Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I agree with my colleague, Deputy Ring, about the importance of looking after the most vulnerable in our society. We talk about the elderly, the sick and many who will never be able to work again. It is also important to acknowledge that many people who receive payments from the €20.9 billion welfare budget are not vulnerable. It is important to realise that. I would like to see the Minister split the welfare budget between those who are vulnerable and those who are not in difficulty. That would be important from a political point of view. When one talks about cutbacks in the welfare budget one immediately thinks of carers and the elderly. There is a cohort of people who are not vulnerable.

I am also concerned about the amount of social welfare fraud. If we tackle this issue properly we could save several billion euro.

I want to deal with the issue of the high State dependency rate. In February 2001 at a time of virtually full employment there were still 137,400 people on the live register claiming State assistance. An analysis done by the OECD on the Irish labour force in 2009 concluded that Ireland had a disproportionate number of people claiming incapacity, unemployment, lone parent and safety net benefits, when compared to countries of similar labour markets and historical roots such as Australia, New Zealand and Britain. These countries made a determined effort to introduce new progressive employment and training policies to encourage benefit recipients into working during the years of high demand for employment. Ireland did nothing, and in 2007 still had 15.6% of the working age population claiming incapacity, unemployment, lone parent and safety-net benefits, up marginally from 15.2% in 2001. Considering our younger population, Ireland's rate of incapacity benefit should be lower than the other surveyed countries instead of higher.

The meaning of all this is that our high State dependency rate is making the current unemployment crisis worse and fostering a vicious circle of long-term unemployment as long-term benefit recipients lose touch with the labour market and become demoralised.

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