Michael Brennan (Progressive Democrats)

The term "jobseekers" is part of the new names we are applying to unemployment assistance or unemployment benefit. The names have been changed to take a more modern approach and to align them with what is happening in Northern Ireland, where the word "unemployment" is no longer in use and has been replaced by the term "jobseekers". Some people might consider it a bit gimmicky, which is not the case. It is meant to describe what the person's job is, which is to be seeking work. We made the changes following consultation with the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed.

A number of measures have been introduced under the social welfare schemes to make them more employment-friendly. We are spending more than €1 billion a year on more than 30 schemes designed to get people back to work. There are different training schemes, education schemes, CE type schemes, all of which add up to a significant amount of money. There is the one-parent family payment, and the disregards, so that people can get back to work. The upper limit is €293, which will increase to €375. There is a 40% disregard of net earnings from part-time work for unemployment assistance. There is a tapering in the rent and mortgage interest supplement and other secondary benefits. That tapering allows people to hold on to their rental and mortgage interest supplements while they go back to work. We allowed tapering in withdrawing the adult and child dependant allowance as the spouse or partner's earnings from employment increases.

This is the clutch and accelerator effect to which I referred earlier. We have allowed this throughout the system to enable people to get back to work. There are facilitators who used to be known as jobs facilitators. They engage with people and help them to get training, employment and education. They ensure people know their entitlements. They help them to seek out job opportunities and so on. These facilitators do a first-class job.

Over the years, many thousands of people were sent to FÁS. A survey was carried out in September 2002 among 1,000 randomly-selected former back-to-work participants who had completed a certain programme between 1997 and 1999. It found that 88% of the people were no longer in receipt of social welfare payment, 79% did not return to social welfare payment at any stage, 10% were in receipt of short-term payments and just 1% were in receipt of a long-term unemployment payment.

It is clear from this that the activation programme and the activation reforms being introduced are designed to help people move from welfare to work. Helping to move people from welfare to work through myriad schemes, taperings and phasings is at the heart of welfare policy so that the slope is a gentle one rather than a cliff in trying to move from welfare to work.