be entitled to a jobseeker payment because they do not satisfy insurance contribution or means conditions. For example, their means, based on the earnings of partners who are in employment, may exceed the threshold required to qualify for an income support payment. People in this category can register with our Intreo centres and with local employment services and job clubs and, subject to capacity and the priority which must be afforded to the other groups mentioned, will be offered access to the employment services provided at those centres. In terms of employment programmes and supports, the eligibility of this group is generally limited to access to SOLAS training for unemployed people, to the work placement programme and to the return-to-education options provided by the Department of Education and Skills. With the exception of some travel and meal allowances attached to the SOLAS and education and training board, ETB, programmes, there is no income support associated with participation on these programmes. However, it is important to note there are circumstances whereby people who are not in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment in their own names may, nevertheless, qualify for the full range of services and supports. For example, a person who is a qualified adult dependant on another’s jobseeker’s allowance claim may choose instead to claim jobseeker’s allowance in his or her own right and this is known as claim-splitting. In splitting the claim, the person concerned becomes subject to the job search and availability conditions attaching to his or her welfare payment but gains access to all employment supports on the same basis as other wholly unemployed claimants. Similarly, people with a prior history of social insurance contributions may be eligible to sign on for what are known as credited social welfare contributions or credits. People signing for credits, although not receiving a cash payment, are eligible to participate in a number of additional schemes, including JobBridge. Moreover, the spousal swap option is still available, certainly in respect of the back-to-education allowance scheme.

The principal rationale for the differential approach to treatment I have set out is that, in a period of high unemployment and given the detrimental impact of prolonged periods of unemployment at an individual, family and societal level, the key objective of activation policy has to be to provide a pathway back to employment for people with a work capacity who already are, or who will in the absence of support become, long-term unemployed. A further consideration is that State expenditure should be targeted towards those who, on the basis of an assessment of means, need support the most. These policy objectives prioritise the allocation of scarce resources in the first instance to those people in receipt of qualifying welfare payments, in particular those for whom there is a job-seeking conditionality where the State should, in line with the principle of rights and responsibilities, match this conditionality with the provision of services to support the jobseeker on the pathway back to employment. However the State also is mindful that other unemployed people could benefit from support in accessing the labour market and has committed, as part of the Pathways to Work programme, to develop proposals during 2014 as to how the Intreo activation process can be extended to jobseekers not in receipt of a welfare payment.

I hope I have set out adequately the current situation with regard to the provision of activation services by the Department of Social Protection and my colleagues and I will be happy to answer any questions.

10:30 am

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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I dtús báire, ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil libh as an méid atá ráite agaibh. I asked that this issue be raised and examined to ascertain how the issue of the hidden unemployed can be addressed. In many ways that is what it is, namely, some people who may qualify for qualified adults allowance and others who do not exist in the system for one reason or another, many of whom formerly were self-employed and do not qualify for jobseeker's allowance. Such people may have built up savings and therefore, if means tested for supplementary welfare allowance, do not even get this until their means are reduced. My interest in this issue arose initially because a man from Cork wrote to me - interestingly, it was a man. While I had come across a number of cases over the years, all I could tell people was they had fallen into a crack and needed to sign on in their own right. That was the advice I had but in this instance, the man set out in considerable detail, over approximately ten pages, the consequences for him of being unemployed and not being able to access what he hoped would be some form of retraining or re-education away from the work he previously had undertaken. His point was that most schemes within the system require one to be in receipt of a social welfare payment, not to have built up credits or to have paid PRSI or anything else. I sought to bring this issue before the joint committee to try to tease out whether mechanisms exist that can be put in place. While members understand that funding is tight, the question is how can one address cases in which people seek not funds but access to a course, from which they then can go on to be in full-time employment again.

In the case to which I referred, the man had been self-employed formerly and his point was that he was excluded from the supports. Although he had paid class A PRSI for many years, on becoming unemployed he found himself excluded. He observed that although the advisory group on tax and social welfare has acknowledged this education and training deficit, the issue of the exclusion of such people has not been addressed. In another case, a man wrote to me last week stating that he lived with his girlfriend, who is unemployed, and that she was refused jobseeker's allowance on the basis of his means. However, he is not in the position to avail of her tax credits or allowances. This issue has been around for quite some time and ties in with this matter, in that she is being punished and there is no benefit. The idea of individualisation arises repeatedly and perhaps it must be examined.

I have another question with which the departmental officials may be able to help me. One problem is that if one decides to sign on in one's own right, one then must start from scratch. There is no recognition that one had qualified for a qualified adults allowance, whether for six months, six years or 36 years. Consequently, if one signs up in one's own right, the eligibility activation criteria, be they for six months, nine months or one year, all start from scratch. This can be a deterrent and there are cases of women who may be in abusive relationships, who desire to get out of them and who wish to have the requisite training to revert back to the work they had. However, because they do not have this, it may hold them in that abusive situation for longer. Obviously, were they to leave the home, they could qualify for a payment but one is starting from scratch. That is the key and one of the initial issues to be examined specifically could be the qualified adult allowance and a recognition that someone in receipt of that allowance is in receipt of a payment. If the State is recognising them, it should recognise they exist and this is a question for the Department.

