Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy is aware, the situation was that over 7,000 jobs a month were being lost for nearly three years, most of them from the construction sector. At least 100,000 people have had direct contact with the Department of Social Protection in one form or another and many of those were involved in the construction sector. One of the changes that was made concerned the age-old problem we always had in this country, where a construction worker lost a job and it used to take six to eight weeks to get back on unemployment assistance or unemployment benefit. That has all been changed and if a former construction worker now gets a job for, say, three weeks, five weeks or ten weeks, the payment is just suspended and renewed when the work ceases.

It is also a fact that the level of social welfare payment and remuneration in this country actually reduces the risk of poverty by up to 60%, which is by far the highest of any of the European Union countries. Having spoken to some of the people of Spain, Portugal and Greece recently, I know there is no social welfare at all there after a two-year period. Whatever state we have been in here in Ireland, at least the level of assistance reduces the risk of poverty by up to 60%.

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