Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for allowing me to raise this issue. I am disappointed that the Minister for Social Protection is not present. She is detained elsewhere. I welcomed her announcement of a couple of weeks ago to the effect that people who were in receipt of social welfare payments and wanted to work during the Christmas period would easily be able to resume those payments. However, the real problem is not with the Christmas period, but with the entire year.

This issue was raised with me by a recruitment company in Kildare. It has approximately 1,000 people on its database. Many of those are on short-term contracts and doing part-time work. The company is being asked to fill in forms for the social welfare office. The form requires it to declare the hours people will work for the weeks ahead, but it is not able to make that prediction. If it writes "Zero" as requested, yet the people work in those weeks, they could be accused of fraudulently taking payments.

The company cannot find indigenous people to take these short-term work contracts. As a result, people who are not on the welfare system are primarily being employed. I am referring to people who come to this country and take advantage of the short-term, flexible hours. Make no mistake about it - the Irish want to work, be it for short or long terms. We must be able to provide sufficient flexibility.

If the Minister's statement is policy, it must be implemented by every office. What she wants must be acted upon by the Department. We must allow people who want to work for short terms and flexible periods to return to the social welfare system as quickly as possible. Otherwise, we are deterring people from returning to the workforce. The Minister of State, Deputy McGinley, knows as well as I do that, for the sake of their mental health, most people would rather work for two, four or six hours instead of sitting at home staring at the walls or watching television.

If it is policy to allow people to return to the social welfare system as quickly as possible, it must be implemented by all sections of the Department of Social Protection. I will appreciate the Minister of State's response.

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