Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is aware that my objective as a Minister is to get this country back to full employment, and he knows from the most recent statistics that, although the live register in Ireland has fallen very dramatically, it was 343,000 or 346,000 when the figures from the end of April were published last week. The existing services of the Department are not sufficient to get as many as possible of those people back to work. Our very valuable case officers, activation officers and other officials of the Department of Social Protection will remain employed because the ratio of case officers to unemployed people is much lower than is the case internationally. They will be very busy, as are people who work in the local employment service, LES, and other local services that help people into employment and provide services to the Department.

The Deputy mentioned the United Kingdom a couple of times. I think he is aware that in general the Irish and UK models of social welfare have diverged very widely in recent years. The Irish JobPath model was designed following a review of contracting parties internationally, including in the Netherlands, the United States, Germany, Sweden, France, the UK, and, in particular, Australia. The Irish model, I am happy to say, will now be partially adopted by the Australians based on the work we have done, and a range of national and international experts are assisting in implementing a system under which people are supported in finding a job and getting back to work. That is what it is all about. It is overseen by people such as John Sweeney of the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, and is composed of a social partnership involving unions, the Government, employers and civil society, including Professor Philip O’Connell of University College Dublin, Aedín Doris from NUI Maynooth, and John Martin, the former director of employment, labour and social affairs at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD. The Deputy is obviously an expert on the English and Northern Ireland model, but our social welfare system is very different. I know the Deputy probably favours it, but I do not.

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