Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom aird an Taoisigh a dhíriú ar an scéim Gateway. Tá sé soiléir don saol agus a mháthair gur cleas í an scéim seo. Is bealach í chun pictiúr maith a tharraingt gan meas ar bith a thaispeáint do shaoránaigh. Last year the Government introduced the Gateway scheme, which was designed to make participants work 19.5 hours per week for a top-up of €20 on their jobseeker's allowance. This scheme forces unemployed people to carry out work for local authorities with threats of cuts or suspensions of welfare payments, even though it pays only a fraction of the minimum wage. It involves no training or education and there is no prospect of long-term employment for those forced to take part. Local authorities have been given an allocation of 3,000 places to fill. Surely, if there are 3,000 positions to be filled, those citizens working in these positions deserve to have proper terms and conditions. If Fine Gael does not understand that, I am sure the Labour Party must have brought it to their attention.

Gateway follows on the heels of JobBridge, a failed Government initiative which also exploits welfare recipients with little hope of meaningful long-term employment or skills training. Last night a Government Deputy told RTE that Gateway was teaching unemployed people what it is like to get up in the morning. Does the Taoiseach accept that this is adding insult to injury and that it reflects an establishment view that the real problem is not unemployment but the unemployed? Will he end this exploitation of citizens who are long-term unemployed by scrapping the Gateway scheme?

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