Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. We have to be careful if we are going to categorise a whole group of people as likely not able or eligible to go back into the mainstream workforce. We would have to be very careful if we were to do that, notwithstanding that there will be some cases, no doubt the Deputy has seen some himself, where that would be very difficult for an individual. A key strand of the Pathways to Work strategy, strand 5, is on working for all and leaving no one behind. This strand includes a focus on older workers and returners. It specifically includes a commitment to deliver dedicated recruitment events for older workers and returners to help them engage with employers and to encourage their recruitment. We have had a number of events in that regard. Last year, we had 25 in-person events under the return to work campaign with almost 2,000 people engaged in that. A really important statistic regarding people over 50 in particular is that, over the last 12 months up to the end of May, 18,000 people aged over 50 left the live register specifically for employment. I can see individual cases but we have to look at overall groups in terms of shaping a policy for CE.

See this speech in context