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TÁNAISTE EAMON GILMORE has criticised Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins’s description of upcoming social welfare legislation as “lurid”.
Higgins spoke about the proposed ‘Pathways to Work’ programme which was announced this month but has not yet been published. Earlier this month, in a speech in London, Taoiseach Enda Kenny described it as a “policy statement on labour market activation” which hopes to “prevents the drift into long-term unemployment”.
In the Dáil this morning, Higgins said that he was concerned about some reports about the proposals, including the suggestion that unemployed people would be given a deadline by which they must have gotten off benefits and found a job or else face into “Alcoholics Anonymous-style meetings”. (A spokesperson from the Department of Social Protection told TheJournal.ie on Tuesday that Minister Joan Burton will introduce a “probability of exit” date for people on the dole).
Higgins claimed that members of the Department of Social Protection had been known to refer to the plan as “Operation Transformation” legislation, after the RTÉ weight-loss programme.
However, Eamon Gilmore criticised Higgins’s turn of phrase in relation to the legislation as “lurid” and insisted that people would be given individual interviews because “unemployed people are not statistics”. The interviews, he said, would help establish the individual needs, requirements and wishes of people to better assist them in returning to work.
Joe Higgins claimed that the Government’s proposals would encourage a negative focus on unemployed people. He claimed that “there are certain billionaire newspaper owners” who he said would like to return to headlines such as those seen “in the 1980s” which he said classed unemployed people as “spongers on the dole”, “malingerers and the rest of it”.
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The whole plan sounds good on paper; help people try get jobs and avoid long-term unemployment…as usual though, we’re just missing one key component…jobs!!!
Jammy mason i tink u may run 4 MP cos mite put dum sense into dem people…..i honestly tink da people da help thru da celtic tiger r suffering…cos sum of dem help a lot with building houses with little qualifican and going bk to skool at 40 is not the answer,helping them find a trade they kno is the way up…
Mensah,
You’re not sending a text to your girlfriend here !
Can you please write your reply using even 5th class english !
Jesus, what are we rearing ?
U have to remember lot of people in their 30s or 40s got jobs thru friends and family with less or no qualifications and they help built the celtic tiger..so is had to get a job with all this refrence and qualification been ask…victimizing people on the dole like that is wrong…..
Joe Higgins is perpetually offended. Gilmore was right.
Joe Higgins does tend to be outraged a lot. But that doesn’t mean Eamon Gilmore isn’t a twat.
Thankfully some politicians are offended still. Not enough though!
But get used to it because to FG the unemployed are a statistic. A statistic they’re waiting to get on an aeroplane off their pages.
Leaving aside for a moment the fairly obvious point that there simply aren’t enough jobs out there for any “probability of exit” date to be a credible, is it just me or does this “new” system sound remarkably like a description of FAS? Isn’t the entire purpose of FAS to meet with unemployed people regularly – to treat them as individual people rather than statistics, to give them tailored advice, to offer them potential opportunities for training etc, and to help them find work? I mean, I’m well aware that FAS doesn’t actually DO any of these things, because it’s a complete failure as an organisation. But the idea that the government is dressing this up as some kind of radical new labour activation measure is laughable.
This is just another new way of massaging statistics. Once this scheme is implemented, expect to see lots of statements like “based on prediction of exit dates, we expect 5,000 people to be off the live register and back to work by X date. Look at how proactive we are!”
1 or 2 people may disagree.
Social Welfare Recipients are not recognised in law by using opinions.
Social Welfare Civil Servants have been using opinions in law for over a decade and opinions in law are a crime. Opinions being the best way to hide details and pervert he course of justice.
The Irish People have been dehumanised into statistics and until such time as we get a court system that allows people to get protection by law then it will continue.
Hi,
I have been reading your comments over that last few weeks.
Do me a favour, write a thousand page book on all the shit we know nothing about and I will buy it and read it from front to back.
OK, LIC, really, explain it better. I saw you mentioning opinions a while back and I looked it up and you’re right opinions are used to circumvent law but just stating that makes people think you’re ranting. I looked it up but most don’t.
Thanks by the way, its good to know.
@John Delaney: If you had any sense of duty and loyalty the only book you need to read is the Irish Constitution.
All of the Rules are available @ http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/home.html.
Go and read them and then you will understand how you might need to protect yourself legally at a later date.
@Chris Connolly M:
I have tried for years to talk to people and they generally end up confused. Now my approach is to keep it as simple as possible.
I generally find that people are more preoccupied with money, the house, the job, the kids and everything else is just too much work.
Cheers lic
Dr Diarmuid Donoghue: Cheers for what?
