Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister says we need an active rather than a passive social welfare system. I agree and suspect most of us do. This amendment concerns the difference between what the social welfare system can do for or to one. It is all about what it can do to one, not at all what it can do for one. That is what needs to be addressed. Other speakers have said people want the education courses, training and the jobs. One does not have to go far to find this out. One has to go as far as talking to just about anybody who has lost his or her job in the past three or four years, which is the majority of those dependent on social welfare. They want to get back into work and education and training. They want assistance.

The amendment concerns punishments and so on, which is not the best incentive. In fact, it will get people's backs up, but there is also a real danger that it will end up as a box-ticking exercise. There was an element of this in what the Minister said. How many meetings did she say she had had this year with what we now call "customers", which is an interesting term? Will it end up as a statement about the number of meetings held with customers? Will it be a box-ticking exercise, after which the Minister might say, "We had 25,000 meetings with customers this year. We are doing really well in activating people. We have got so many people on this or that course"? What happened at the meetings held? What were the courses for? Where did they lead to?

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