Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Often in here, the Government accuses us in People Before Profit and Solidarity of being very ideological. How else can the Government's approach to local employment services be described except as purely ideological? The basic approach of the Government is what is the point of doing anything if it does not create a profit for some private company? On the other hand, the essence of the work done by local employment services, those who work there and job clubs etc. is to provide a service for people and to assist people in getting into decent jobs. It is what most people would perceive the purpose of social protection to be. It should not be there to make profits.

What is being prepared here is JobPath 2. The estimated cost of JobPath was €11,000 per successful participant. There is a model of incentivisation not for people to end up with the best possible jobs and to be given every possible support possible, but instead for companies like Seetec and Turas Nua to make massive profit from the public. People power and workers' power can defeat these attacks. I welcome the ballot by Offaly local employment service workers, who were due to lose their jobs and are prepared to go on strike on 6 December and 7 December. We need to build solidarity here. The trade union movement should mobilise to protect the jobs. If the Government can outsource these jobs, it will push to outsource more and more of our social welfare and protection services. Workers' power needs to be mobilised in action against this.

See this speech in context