Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

The design of the social welfare system is part of the problem. There are many poverty traps with which we are all familiar. The design of the system rewards a certain type of behaviour. The structural aspects need to change in tandem with the eradication of social welfare fraud; for example, if a person on social welfare makes application for a medical card and gives two different addresses. The system works against the person who has an entitlement to claim a social welfare payment towards which they have contributed. The 400,000 plus people who are unemployed are embarrassed when they claim that to which they are entitled to claim.

Social welfare is visible. If a person has to make a claim that person is visible. If there is a constant hammering of those who are defrauding the system, how are people to know who is defrauding the system? This further humiliates those who are making a valid claim. The over-emphasis on defrauding the system is seriously problematic.

Fr. Seán Healy of Social Justice Ireland appeared before a meeting of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform yesterday, which I watched on television last night. What he said reminds me of something that was said to me some time ago, that we need people to be working, even if it is on a part-time basis. Essentially, what was said, and it resonated with me, was that we pay people to do nothing; we pay people to pay them to do nothing and then we pay people to make sure they do nothing. If they are working, even on a part-time basis, it eliminates much of that component of the social welfare system, which is regressive. It is bad enough for people to be claiming social welfare. We have got to be careful in highlighting the defrauding of the system, which has to be eradicated, but we must ensure that those who are already humiliated are not further humiliated by an inappropriate harping on particular aspects of the welfare system.

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