Dáil debates

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Second Stage (Resumed)

 

5:00 pm

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

I share many of the views expressed in this House and understand fully that the motivation, thrust and emphasis of Bills like this is always, how much we can give and to how many. It is the nature of political demand that we come here and make representations on behalf of those who are not getting enough social welfare or are being deprived or even victimised by the system. I share those views. Like other Members in this House, I would like too see more rather than less social welfare being paid. I believe that should be the objective of everyone in this House because there are so many in Ireland who are suffering, cannot get jobs or welfare or are disabled and deserving cases.

Parallel with that is an extraordinary policy regarding social welfare, which is thoughtless and is symbolised by the disaster that was and is FÁS, an employment agency paid for by the State. The attitude of successive Governments to FÁS was to give it money to sort out the unemployment problem and to let it get on with it. I do not know if Members are aware that FÁS was getting €20 million every week at the height of its troubles. Some €1 billion per annum was going to FÁS in an effort to pretend the Government was doing something about the unemployment problem. Little thought went into its structures or training. There was certainly little strategy in regard to the end product. The result of this was that people in FÁS pretended they were sorting out the unemployment problem by introducing training courses which seemed extraordinarily good and worthy. However, the problem was that there was no strategy behind them and no jobs at the end.

FÁS became corrupt and corrupted because those courses were not being filled, in some cases were not adequate or up to scratch and did not fulfil the mandate for which they were established in terms of producing qualified people. That was part of the attitude to the unemployment problem here. However, FÁS did not resolve the problem. It only trained people for jobs, some of which did not exist. While some of the courses were good and some of the staff were excellent the structural attitude to unemployment was to give FÁS money and tell it to get on with it. The evidence is that the problem was not sorted out and FÁS simply feathered its own nest. That was one of the biggest problems.

The other problem - it is the elephant in the room and we should not be frightened about addressing it as the Minister did - is that there is something kind of fishy about the unemployment statistics which keep coming out. The most recent figures in relation to unemployment are that there are 300,000 people on the live register but 443,000 people claiming benefit. An OECD official who recently visited Ireland although puzzled by this could not explain it and nor can I. There are various excuses and plausible reasons there is a gap between these two official figures, but it is an extraordinarily large gap which must indicate there are a large number of people who, one way or the other, are earning money while claiming unemployment benefit.

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