Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

There seems to be a bit of confusion among some of the NGOs about the purposes of this section. FLAC and the INOU both raised concerns about this in submissions. In the briefing we received from the officials on the Bill, they explained the purpose of this. Sometimes it is hard to glean the exact intention behind a legislative provision. Rather than raising their concerns, I will briefly quote recommendations from both NGOs.

The FLAC submission stated the following:

The reference to different classes of claimants or beneficiaries is not sufficiently clear to assure the reader that this will not involve discriminatory profiling of different categories of claimants or social groups. Currently a decision maker can ask a claimant or beneficiary to provide information relevant to the claim. However, if different groups of people have to provide different types or forms of information than other claimants, then this may lead to discriminatory practice... In light of this, its capacity to be applied in a discriminatory fashion and given that sufficient powers to collect information already exist, FLAC respectively submits that this provision should be deleted.

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed stated the following about section 12:

This section will give the Minister for Social Protection and her officials the power to collect information to be supplied by claimants and beneficiaries for profiling and activation purposes. It is imperative that the information is collected in a manner that is fully transparent and that front line service staff adequately explain why it is being collected. A proactive and well informed system that seeks to meet the needs of the unemployed people and other welfare recipients is urgently required. Good information will be critical in developing a first class and person centred social welfare service: the Department of Social Protection must strive to ensure that the proposed new National Employment and Entitlements Service is indeed such a service.

The INOU recommends the following:

Front line staff in social welfare and employment services must have the capacity and the necessary supports to engage with unemployed people and other social welfare recipients in a holistic and constructive manner. Such official engagement must aim to give unemployed people timely access to their entitlements and the very best of advice and supports to get back to work or into worthwhile education and training options as soon as possible.

I have no major problem with ensuring that all claimants across the board supply the same information, be they existing claimants or new claimants. However, it is also imperative that the people handling the information and dealing with the claimant are doing so in a proper fashion. Far too often we hear complaints about certain officials. In the main, everybody is very courteous and some claimants can occasionally be obstructive in their own right and do themselves no favours. However, when dealing with people who are in dire straits, there should be an element of courtesy and this should extend to the information being provided and supplied. Whoever is presenting himself or herself for any kind of social welfare payment should have access to the best information possible, and he or she can be provided with a mechanism to get off social protection as quickly as possible and onto some kind of training appropriate to the person's needs and to the employment opportunities that are presenting themselves at the time or in the near future.

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