Brendan Ryan (Labour)

In a recent article in The Irish Times, Professor Brian Nolan stated that cutting welfare benefits will not incentivise people to take up jobs that do not exist. Neither will the reduction in the minimum wage achieve anything in line with what the Minister of State had to say. The structural problem to which I refer is the difficulty in taking up short-term jobs, perhaps for a month or six weeks. This is an important point and I will finish on it. The transfer between these type of jobs and welfare payments should be seamless. There should be no need for fresh applications and no delays in payments after such short-term jobs have finished. Unless this happens, people will not take up these jobs.