Ms Alice-Mary Higgins made mention of Dr. Mary Murphy's proposals and Dr. Murphy might provide detail regarding the aforementioned administrative individualisation. Finally, Ms Higgins mentioned the spousal swap option had been ended but this was contradicted by Mr. McKeon.

10:40 am

Ms Alice-Mary Higgins:

To clarify, for CE schemes.

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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If one does not go to individualisation, there should be no restriction on spousal swap for any course and the system should recognise that. It is a sad day that we are this far developed in society and yet we have a hidden group out there who do not have access to the supports the State is putting in place.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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I welcome all the witnesses here today. I have been following a lot of their work with interest because I am interested in social welfare. I have Dr. Murphy's report, and there is quite a lot in it.

I could talk all day about these matters but I will try to summarise what I want to say. On the access to programmes, Mr. McKeon has contradicted that by stating that applicants have access. According to his report, they will not have access to funding but they will have access to all the activation programmes.

On women in the home, prior to 1995 the women had no homemaker's credits. The men are sick of me because I bring this up at every committee meeting they attend. The women who are facing pension reductions today are in that position because we moved the goalposts. I state constantly that these women should be given credits the same as the women after 1995. What is the difference between women prior to and after 1995? I cannot see it. Obviously, it all boils down to funding.

Ms Higgins has much in her presentation. Of course, needless to say, in a wonderful world it would be great, but the fact is we are dealing with limited funding and there is no getting away from it. Where someone has been in the home rearing children or whatever, the children have gone off to work or are going themselves, and the person can go back to work, he or she cannot access jobseeker's allowance because the person's spouse is earning too much. No doubt we cannot merely open a floodgate and state that everyone can get a payment, even if his or her spouse's earnings are considerable, because we do not have the funding to do so.

For the departmental officials, I will give the example of a carer in the home where the child being cared for is gone off to school for the day and the carer wants to do a course to retrain. Such carers find they can access the course but they cannot take it up because, if it is over 15 hours, they immediately lose their carer's allowance. That is ridiculous because the child is in school for those hours and the carer should be able to do that course. I have had several cases of carers who tried to do that and lost their carer's allowance, which is ridiculous. They should be allowed to do a training course to retrain themselves in another area. Even when the person being cared for passes away or no longer needs caring, the carer has a wealth of experience and knowledge in caring. They could be a special needs assistant or a home help, but they must access a course to get their qualifications for it. All of these matters are proving to be problems for them.

Ms O'Brien stated that one third of those who are on jobseeker's benefit do not make the transition to jobseeker's allowance where they are unable to access activation supports, but I cannot understand why they are not signing for credits which will give them access to the activation supports. There should be no reason they cannot. The only ones who cannot access credits are those who come off a self-employed contribution, which is another issue I have taken up with the Department on several occasions. Someone who is self-employed, comes off a class S contribution and signs on for jobseeker's allowance and is successful does not get a credit contribution even though he or she is signing for jobseeker's allowance. It does not make sense to me. I will keep that fight going.

The issue of child care has to be tackled. Last year we hoped to put in the second free year of preschool. We all know what happened there, that the funding had to go to retraining.

There is another matter I want to raise with the officials. I have a lady who is coming off the one-parent family payment and going onto jobseeker's allowance. She went to the local office last week and she came to me for help with the forms. While I have every faith in Intreo, which is good and is really working, she came into my office and asked would I help her fill them. I filled five forms, one of which is large and has detailed information and four others, including a yellow one and a white one which for some reason means test twice those on jobseeker's allowance. The five forms contained the exact same information about one's children, one's relationship with them, whether one lives with the applicant, etc. I cannot understand why, in this day and age, one form will not suffice and the information is not keyed into the computer from the one form where all the social welfare officers can access that information. The woman was overwhelmed. She has not worked in many years because she was rearing her family. She has no choice but to go onto jobseeker's allowance and here she is presented with this barrage of paperwork. It is crazy and I cannot understand it. I immediately rang the social welfare office in Killarney and spoke to a social welfare officer who said she had no idea what I was talking about. I said I would bring it in, and I meant to bring it today to show the officials present in case they think I am exaggerating, which I am not. Five forms containing the exact same information does not make sense.

I will leave it at that. I will come back in afterwards, if I have time. I could speak all day on this issue.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I will start with Mr. McKeon because there are a good few matters.

Mr. John McKeon:

The issue of individualisation and tax credits is still being looked at by the advisory group on tax and social welfare, and we expect a report in the next month or two. Its report will be published and there will be a opportunity to discuss it here. Mr. Niall Egan is more familiar with it and he may want to say something. We are expecting that report shortly.

On the question about starting from scratch where, for example, a qualified adult decides to split a claim or move on, Deputy Ó Snodaigh is correct that such is the position. It is not one that has been raised with us previously but we will have a look at it. We apply conditionality for access to schemes as flexibly as we can. For example, there would be other schemes which take applicants off the live register and then they want to go on MOMENTUM, and they are on community employment. We take account of and aggregate their time if they have been on another scheme and are moving between schemes. In principle, there is not an issue with it. I will check to see whether there is an administrative issue that might make it difficult, but certainly that is something we will definitely look at. It is not something we would want to put in the way of anybody. We would recognise their time spent as a qualified adult. If at all possible, we will change it so that such is taken into account.

