Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)

If there are more than 440,000 people unemployed, 300,000 of them would love to have a job. They are not avoiding work. I suspect that in terms of this scheme the view might be that there are some people who do not want to work and that if they refuse work they should be taken off the social welfare scheme. Will the Minister agree that the resources of the country are meant to be shared by all the citizens of the State and that it would be a retrograde step to cut people off welfare? With so many people looking for work surely we can work with the people who would volunteer. There are many people who would like to do this work. We could probably get many people to do it without having to force people who might not be in the right frame of work to do it.

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