Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We all know the effects of being unemployed and the feelings it creates in people of being worthless, inadequate and of hopelessness and the mental health issues that follow, and we know the effects of that on relationships and on our communities. When jobs are lost, particularly in rural communities, so much more is lost as well. I know the Tánaiste is going to tell me that unemployment figures are going in the right direction and she will tell me about the various programmes and initiatives for people who are unemployed to educate and retrain them in order to get them back into the workforce, and I know some of them are progressing well.

Certain people are not allowed to register on the live register as unemployed and this means they do not have access to various job activation programmes and education and retraining.

The unemployed population is divided into registered unemployed, with all the entitlements that brings, and the unregistered unemployed, who have no legal recognition from the State. They have no real entitlement to job activation and education programmes. The unregistered group comprises two groups, those who are self-employed and the women who opted out of the workforce to rear their families and now want to come back into the workforce. Looking at the material of the advisory committee, I was struck by two quotations. One is that the eligibility criteria for non-income support based training schemes should be modified to allow self-employed people to gain access to such schemes. Recent trends towards greater flexibility and casualisation have resulted in some workers being classified as self-employed whereas they should really be classified as employees. This has led to a minority group in the unemployed population being excluded from registering on the live register. All job activation programmes and measures are not open to all the unemployed. What are those groups entitled to do in order to get back into the workforce? Is there a statutory or constitutional basis for dividing the unemployed into the registered and unregistered?

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