Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will make one final point. It is all well and good to say that the Department wants to help people get to work. This is a short scheme and participants do not get much time to actually explore what their next option might be. If they have just lost their job, they are not even given the breathing space to figure out what that might be.

Second, people are not helped by telling them that they must avail of a scheme or work experience. The scheme states that if a person does not participate, that person can lose his or her payment. That is not actually helping but is putting somebody up against a wall where he or she has to then pick something just so as not to lose his or her payment. That is not helping. It can be framed as such if one wants to but it is not because it removes a person's autonomy and agency to be able to engage in the time that a person wants to. After this scheme finishes, he or she will kick into the normal jobseeker's benefit. Let that kick in then but at least allow the scheme be the scheme, without people being forced into any particular prescribed form of what is next in their lives, if they have just lost their jobs.