Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy's numbers are wrong. The number people in this age category who were on the live register at the end of August this year are thankfully much lower than 21,000. They number 16,223 but they are 16,223 people too many. The reason this is not discriminatory is other options are available to them. The weekly payment is €203 for those on our training schemes; €229 for those on any of our community employment or TÚS employment schemes; and €229.20 and for those on YESS. The purpose of the supports of this State, albeit that income support is a large of it, is to ensure we help support people through education, training and work experience to enable them to get back into a position to participate in the labour market. That is what we have been doing for the past ten years and it is working. I am not sure why we would stop doing something that is working over and above trying to tweak it, make it better and deliver a better service, and that is what we intend to do.

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