Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

From his reply, it would appear that what the Minister is doing is recycling the money. Some schemes get a reduced number of full-time equivalents and he is transferring them. One thing that all of us puzzle about, and we have often talked about it among ourselves, is the fact there are still a large number of people drawing jobseeker's allowance long-term who will never get commercial jobs. Let us be honest about it. They could provide fantastic services in the community through this scheme if there were to be a transfer to the Minister's Department of some of the welfare that is going with these people and if he were given the top-up by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Are there negotiations under way to ensure that kind of lateral thinking in government rather than the silo effect that goes on all the time and which we are all, as politicians, subject to at times?

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