Ms Susanne Rogers:

Increased payments would go a long way towards enticing people in this regard, but it is about the skills people learn as they work. Learning to work is hard, and being with other people in an enclosed space for 40 hours a week is a skill in itself. Learning to work, timekeeping and so on are soft skills that are transferable across jobs, but the skills people learn on these schemes need to link up with jobs that are in the areas. When I think of the parts of rural Ireland where my family are from, with the best will in the world, there will be limited employment opportunities in these small communities although remote working hubs are going in, which could revolutionise the access. As Ms O’Brien suggested, if someone comes from a small rural place, they may go on to third level and have to decide whether they can stay in Dublin or go home and bring those skills back with them. It is the community aspect time and again. These are localised issues that can be dealt with locally when we look at resource centres, community hubs and remote working hubs.

For us, it will always go back to that education aspect and the poverty aspect as well. If someone grows up in poverty, it is very difficult to become job ready. Even with the jobseeker's payment, if we lose our job in the morning and are out of work for six months, it will be hard to have a suit, or even just a suit jacket for a Zoom interview. I am helping somebody at the moment to look for work and it is really hard. It is all online and there is no buying the Evening Herald or the Irish Press. It is all online and registering for portals. It is a complicated process. If a person's peer groups, community and family are not linked to work, there may be nobody to show them how to get a job. Career guidance counsellors in school are fine, but it is the mechanics of getting a haircut or a suit jacket, being able to spell and type and so on. All those things are difficult, and while most of us rarely write any more, depending on the type of job someone is applying for, most employers will look for at least basic literacy and numeracy.