Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Moving people from welfare to work has been a life's mission with me, and I have done quite a bit of it in my time, long before I entered this House during which I got a very good knowledge of the social welfare system. As a young person going to work and creating employment in a community co-operative, I was appalled to find out how penal the social welfare system was given that, growing up, I had no personal dealings with it. I was appalled to find that every euro earned in self-employment took a euro off a person's social welfare income. Since I found that out many years ago as a young person, I have been determined to try to change it.

I assure the Deputy I would be more than interested in discussing ways to address this issue, not only in regard to FIS but also in regard to social welfare interaction with self-employed people. While I am not sure that FIS as we know it is the best model in that case, I am more than willing to debate that with the Deputy.

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