Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Approximately 270,000 people are getting payment for a full week; in other words, many people on the live register are working part-time. It is intended to focus particularly on people on jobseeker's allowance who have been in receipt of unemployment payment for more than a year. It will be done using the model of the rural social scheme but extending eligibility to people who have been on long-term jobseeker's allowance; in other words, it will take away the requirement to be either a fisherman or a farmer. It seems to be the most efficient and simplest way to do it. It will require an extension of the scheme into the cities where there is serious unemployment as well as in rural areas and I hope to be able to roll it out in the near future.

However, it must be linked to the other part, which is an employment action plan. The idea is to identify the people eligible for a scheme and to get agreement to provide their names to the various groups that would be organising the schemes and then to allow them to provide the employment. Obviously, those who are not available to go on a scheme, including those who do not respond to employment action programmes, will be intensively interviewed. People who do not turn up for interviews after two requests without some valid excuse will have their payments suspended. We cannot have people available for work and actively seeking work, but unavailable for interview when asked to do so.

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