Ms Br?d O'Brien:

To pick up on that last point, it is important to bear in mind that, for people on a jobseeker's payment, their family or personal relationships are also taken into account. For a young person living at home, their parents' income is taken into account. If somebody is aged over 25 years and has a partner, the partner's income is taken into account. Many people who have been made unemployed can find themselves unable, at the end of their jobseeker's benefit payment, to access a jobseeker's allowance payment and can then find themselves outside the supports that may otherwise have been available to them. That includes the public employment service. The Department assures people they can drop into their local Intreo centre and so on, but that does not always seem to happen in practice and that is a challenge. For people who are longer term unemployed, the payment Mr. Lynch referenced, payment pending wages, is very important. It is a payment the Department tends not to tell people about but it could make a difference, especially if somebody goes from a weekly welfare payment to a monthly wage, as it can help them bridge that gap.