Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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When I was growing up in Dublin, I did not, unfortunately, come across people in my daily life who were on welfare. When I went working in Connemara as a co-op manager, I found out about the vagaries of the dole or jobseeker's allowance, as it is now called, along with the penalties applied if a person did anything. I could not get my head around it at all.

I do not know how many people we are severely damaging by forcing them to be available for work or actively seeking work but unable to get work. For all sorts of reasons, there are people who are unlikely to ever get a commercial job. Any of us on the ground with their people knows this. I ran a community co-op that had a commercial side and a scheme side. There were people happy on the schemes but not on the commercial side and vice versa. That is just life. I cannot understand how we do so much damage to people by forcing them into idleness when there is so much to be done. There is much work and people are anxious to do it.

We talk about community employment schemes, a community services programme, rural social schemes and the rest. Every Deputy and Senator I know has a stream of people coming to them telling them they have been put off a scheme and must go back on the dole despite not wanting to do so and preferring to stay where they are. Earlier, somebody rang me to say that names of people could not be got from the Department to fill a scheme which is short of workers. We have applications in our office all the time from people who want to stay on schemes. It does not make sense. We are doing damage on one hand and on the other we are depriving our communities of services.

One of the most fascinating aspects of driving on rural roads is seeing all the manicured sports fields. They are kept like Croke Park. I remember a time when these fields would be cut for a championship match once or twice a year. The schemes do this work to the same standard as the lawns on Leinster House or in Herbert Park, the Phoenix Park or St. Stephen's Green. People are happy to do that work on schemes but we seem to think there is something wrong with this. I am sorry for the lecture but it blows my mind.

Billions of euro are being wasted on enforced idleness that damages people when a little bit extra could change their world, giving them self-worth and helping them get up in the morning. I remember when I set up the rural social scheme, people came to me with tears in their eyes because they had somewhere to go, they could take pride in their work and they had a few extra bob.