On the spousal swap issue, I would say that, certainly, on back to education allowance, it is still there. I will check the position on community employment. It is not one that has been raised with me. I am not aware of a decision, but it might have happened. If I am told it has, I am sure it has.

Ms Alice-Mary Higgins:

I hope so. If not, I apologise. It is as far as we understand it.

Mr. John McKeon:

We will check into it, but we maintain that on the back-to-education allowance scheme. I will write to the clerk to the committee to clarify the position on community employment.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Could Mr. McKeon explain spousal swap, perhaps in a note? I was not aware of that.

Mr. John McKeon:

The spousal swap is a situation - Mr. Egan might be able to explain this better than I can - where a person who is the qualified adult on a scheme wants to take up, for example, a training programme or to go on community employment. Such a person is not entitled in his or her own name to take it, but if the person's partner is, and the partner may not want access to that training scheme or community employment, they can swap their entitlement. I think that is it.

Mr. Niall Egan:

That is it. Essentially, they are using their primary recipient's time spent in receipt of a payment. Duration is usually the primary criterion the Department has for a lot of the programmes. They are using that criterion to access usually the education or employment programme. As Mr. McKeon stated, we will clarify the position in relation to spousal swaps for the committee.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Was there any other?

Mr. John McKeon:

I had some queries from Senator Moloney. The issue about the five forms seems strange. There should not be five forms or anything like it. If the Senator wants to pass them to me-----

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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I will photocopy them and send them to Mr. McKeon. I am not exaggerating. There are five forms.

Mr. John McKeon:

I apologise if that is the case. If there are five forms, our Intreo centre staff should have taken care to help the person fill them out instead of letting the person go off to her public representative. We will look into that. It should not be the case. We have streamlined it as much as possible.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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Before Mr. McKeon moves on from that, most who present themselves to a social welfare office are given a form to take away, fill up and bring back.

In an ideal world, the social welfare officer would do that job. However, it does not happen.

10:50 am

Mr. John McKeon:

For most people, it makes sense to do what the Senator described because a form may request accompanying evidence of earnings or a P45, for example. However, people who have difficulty should be able to go back to the office and say they cannot make head nor tail of the form and request help. Generally, that is the service we provide.

Mr. Niall Egan:

In the Department we are undergoing a huge transformation in respect of the one-parent family payment. As a few speakers have stated, one of the main issues is that many lone parents will lose their entitlement to the one-parent family payment because the age threshold for entitlement reduced last July and is to be reduced this coming July and July of next year. Owing to the way the legislation is drafted, the vast bulk of people who will be affected this year will lose their entitlement on a single day, 3 July 2014. We have put in place a very streamlined process. We have written to all affected one-parent family payment recipients inviting them to an information session to talk them through their various options. This group needs a lot of help because many of those concerned may never have gone to a social welfare office in the past. It is a question of making them aware of all the available supports, including family income supplement, the carer's allowance, disability allowance and jobseeker's allowance, and explaining the jobseeker's transitional arrangement, which is a special arrangement specifically for lone parents making the transition. Part of the process involves a streamlined application. Therefore, I am very surprised to hear the Senator’s remarks.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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I will have to show it to Mr. Egan.

Mr. Niall Egan:

The Senator should do so. It is important because approximately 5,000 people will be affected by the change in July. If they are all filling out five forms, we need to examine the procedure urgently. It is possible that the person to whom the Senator was referring may not be part of the more streamlined process and may have just timed out in advance-----

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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No, she went to the meeting Mr. Egan mentioned and is part of the process. She has the various forms.

Mr. Niall Egan:

I would love those forms.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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I will get them for Mr. Egan.

Mr. John McKeon:

An issue was raised on which I cannot claim any knowledge, namely, that of the pre-1995 and post-1995 arrangements. Unless some of my colleagues can comment on this, we will revert to the committee separately.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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What about credits? I have raised that every time the delegates have been here.

Ms Alice-Mary Higgins:

I will raise a couple of the issues and then I might hand over to Dr. Mary Murphy because there was a specific question for her. What was said by the two members on credits and contributions is really important. While recognising that qualified adults are doing care work in many cases, I believe individualisation is one route whereby people could be building up credits that could facilitate access to the workplace. Starting from scratch is a very real concern because, as we mentioned, when women are seeking to make a change in their lives, the impact on the overall household is very often a huge consideration. To move to a position of seeking jobseeker's allowance, waiting for the claim to be processed and waiting for an opportunity is much more daunting than that of moving straight into a dynamic activation process.

The question of contributions was raised by Senator Marie Moloney. As the Senator stated, the homemaker's credit represents a very important issue. Moving towards a full transition to the homemaker's credit, rather than the homemaker's disregard, is essential. Bearing in mind the principle and practice, it sends a very strong signal to women, not just women of working age but also women who are not of working age, that the time they spent outside the workforce is valued as still connected to society and the system. Even the language of credit is essential and important. That is something that should be pushed forward immediately. It sends a strong signal and it is very practical. The homemaker's credit could provide a starting point, much like the re-entry credit, which has been discussed. This idea was advocated previously by the National Women's Council. The proposal is for a re-entry credit that might be granted to women, or any partner or spouse, seeking to re-enter the workforce after a period of not being in it.

