Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

If he did, he did not speak to me about it. I thought I mentioned in September the approximately 10,000 places which many believed had disappeared. People said I had forgotton about them, had not succeeded or was in trouble. I love to say when people have given up that I have got something. We should now fill these places.

I was a little surprised by the comments made on the disability issue. There must be a system in place with clear criteria if money is being paid. One of the challenges is to ensure the provision of a flexible system that is fair, open and understandable with regard to the terms and conditions to be applied. We can consider the current position on the issue of invalidity. At present, a person on invalidity or long-term illness benefit can apply for an exemption to do rehabilitative work for one year for a maximum of 30 hours per week. If, as is often the case, not everything worked out perfectly over the year, a further exemption of one year is possible. At the end of this period, the person must choose either to work full time without the invalidity benefit or cease employment and continue to avail of invalidity benefit. The former option presumes the unlikely scenario that a person whose capacity to work was so limited that he or she was approved for invalidity benefit will, by virtue of work, be able to overcome his or her underlying incapacity and suddenly be able to compete, on a stand-alone basis, in the commercial economy. The theory behind this option is that the person will be cured by work. While I do not have any doubt that employment makes a major contribution to well-being, irrespective of whether one has an incapacity, it requires a stretch of the imagination to believe work cures underlying physical or mental incapacities. Without being facetious, let me take an extreme case of a person who has lost an arm. Working will not give such a person his or her arm back. The theory behind the current scheme is that this is precisely what work would do. One would be recapacitated, as it were, to the extent that one could participate in full employment.

I have been contacted by individuals who had been granted a one year exemption. After the year elapses, they point out to me that they secured employment and retained their payment but must keep the payment as their job does not provide sufficient payment. For this reason, they want to continue to work and retain their payment. They wake up in the morning with a smile on their faces because they have a job to go to. The current scheme forces people who are in this position either to continue to work and lose their invalidity payment or leave their job and retain it. Is that not how the system works?