John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)

I am not critical of the jobs initiative in its entirety, as the Minister of State knows and as I have said publicly. In Pathways to Work, there is an initiative to pay private companies thousands of euro in taxpayers' money for each person taken off the dole. Why do we not turn that on its head? When small businesses' incomes begin to decline, their first step is to let part-time people go. I have dealt with a small business in the south east in which a husband and wife work 70 or 80 hours per week for a very small wage. They would be better off on social welfare. They say they must work these hours because they had to let somebody go, the paying of whom represented a considerable cost. I urge the Minister of State to think outside the box and sponsor employees with the money paid to social welfare recipients.

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