Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We would not want to flip that in the sense that most people act properly. We would not want to create a situation with respect to social welfare recipients where efforts are being made to create employment or educational opportunities for them and they would be able to use the word "reasonable" to avoid a level of personal responsibility or making a real effort. Therefore, it is a vexed question. While we do not want anybody abused, misplaced or anything like that, and I am all for supervision of all these measures and having good standards, we cannot remove the element of personal responsibility. Our taxpayers have to know that while our welfare system is a support for the vulnerable whom we cherish, and it is such a part of our DNA that we want to preserve it, keep it and improve it every year, they also have a reasonable expectation that recipients of it, insofar as they can, would be preparing themselves to leave it.