I have 3 kids and want the opportunity to return to work after being made redundant. I have applied for job after job and in most cases I am not even afforded a reply. In anycase it is inevitable that my wages would cover our childcare costs and little else . This in itself is annoying but i know this will not always be the case as our kids get older. Thankfully my hubby is working so we would not starve. However – we would be impacted if the 74 euro dole I receive is withdrawn because I can’t find work.
I would live to take a full time course to gain qualifications to match my experience but no one will mind my kids for free so what am I to do?
*awaits the get back to work comments*
Sorry Neicy, not to pry but how are you receiving dole if your husband works?
Simply put because he doesn’t earn alot despite working on average 12 hour days. We have three kids and I have been allowed 74 euro per week based on his wages.
Tough situation. Maybe another neighbour could be creative, mind your kids, perhaps do your washing for few quid? Thats what my mother did in the last recession and they had nothing. Just a suggestion, no real answers am afraid. Best of luck
You could do as a lot of the last generation mothers did;
Get up at 5am and work until 8. Et the kids ready for school, look after the house, when the kids and husband are home, go out an do another 3 hours work.
If you can stomach the challenge I’d say try get the hell out of Ireland. We did, and although it’s early days and we badly miss our friends and family in Ireland I can honestly say it’s been a vast improvement in lifestyle. We however did have the luxury of moving to my wife’s home country, so her family are reasonably close by and we’re not totally on our own.
I suppose, I’m trying to say the government sure as hell isn’t going to help, so if you and yours can do what it takes to make that massive change, it’s well worth the effort.
From the point where we sat down and seriously discussed the possibility of a move it took us about 8 months to organise a employment from Ireland (phone interviews and what not), and once my wife got a job it took us 4 months to move.
I went back to full time education, my wife works full time, we rent our home in Ireland (and pay the balance of the mortgage with my student loan) and we’re still better off here, we have more disposable income now than we did in the last year living in Ireland . We were both employed in Ireland.
If you’re eager enough, and willing to put the work in there are ways (even if they are extreme, like leaving Ireland) to get things seriously back on track.
Here’s hoping I’m as confident in two years time, but so far it’s been a no-brainer, wish I’d done it sooner.
Diarmuid – while I appreciate the idea behind your suggestion no neighbour of nine is going to mind my kids for free – I do think last time around there was probably a greater sense of community that is lacking now. Where we live I only know a handful of my neighbours well and at that not even well enough to trust them with my kids. When we were kids you knew everyone well. Thanks for your well wishes
DubinNaas – my hubby leaves here at 7 every morning. I have applied for numerous night positions because as you point out there would be no need for childcare. Again without success. Saying that it is not possible for all mothers of children to work at night. An unemployed mums day is a fairly hectic days work in its self – :)
Paul- what can I say? I think like all young families we have discussed the idea of moving away. While we have alot of good friends here we don’t have any family around and this is something that has kind of stopped us. We miss them around as it is and our kids very much enjoy visiting them. I would hate the idea of them and us being upset !
On the other hand the possibilities for both my hubby and I know and our kids in the future are surely a little better somewhere else – even if it does break my heart to say it! Best of luck to you and your family :)
Cut the 7 billion euro social welfare that we pay to non -national if you wont to save money and look after your own
I’m not sure the figure is that high, but I agree COMPLETELY with the principle of what you are saying
wtf? what if they’ve paid their taxes? they’re entitled to it as much as anybody.
Want to know where you got your figure of 7billion….. Rumor monger.
Every person have a nation, so the word non- national is an abrogation To quote Mr Mooney. national or non- national where they are not entitled to the welfare payment that should reviewed and cut.
Agreed, non national is a misnomer. ‘Foreigner’ is a much more accurate word
Unemployed people are no statistic i full agree,but data enabled statistic enable government make planning easy for creating jobs.
David”! are you somebody with no understanding to bitch and begrudge somebody with a family or a single person to deprive them of a right of S/W when the circumstances of them tragedy losing their Job or that they cannot get work and have tried very hard to find work “or are you one of these people who likes to keep winding and bitching in your Spare time” just Get a Life man” I am a tax payer too “and I have no problem with anybody getting the help and support they and understanding that they need, it wasn’t their fault” and if you need to moan” please do it on your own and be little more sharing would understanding instead of been in appropriate to people worse off than you “.because your type are not amusing and your offensive to the people who are mostly finding it hard to cope and our struggling at this time” what goes around “ comes around”. People like you should not be allowed to comment”
Rita Cahill
i think its a good idea. there are many people on the dole (not the majority at present) who think everything should come free to them. abd then the majority is the more recently unemployed, as a direct result if the recession who can sometimes lose hope or will to find work. personally i have never been unemployed longer than three weeks, and although i got lucky with an available job, it wouldnt happen like that if i wasnt kicking myself up the arse everyday
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