Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

From time to time, he should recognise that the Irish system is relatively generous in its social protection payments compared with many other European countries. I did not say it was perfect or that there was not a lot of room for improvements. I said it was relatively generous, including compared to many of the UK provisions the Deputy cited. I make no apology to the Deputy or anyone else for concentrating on helping to get people back to work. I do not know what has happened to the left in Ireland to make getting a job the lowest item on the agenda. While our unemployment rate is still too high and we have a long way to go, today's live register figures showed that it has fallen to 10.7%. When I took office, the unemployment figure was heading for 480,000 people, which was one of the greatest disasters the country had ever seen. Today, the figure, although still too high at just over 352,000, has decreased by almost one third. When we took office, Ireland's unemployment rate was approximately 40% above the European average; now, it is significantly below the European average. This outcome has been based on a huge amount of sacrifice by practically everybody in Irish society and it is unfair not to recognise it.

I make no apologies for also prioritising reducing the level of fraud and abuse of the social welfare system. I have made very significant savings by helping people to return to work and reducing fraud and abuse in the system. I stand here in the interests of not only the people on social welfare but those who pay taxes, PRSI and the USC. We all know people on modest incomes contribute a lot of tax under various headings. For people who claim to be on the left to be indifferent and, in some cases, hostile to people returning to work-----

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