Since I mentioned individualisation, I will pass over to Dr. Mary Murphy. If I have an opportunity, I will answer some of the other questions.

Dr. Mary Murphy:

I thank the members for the opportunity to contribute and for their questions. The dominant issue is the policy rationale for using the live register as the key vehicle through which to prioritise access to activation supports. This is really the structural issue on which we are focusing. We have been here before. Just as we were coming out of the crisis in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was considerable policy attention on initiatives such as the Partnership 2000 working group on women's access to the labour market and the report from the social partnership process. This concerned the degree to which we should use the live register as the vehicle through which we distribute resources and engage in activation. It is worth pointing out that when we had 4% unemployment, 20% of the working age population were dependent on social welfare. We are fooling ourselves to some degree if we believe the live register is an accurate reflection of phenomena such as poverty or the lack of labour market participation. There is a lot of social welfare hidden in the data in that people are not participating and could be. We need to learn from the past more clearly.

With regard to learning from the present, we know we have a new problem on our hands. Our number of jobless households with children is twice the European average. They are most at risk of poverty and represent a deep structural problem in Irish society and the labour market. This problem needs to drive our activation policy in a way that it may not be driven at present. Those three caveats are important.

Jobless households with children are headed by lone parents in some instances, or people with disabilities or jobseeker families in others. With regard to jobseeker families, 50,000 people in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance or jobseeker's benefit have qualified adults and children. Therefore, there is a very targeted group of householders who are clearly passing payments means tests, have children and are clearly jobless. They have to be a target for activation policy. One question that arises is whether we are making enough of the possibilities of activating the women in those households. Clearly, we are arguing that we are not. Some of the issues that arise concern the degree to which the live register is acting as a barrier to those women. First, there are barriers preventing them from getting onto the live register. That they are not able to do so becomes the barrier to activation.

There is ESRI evidence dating back 20 years that when women are visible in the social welfare protection system, they see themselves as potential labour market participants in a different way than if they are invisible. The State acts on their visibility and invests more in them to move them off social welfare. Visibility, individual access and individual entitlement comprise an important embedded principle.

There are many barriers that we know of. One of the biggest is that one must be looking for full-time work. We know many women, or qualified adults, have children. To some degree, we have been innovative in the recent policy on lone parents. The jobseeker's transition payment recognises that one can be attached in some way to the social welfare system and jobseeker's payment but seek part-time work. There are clear creative opportunities to design access routes to the live register for qualified adults using the transition vehicle. That is one approach.

Other blocks are anomalies such as the three-day week and atypical work. There is ongoing work on this as part of the activation report. There are many cultural issues to be addressed in terms of how we administer the social welfare system. Having to fill out five forms, as mentioned by Senator Marie Moloney, is an issue in this regard. There are cultural barriers faced by women even when trying to make a claim in the local office. The orientation of the social welfare system is, for very good reason, not to incur extra administrative work when it is not useful. Hatch clerk workers tend to say to individuals that there is no point in their signing on in their own right as they will not get any more money. They say signing on is a pain in the neck, that one must fill out various forms, prove one's child care circumstances and prove one is seeking a full-time arrangement. They tell the potential claimants they are wasting their time and should go home. That still happens in the local offices when women try to activate a claim splitting process. Therefore, there are many cultural practices we need to name.

There are a number of clear policy moves we could make to open up that space, even in the context of limited resources. They all need to move towards an individualisation of the tax and social welfare systems. As Deputy Ó Snodaigh said, the fact the tax system is not individualised for cohabiting couples but is for married couples is a structural issue that acts as a disincentive to work. That needs to be looked at, but I want to focus on individualisation of the social welfare system.

People have referred to the spousal swap, which I always thought was unfortunately named, as a popular option for people to take. It is limited and does not address in any structural way what is going on. It is not addressing the possibility of both parents in that household activating into the labour market. We should be trying to maximise the amount of economic activity of both adults in those households. Maybe both of them could get part-time jobs that would add up to a full-time job instead of focusing on one adult or the other. It is very past tense to be doing that. The spousal swap is wrong in its orientation because it is swapping entitlement rather than opening up both parents' orientation to the labour market. That is an important thing. It is a quick fix and may have been welcome for what it did at the time, but it is not the answer.

We need to understand that claim splitting was originally introduced in situations of domestic violence or where the male breadwinner was not delivering money back into the family home. The cultural association of claim splitting in a lot of working class communities is that one needs a letter from a social worker or doctor to prove that one's husband was not giving the money. One would then get the payment in one's own right. Claim splitting is unpopular culturally and we need to know why people do not do it. A lot of the time we say only 1,000 people are looking for claim splitting, so people must not want individual access. That is not the case, however. They do not want something that has a stigma attached to it, so a lot of men in working class households are uncomfortable if their wives seek to split a claim because it is known in the pub as not bringing home the bacon and not giving her the money. We need to understand, therefore, how these things work in practice or why they do not work. Something that is not a spousal swap or claim splitting needs to be deeper.

11:00 am

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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Is that culture moving away?

Dr. Mary Murphy:

It is moving away but these things move away over generations and the culture gets embedded over generations as well. However, it is not getting at the idea of the right to a payment and individualisation. There are other ways of achieving claim splitting that do not require the person to go and demand it. For first-time claimants, one could introduce a default option whereby the claim is split and where both adults in a household are recognised as potential claimants. That would be the first port of call, rather than the joint payment.

