Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We recognise that the labour market is changing. We have moved away from the historical and traditional working patterns to the gig economy. There is a whole new way of working that we never had before and the job activation schemes must reflect same.

There are two reasons I do not want to apply this provision, specifically on its own. I ask the Senator to withdraw her amendment because there is an amendment that calls on me to review the working family payment system. I would like, in totality, to consider how we can best merge the hours-based system and the working family payment system. If I consider the hours system on its own, then we will end up right back at zero. The introduction of changes to the current criteria for calculating entitlement to the jobseekers allowance, as in moving to an hours-based system, will result in a significant number of individuals becoming eligible for jobseekers payment thus costing tens of millions of euro. Conversely, it is important to note that if an hours-based system was introduced existing casual jobseekers will lose out on payments that they currently receive from my Department, which might save us tens of millions of euro. While we might help people in one area we will hinder people in another area. We never want to do something good that will cause an anomaly and, therefore, I ask the Senator to allow me, in the review of the working family payment scheme, to consider how best to move forward. I know that the Senator does not want to hinder anyone. I know she wants to help people who can only work for a small number of hours but cannot live on fresh air for the rest of the hours that they are unavailable for work. In the review, I will consider ways to address the issue the Senator has specifically sought to address. Maybe one of the solutions will be to widen some of the working family payments. Let us consider the current stipulation for 15 or 19 hours in the review. I will bring the findings back to the joint committee where we can discuss the results and consider how best to prepare. If we are going to do something about this matter, it can only be done during the budgetary process next year that we will start after the summer, or maybe before the summer depending on our workload. I ask the Senator to consider my request.