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)

If Deputy Donnelly appears, I will concede to him.

It is clear there is no parallel with these figures in OECD countries. There is no explanation for this extraordinary gap. It is clear that unemployment benefit is, not to put too fine a tooth on it, an easy system to access. It appears that a large number of people who are claiming unemployment benefit are not being encouraged unduly to work.

When my wife was involved in a political campaign on my behalf, she was thrown out of RTE for a short period and was told that she had to claim unemployment benefit. The Minister of State will understand this. My wife was not going to claim unemployment benefit because she believed she would be returning to work in a short time. While she did not actually need it she was told she had to claim unemployment benefit during the period she was out of work, so she did so. The amount was quite reasonable. No questions were asked and she simply signed on.

I cannot remember how long it was as it was a period in which I was in purdah and she was in Coventry. There was no effort during that period from the people in Bray from whom she drew the dole to find her a job, which was a little odd. Perhaps they expected her to get back to RTE where she had been employed, although there was no guarantee of that because she committed the cardinal sin of being involved in a political campaign, which was not allowed at that time. There was no effort to get her a job, which was strange because, given her qualifications - she had a degree and worked in broadcasting and so on - one would have thought the system would have known certain avenues were available to her. All that happened, however, was that she got an amount in cash every week, whether by cheque or in cash I cannot remember, which was given to her willy-nilly with absolutely no strings, pressures or encouragement attached.

Parallel to the real hardship which exists in the social welfare system, there is a need for a more stringent examination of those who are in receipt of social welfare. Questions must be asked as to whether people are exploiting the system. This cannot be resolved by gestures such as dividing FÁS into two parts and putting one part in the Department of Social Protection and the other in the Department of Education and Skills. It requires a serious attack from the top and the bottom on the culture of unemployment so that those who really need it are protected and get more but those who do not really need it do not benefit from the system.

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