Clearly, a lot of change would be needed even to make that happen. There is not necessarily a cost to the State in terms of the payments because one is just splitting a payment in two, but there are administrative costs. In addition, a lot of cultural issues need to be shifted and changed in local office administrations as to how people perceive those payments.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Would there not be a problem with who receives the qualified child increases? It creates a problem for the Department as there are so many child benefits in that method, rather than looking at the family as a unit. I know what Dr. Murphy is saying, however.

Dr. Mary Murphy:

I think there are some principles that can help to inform us who gets the qualified child payment. I would argue that one of the parents should opt to be the main carer if there are children in the household. We have established that principle for child benefit.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Is that not reinforcing a division? Do we not want a society where both parents are equally the carers of children?

Dr. Mary Murphy:

Ideally, we do. In that instance, however, it offers the opportunity that one of the parents in a household is seeking full-time work while the other one has care obligations for a certain time period but is eligible for the jobseeker's transition payment. It allows one to open up that space whereby both see themselves as potential labour market actives. In the longer term, they can manage their household and orientation around that framework.

The Chairman is right in that, over time, we would like to see the cultural sharing of care open up in a more meaningful way. This opens up those possibilities. It is not necessarily a question of who would be the jobseeker's transition payment recipient. It is open to either person and is not necessarily a gender decision. It is recognising that there are children in the house who need care. Let us be realistic, therefore, that there will not be two full-time workers in a house. In most households in Ireland there are not two full-time workers. The dominant model is 1.5.

Introducing default for first-time claimants would open up the system a little bit and allow us to build on it. As resources open up and, hopefully, we move into economic growth, we could remove the limitation rule for parents who want to opt into labour market participation.

One of the big issues is that there are live register implications. The politics of this are difficult because if one brings more people into means-tested jobseeker's allowance and jobseeker's benefit payments, the live register goes up. There is room to be creative around that, however, in terms of how we measure unemployment. It is possible to have different measurements of unemployment. For example, we could have a measurement showing how many households are unemployed, rather than how many individuals. That could get over the problem, but it is not something I would get stuck on. If the principle is accepted, we could work around the politics of what the implications would be.

I can see that Senator Moloney has to go.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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I am sorry but I have to leave. I would like to meet Dr. Murphy privately.

Dr. Mary Murphy:

I would be happy to follow this up with anybody.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
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I am sorry I have to go. I thank Dr. Murphy for coming in.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Senator Moloney will be able to look back at the record.

Dr. Mary Murphy:

I would like to make two last points. One concerns data and appreciating the benefits of doing this in the longer term. There are short-term implications for administrative resources in the Department but they can be overcome. There are implications in having a sufficient number of activation resources. If we are bringing more people into potential eligibility, we want to be able to satisfy the legitimate demand that might be created. To some degree there is an argument that we have to increase budgets around activation measures. The EU's social investment package stresses that we need to calculate the cost-benefit analysis of putting in extra activation programmes. We should get a quick social return on that investment. Within a year we would begin to see the benefits of reduced social welfare payments and increased revenue.

We must get smarter about showing the economic benefits of investing in these activation programmes. They should be made available in a way whereby those who can best utilise them can return the investment as quickly as possible. There are data issues regarding how we measure the social impact of these matters.

Pension incentives are important. People might ask why we are talking about pensions when we are discussing activation, but many women realise they will need a decent pension later on or will have their own independent pension. To that end, they know they will need to work at some stage. They not only want to return to work now but also want to secure their future in old age. Opening up eligibility for pensions and making it easier to access them ties in with incentivising women in such households to work.

Tangible things could be done that do not have massive resource implications but which open up gateways to provide stuff incrementally that might have resource implications down the road. One need only take those steps when one knows one can fund them. They are certainly a gateway to greater individualisation in social welfare and taxation.

Ms Bríd O'Brien:

I will make one overall point. I am somewhat concerned that because we have limited resources, we cannot address this issue from the perspective of people who are unemployed but not in receipt of a payment. Many people currently feel let down by the system and that is not useful in terms of Ireland's social policy in the longer term. When a lot of people find their way back to work, they will resent paying certain taxes because when they needed the system, it was not there for them.

Many people are seeking support and advice but, given the way the system has been reconfigured, it is not as accessible as has been presented. Many people find it difficult because they see the system being changed dramatically. There is huge potential in the changes under way, but people cannot directly access the service at the moment unless they are in receipt of a payment.

We have limited resources but, to pick up Dr. Murphy's point, we are investing in people's futures and we will have a return in getting more people back to work. There will then be more people who feel they have something to contribute. If they feel the system is there for them, they will contribute to it. It creates a better dynamic. Many people currently feel they have no choice of access.

We need to find ways to address that. The system was more open in the past and around looking at how can we indeed provide a public service to people. In the middle of the current crisis, prioritisation is occurring, but that does not allow us to close the door to so many.

11:10 am

Ms Lorraine Hennessy:

Senator Marie Moloney asked why people did not sign for credits following the move from jobseekers' benefit so that they could access programmes afterwards. This comes up very regularly and many people we talk to tell us they are not aware that they can sign for credits. That is why they are not signing for it.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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People in the Department of Social Protection do not know. Have you come across that?

