Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the clarification that there are no plans to privatise it or to give the contract for it to a private company. He has given an answer he has already given to a another Deputy who asked this question. He referred to a pan-European study. Is he aware of the evidence in England where such a programme, Fit for Work, has been passed over to a private company? That private company is currently being used in Ireland with respect to another labour activation scheme. On the follow-up from that company, the results were seriously upsetting. I will quote from one of them with respect to figures from the UK Department of Work and Pensions. It states that in England, 2,380 people who were declared fit for work in the United Kingdom were dead within six weeks of that declaration being made by a private company. That is 90 people per month after having their payments stopped. I do not have enough time to go into the evidence, but it is available. The United Nations is investigating that company in England regarding its decisions with respect to disability.

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