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

Legislation provides that sanctions or penalties in the form of reduced payments may be imposed by a deciding officer of the Department where clients fail, without good cause, to co-operate with the Department's activation processes. A reduced payment rate can only be applied in specific circumstances and following multiple warnings. All jobseekers are required to engage with my Department’s activation service and this obligation applies irrespective of whether the service is provided by my Department’s own case officers, those contracted through the local employment services or by the JobPath providers.  Contracted providers cannot and do not apply penalty rates but are obliged to report the facts and circumstances of a case to a deciding officer of my Department who, on careful consideration, may apply a penalty rate, where appropriate. There has been no change in policy or the implementation of penalty rate provisions in this respect over many years.  Penalty rates are only applied as a last resort.  If dissatisfied with that decision, it is open to the jobseeker to appeal to the social welfare appeals office.

The introduction of the JobPath service in mid-2015 has complemented my Department’s existing activation services and has facilitated a very significant increase in the numbers of jobseekers to whom activation services can be provided.  Between July 2015 and September 2019, some 244,000 jobseekers have engaged with the JobPath programme. It is not possible to disaggregate easily, on a retrospective basis, the number of people who at any time were both engaged in JobPath and on a reduced rate of payment.  However, by way of indication, there are currently 66,000 jobseekers engaged with the service of which 432, or 0.6%, are currently on a reduced, or penalty rate, of payment. By comparison, there are 183,700 people on the live register with a further approximately 43,000 engaged in training and employment programmes, giving a total of about 227,000 people who are subject to activation. Of these a total of 1,103, or 0.5%, are currently on a reduced rate of payment.

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