Ms Lorraine Hennessy:

There are many areas where a lack of information is the reason people fall through the cracks. They have not been told the right thing. If they can be told and a system can be set up whereby when one's payment is finished, one's options are set out, it would be useful. It could also be that when one goes in, one's options are fully explained to one. That is improving with the new Intreo service, but not everyone has access to that.

The Senator also asked who got the child dependant allowance. There is already a system in place. If there are split payments or two people are on separate payments, the child dependant allowance is split in half and given to both. If one was to introduce the type of system Dr. Mary Murphy suggested, that would be the fairest way to do it.

Ms Bríd O'Brien:

Roughly, one third of QCI is split at the moment.

Ms Lorraine Hennessy:

That makes it fairer for people. There is a significant information deficit there still, which is why people are not availing of things they could. On homemakers' credit, the idea of pensions for women in particular is raised a great deal. The homemakers' tax credit only lasts for two years. I was looking at it during the week. If one can only get it for two years, maybe they could build on it. One may be minding one's children for more than two years.

Mr. John McKeon:

It is not that I am an expert, but I have never heard that before. We will check into it and get back. It sounds very strange.

Ms Lorraine Hennessy:

It is just something that I was reading during the week. I always thought it was for while one was staying in the house.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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One can back-claim it as well.

Ms Lorraine Hennessy:

Yes.

Mr. John McKeon:

It sounds very strange. I do not think that is the case. I have some personal experience of where people have come to me. The ones I can think of certainly had it for more than two years.

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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The information about credits was mentioned. It is not just the information that is in issue. Many people who are the subject of a qualified adult allowance - obviously someone else receives it - do not know the consequences of that. When the partner goes down to claim a social welfare payment in the first instance, he or she is asked who else is in the house and says "my spouse". It is usually a wife. That is a qualified adult. Nobody ever explains that there is a consequence for her to be a qualified adult rather than to have a payment in her own right. Nobody says she would be limited by not being able to access these job activation measures. Where there is a policy change in the Department on eligibility criteria, an information campaign should be in place to inform people of the option to individualise a claim and the restrictions as a consequence of not doing so.

In terms of credits, I have continuously encouraged people to sign on for credits. The incidents where people are not permitted to must be addressed. At the very least, if a person is unemployed and cannot receive a payment, he or she should be able to receive a credit. Perhaps, the credit should be the mechanism for eligibility rather than the payment. There are people who to all intents and purposes should qualify for CE, but because they are not in receipt of a payment, they cannot. I have encouraged some of the social protection workers to give a peppercorn payment of 5 cent so that those people would be in receipt of a payment which would allow them to access job activation. I know it would be an administrative nightmare but these people are not looking for a huge amount of money, they just want access to the courses so they can get back into the system. That is some of what underlines what I have said.

The other thing to remember is that much of what we are looking for is voluntary. Many people who are qualified adults are happy in that position. However, there are those who are looking for changes. To clarify my earlier point, if a person's time as a qualified adult could be taken into account, it would be a major shift and a welcome announcement from the Department. It might be that a certain period as a qualified adult would be required as an initial step, but in any event it would help a lot of women in particular who want access to community employment and JobPlus, though not JobBridge, with which I do not agree.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I came across a case recently of a person who could not sign on for credits. The person had finished school and took a year out while thinking about perhaps going back to college the next year. That person could not sign on for credits, having never worked, and could not access any schemes, apart from Springboard or free courses with FÁS. In the context of the youth guarantee, I note that there are significant numbers of young people who leave school and are unemployed, never having worked. They are not appearing on the live register and they will not be assessed regarding the youth guarantee even though they are unemployed and in need of it. Are there plans to get rid of the requirement that one must work before one can apply for credits?

Mr. John McKeon:

There are no plans at the moment. The number of young people who are not in receipt of a payment or who do not qualify for one is very small. As we have the universal jobseeker allowance payment, a young person's family income would have to be quite high before the disregard would drop them down to a zero payment. The number of young unemployed people who are not on the live register is very small and much lower than the European average.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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What is the number?

Mr. John McKeon:

It is in the single digit thousands.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I find it hard to believe it is that little.

Mr. John McKeon:

It is very low.

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Most of them are gone.

Mr. John McKeon:

In fact, the figures show that many emigrants have come back. There was some information in our youth guarantee plan. I will find the reference and send it to the Chairman. It set out that the number is quite small and the European Union has recognised that the situation in Ireland is not the same. In many other member states, one must work before one can claim any jobseeker payment. In France, unless one has worked, one will never be measured as a young person who is unemployed. In Ireland, one can claim jobseeker's allowance immediately. Unless one's family income is in excess of €100,000, one will be able to claim some element of payment. Most young people can get on the live register. There are no plans to change the credit situations of people who have never worked or that people who do not come straight out of school or college will get it.

I might respond to a couple of other matters.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh raised the issue of linking the claim of the qualified adult to a subsequent claim. We do not have a difficulty with that in principle but we need to look at the administrative and regulation aspects. This issue has been raised with us before. As I said, we do not make allowances for people on other schemes that would not strictly speaking be live register schemes. The principle is already established. We need to look at the practicalities of regulatory, legal or whatever other issues we might need to get through to make it happen.

