Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The targets for the requirement of being available for courses must be those who are full-time unemployed. The people doing part-time work are in many cases not actively seeking work for the remaining two days, but at least they are in employment. Education and training should be available for as many people as possible because the more people upskill the better chance they have in the long term of maintaining their employment and keeping employers competitive. That is an important element of it.

The 18 and 19 year olds who go on to the schemes listed will get the allowance for those schemes, which are quite generous. We have to question whether one should give the drug addict double the rate because he or she is a drug addict? I am sure there are courses that can facilitate a person to go and collect his or her methadone or whatever, but a person who is not willing to participate at all is destined to spend the rest of his or her life on welfare. The idea is to ensure the incentive is there and that for people with particular needs, such as those coming out of State care, we try to be as flexible as possible with them. That is the intention of working through all the various agencies.

Deputy Connaughton mentioned the community employment, CE, schemes. During the budget the Tánaiste announced an expansion of the CE schemes by an extra few hundred places which will facilitate a few more, however what people really want is to get back to work so it is important we continue our efforts on employment.

Deputy Creed mentioned the self-employed and undoubtedly this is a major factor for a number of people in the construction industry. Traditionally their projected earnings were based on last year's earnings, but social welfare offices around the country have been told there is no point in doing that this year because the work is not there. Generally they have become more flexible about the benefits they are giving and are examining the current accounts and the money coming in. Self-employed people were excluded because they were not paying the stamp that qualifies people for the benefit. While I have heard of some cases where it is not happening, most of those people are receiving jobseeker's assistance.

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