Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Senators who contributed so thoughtfully to the debate. Some people said there are no jobs. That is not actually true. Some 280,000 jobs were taken up by unemployed people in the past year. Senator Daly will be aware there is much seasonal employment in Kerry in hotels. A person who is unemployed for, say, five months may get a job in the hotel business for another five months following which he or she may have a period of unemployment because of the seasonal nature of the employment. The technical term is that there is much churn or turnover of people on the live register. As we speak the number of new people signing on for jobseeker's payment is 14% less than last year. I agree that the unemployment rate is far too high for anybody to be less than deeply concerned about it. Finally, the figures have begun to move in the right direction. That progress and momentum is important. Once there is a start in the right direction, confidence builds confidence and builds expansion.

In regard to young people, Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh suggested that as many as one in four young are unemployed. That is not true. Many young people in Ireland, as Senator Daly will be aware, are choosing to remain longer in education, completing masters degrees and so on in order to make themselves more job ready. We also have demographics where we have peaked currently in terms of 18 year olds but we have a large number of young children so that there is a little change and we estimate that we have lost probably 20,000 people under the age of 25 to emigration-migration. It is heartbreaking for the families of those who are emigrating, who having reared their children during the Celtic tiger, felt that emigration was a choice rather than a necessity. For many parents, notwithstanding the availability of social media and Skype, it is difficult to see their children and grandchildren depart. Our hope is that because many of the people who go abroad are highly educated we will be in a position to welcome them back home in the next few years.

As of today, there are about 5,870 job vacancies advertised on the Department's job bank website, up 20% on this time last year. It is clear from hired.ie , a website that aggregates vacancies from all public and private sites, that there are about 22,500 jobs advertised. Some of these may be duplicates. The role of activation is to try to ensure that as many of these jobs as possible are filled by people from the live register. We have now had two positive quarters of growth in employment levels in the first two quarters of 2013. In terms of people looking at Ireland's debt sustainability, particularly those from the US, even if that job growth is not as great as we would wish, it is asSenator Mary Ann O'Brien said, a positive start and we must build on that momentum.

I agree with Senator John Kelly in respect of changing the culture. Everybody knows of some families where if the children have not got on particularly well in school that at the age of 18, they sign on. Speaking as a Minister for Social Protection I would like to see us move to a culture and a policy change where that would not happen, that instead one would do something else, such as giving to one's community through participation. "Participation" is a key word. It may be that in some communities or areas it is very difficult to get a job but contributing to one's own community is one way to start. I was happy to be able to negotiate the youth guarantee framework during the Irish Presidency when my colleague Ministers came to Dublin last February. This is an issue not only for Ireland but the whole of Europe. One must have hope in terms of young people. It is our responsibility to create pathways and opportunities for them, to coax and cajole them, and make it attractive for them. In terms of a social contract we almost have to reach further back into schools. In looking at education and training we must have a vision for the future of young people as they come through. One can see this among students in transition who are involved in entrepreneurship courses of various kinds. We have to start transmitting the message, "Yes you can do it".

In regard to back to education courses, where we support about 25,000 people at second and third level, questions were asked by SenatorMary Ann O'Brien and others about the training of the case management officers. This is a new direction for the Department of Social Protection. We have community welfare officers who are very experienced in one-on-one interviews. When the community welfare officer service came into the Department there were more than 700 one-hour or two-hour long clinics by community welfare officers in locations around the country. We examined the issue and found that a modern quality telephone service would do much. Where the Intreo offices are developed - we are relying on the Office of Public Works to roll them out as quickly as possible - we do not need the emergency payments of supplementary welfare assistance.

In areas such as Sligo, one can get one's jobseeker's payment or other payments sorted within a week. Contrary to what Senator Ó Clochartaigh said - I said this to him during the debate on the recent Social Welfare Bill - Sinn Féin's figures are out of order in terms of delays. They refer back to figures several years ago. In fairness to the staff, particularly in Longford but also in Letterkenny, there has been a huge reduction in the delays because we have put in place new IT platforms. We have cleared all the backlogs on FIS, domiciliary care allowance and carer's allowance and we are working on disability issues. The question of whether everybody who makes an application receives the award is a different matter. We are working on improving the quality of application and information that people provide. That the backlogs have been cleared is a tribute to the staff who have been able to do that.

We have also made changes in the circumstances allowing people to qualify for FIS payments and for self-employed people and farmers who suffer catastrophic losses of income. It used be the case that accounts covering a long period had to be submitted. Eighty-five percent of people who had been self-employed and who made applications for social welfare are now getting jobseeker's allowance. Their contribution of 4% does not entitle them to jobseeker's benefit, but if they have suffered a catastrophic loss of earnings we allow them to present updated information, which will be examined in detail. Some 85% of those applications have been successful. A critical reason people might not get much support is that they may have a spouse who is working.