I will talk about some of the other issues that have been raised, for example, using the live register as the mechanism to access supports. The issue there is that most people on a social welfare payment, as I said my opening payment, can get access to the supports. The issue is the employment service at the Intreo level. Purely by weight of numbers, we must prioritise people who are coming in, signing on and declaring them jobseekers in terms of access to the Intreo centre service. Where there is capacity in the Intreo centres, we will deal with other people. The other thing we must be cognisant of is that it is a condition of jobseekers' payments that they genuinely and actively seek work. Again in terms of prioritising resourcing, we must respond to that as the State and say that we are obliging them to do something and must help them to do it. Some of the other cohorts mentioned do not have that obligation. In the first instance, we must prioritise those who have the obligation.

To the extent that there is capacity in the system, people on disability and carer's payments will get access to the Intreo service. On the local employment service, one-third of its capacity is reserved for what it calls "walk ins" - people on non-jobseeker payments walking in as opposed to people referred by the Department - so that capacity is there.

Claims splitting is a difficult issue. There are cultural issues in terms of claims splitting. One of the issues is that when someone splits a claim, they are declaring that they are now a jobseeker. Again in line with the Government policy of rights and responsibilities, if a person declares that he or she is a jobseeker and claims a payment on that basis, we would require him or her to stand up to that declaration by participating in activation schemes and in that case, it would be non-voluntary just as it is for jobseekers. There are important issues there and many qualified adults were not working prior to their partner becoming unemployed. It means them changing their status and for a variety of reasons such as no longer being the caregiver or homemaker, they want to be treated as a jobseeker. One can get into cultural norms and so on. It means that when they make that declaration, they must then respect their obligations. The Department has no issue with that. It is perfectly happy to take people splitting claims once they accept that they then have an obligation to engage with the Intreo centre, to take a referral and to move on to community employment or Tús if they are so referred. This is not what many people want, which is the difference between the voluntary and obligation and obligation versus opportunity. It reflects where we are. I know Dr. Murphy mentioned that when we were at the peak of the economic boom, there was a greater shift towards moving away but we must recognise that circumstances have changed. The infrastructure we are putting in place with Intreo, which of its nature must deal with people on the live register, will be available in time as conditions improve. That is something we have committed to look at as part of Pathways to Work this year to see what might be available. We must all accept the reality. There are 390,000 people on the live register and we are obliging them to look for work. The Department must focus our services and the €1.4 billion we spend on those people first and foremost.

11:20 am

Dr. Mary Murphy:

My point concerns what Mr. McKeon said about how those open to claims splitting for qualified adults would have to be available for and genuinely seeking work and accept the rights and responsibilities. To some degree, that is missing the point that 55% of qualified adults are working part-time. They are utilising the income disregards in the social welfare system. I do not think there is as much of a cultural shift for qualified adults to come in and accept some of those obligations. The problem is that the obligations are gendered in that they are obliging people to seek full-time work. If the obligations were in the context of the way the jobseeker's transition is being rolled out for lone parents with caring responsibilities between seven and 14, qualified adults would engage in that space. Many of these women actually want to work. They think of themselves as moving on. The nearer they get to the system, the more the system will also have a motivation to move them out of that system. It is good for both to make them more visible in the system. The jobseeker's transition opens up the policy space to do that. One is talking about a very targeted group of women being brought into the system but it would have the greatest possible impact on the places where the poverty risk is the highest. I do not think we should forget that. There is such a focus on activation as a way of reducing the live register but activation is also a key part of a national anti-poverty and social inclusion strategy. Those jobless families with children are in the middle of that strategy and we need to make sure we are targeting them because we are not doing so right now.

Ms Alice-Mary Higgins:

I would echo that. When we are looking at the question of genuinely seeking work and the way we consider and configure the criteria around that, the National Women's Council strongly believes that the jobseeker's transitional payment should be used and looked to for qualified adults, particularly those within jobless households. The reality is that 50% of qualified adults are engaged in some form of work. By recognising that there is such a thing as genuinely seeking and being available for part-time work, one will not only accommodate and recognise care and recognise that it is not a zero sum game between breadwinner and carer but that care is shared in many modern families and the breadwinning role can be shared, one that will bring women into the system and recognise that 36% of the women in the workforce are working part time. Part-time work is a reality that is increasing. As well as looking at extending the jobseeker's transition model as a really strong and workable model for qualified adults, there is also a need to look at some of the activation programmes and training we have and to make sure they are working for part-time work and accommodate flexible hours so that part-time work is not equated with precarious work but that people are provided with routes into genuine progression and careers that work around flexible hours.

I did not raise the issue of spouse swap to say that we should necessarily bring it back. I was saying that looking to the potential for activation for both adults in a jobless household is important. Even in terms of the priorities as listed and discussed, I would think that jobless households with a jobseeker's claimant and two unemployed adults should be very much a priority group in terms of activation because conditionality is coming into that household through one individual. If voluntary measures were introduced for the other individual in that household, we saw from the ESRI report yesterday that positive motivation and incentives, initiations to act and the possibility of long-term economic security in terms of one's pension are the things that motivate people into work.

