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

-----the suggestion that he made at the weekend that there was something called a welfare dependency culture? He has just made the same implication about people languishing on the dole as if there is some voluntary element to it and that forcing them into what he laughingly calls labour activation measures by cutting social welfare payments for 22, 23, 24 and 25 year olds is actually the way to get people back into work. The implication is that these young people - or anyone on the live register - are on it through their own fault. The Taoiseach should admit that a welfare dependency culture is not the problem. Unless, that is, we are referring to the welfare dependency of bankers and the super wealthy. They have a serious dependency. They know that they can wreck an economy and rip people off royally for years and years, yet the Government will come along and bail them out at every turn. How does that stimulate the economy, enterprise and creativity? Some of the people in question are still in the most senior positions in the Irish banks despite having promoted madcap development plans and bankrupting the country in the process. They are still running our banks. That is a dependency culture that we want to root out. We must take serious action to deal with it.

It is clear that the overwhelming majority of people are forced - let me emphasise that word - to sign on because there are no jobs. Why does the Taoiseach not admit-----

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