Voluntary contributions to pensions have become quite difficult because the threshold has been raised in terms of being allowed to make voluntary contributions for people coming back into the workplace after a long period of absence. That should be looked at so that the long-term security of being in the system with a pension becomes more achievable rather than seeming impossible because one is starting from a disadvantage.

Ms Lorraine Hennessey:

A question was asked about signing on for credits. Certainly the feedback we get is the opposite and that many young people do not get on to a payment because their parents' income is too high. I am not sure if Mr. McKeon mentioned a figure of 100,000.

Mr. John McKeon:

It is quite low. Again, we set out the figures in the youth guarantee implementation plan.

11:30 am

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Is there a lack of awareness about that? I have definitely encountered young people who have been told it is not worth their while, and they are not given information about signing on.

Ms Lorraine Hennessy:

Yes.

Mr. John McKeon:

If one compares the number of unemployed young people according to the quarterly national household survey, QNHS, which is a measure independent of the live register, and the number of young people on the live register, it is nearly identical.

Dr. Mary Murphy:

While I can see how Mr. McKeon got the figure that way, many young people take up very precarious, low-paid jobs and are not on the live register.

Mr. John McKeon:

One can calculate it another way in terms of the number of young people who leave school at junior or leaving certificate level every year minus the number of college places taken up and the number who go into employment. The number of people left is nearly identical to the number of people who sign on. The numbers do not support the argument that there is a huge number of unemployed young people.

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Many of them use different addresses from their parents to try to qualify.

Mr. John McKeon:

Yes. One of the goals of the interim model is to improve the level of knowledge and awareness of the group engagements. We sent the members some of the literature we give every jobseeker at a group engagement. It is improving the level of knowledge and awareness. The number on family income supplement, FIS, has nearly doubled this year compared to last year, and much of that is directly attributable to our working with jobseekers. Newspaper reports yesterday about families that cannot be bothered working because they are on welfare are nonsense. We make an effort to point out that FIS is available and that one can move into employment and be far better off. That illustrates the kind of effort we are making to improve the level of knowledge and awareness.

The matter of jobless households gets airtime, and while it is an issue, based on the data, it does not exist independently of the unemployment situation. Before the economic bust, Ireland had a lower level of jobless households than the European average. Although it has increased to above the European average since then, it has increased exactly in line with the level of unemployment generally. We must be careful about the definition of the term "jobless household", which means low-work-intensity household, where work occupies less than 20% of the adult time. We need to be careful when issues get airtime and make headlines which may generate more heat than light. While we have an issue, particularly for lone parents and families with children, it is not as acute as it is sometimes represented. The primary focus in tackling jobless households must be unemployment growth and activation. If we reduce the number of unemployed people, based on how it grew, it will bring the number of jobless households back towards the European average or below.

Dr. Mary Murphy:

Given that many of the jobless households are not families that are on the live register, the activation strategy does not stretch to them. Regarding learning the lessons of the past, jobless households can become very structurally embedded in joblessness and the employment growth generated will not necessarily move into those households unless very particular activation strategies are targeted at them, which is not happening now. It is not the fundamental role of activation policy to target them.

Ms Alice-Mary Higgins:

We should not rely solely on a general rise in employment levels to lift jobless households. We do not necessarily want to restore the current level but to push for more women's participation. We do not seek to replicate or move backwards but to move forward and ensure we are increasing not just employment but equal engagement in employment for men and women. That means that as well as tackling joblessness, policies must ensure labour market contact and engagement by women by facilitating and supporting them. There is a long-term scarring effect due to distance from the labour market for a period of time and the legacy of economic inequality with which many women are still living, as described by Senator Moloney.

Mr. Niall Egan:

Because of the issue Mr. McKeon identified, there is a discrepancy between the labour force surveys and the data from the survey on income and living conditions, SILC, on jobless households. The Department has asked the ESRI to do a further analysis so we can get better information. The purpose of this is for us to be better informed about those whom we are talking about. We know largely who they are: lone parents, disabled cohorts and jobseekers. Because they are not particularly visible in the system, it is vital that we know who they are and get a better handle on that, and it ties in with what we are discussing today.

The advisory group on tax and social welfare is doing its fourth and final report on making work pay. The goal is that people in receipt of a social welfare payment will always be able to take up work that pays more than social welfare. One of the key issues in the report is that of qualified adults' current situation in the social welfare system. Many of the proposals raised today will be raised in that context and will be considered by the advisory group. The administrative individualisation issues will be examined in that context. It will probably set out the guide for the future. It will take the Department time to get there because, as Mr. McKeon said, given the scale of the jobseeker population on which we are focused, our priority cohorts in terms of the youth guarantee commitments include, the long-term unemployed, the Pathways to Work targets and those in receipt of the new jobseeker's allowance transition payment, with whom we are engaging for the first time, as well as lone parents on an activation basis. We already have to deal with a huge group. That does not mean there is no opportunity to use the jobseeker's allowance transition model as a way of possibly increasing the visibility, particularly of qualified adults, in terms of an activation agenda. We are considering this.

Photo of Joanna TuffyJoanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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We will leave it at that. I thank everybody. Unfortunately, we did not have great attendance at the meeting as we had to change our meeting day because we had to deal with social welfare legislation during our usual meeting time yesterday.

The joint committee adjourned at 12.20 p.m. until 1 p.m. on Wednesday, 18 June 2014.