Measures to curb long-term welfare reliance

PEOPLE who are jobless for long periods are to be coaxed back into education, training and the workplace through a range of measures designed to discourage long-term dependency on welfare.

The National Development Plan (NDP) provides funding to back a plan announced late last year by Employment Minister Micheal Martin and Social Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan to get more than 50,000 people on welfare into employment by 2013.

That represents just 20% of people in the 16-65 age group receiving long-term welfare payments. It will cost some €50 million to implement the measures which will be a mix of incentives, such as more accessible and suitable retraining schemes, and sanctions such as cutting of payments for people who are able to cooperate but refuse to do so.

A total of €4.2 billion is being set aside for this and other measures under the Working Age Education Programme which will particularly target people with disabilities, lone parents, early school leavers, unemployed people, Travellers, ex-offenders, homeless people, older people and people from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The programme also aims to tackle problems such as poor literacy rates among adults and the high proportion of adults who did not complete second level education. The 8,000 places currently on the Back to Education Initiative for adults who did not complete second level will be boosted by an additional 2,000 places, while the number of places on VEC adult literacy courses will increase by 7,000 to 45,000.

Other “welfare-to-work” measures in the NDP include enhanced funding of €591 million for the existing Back to Work Programme which allows jobseekers to retain a portion of their welfare supports for the first few years of employment to allow them to gradually strengthen their foothold in the labour force, and €519 million for the existing Back to Education Allowance.

Continued investment is promised in the VTOS schemes which provide second chance education for unemployed people who did not previously sit state exams and a €2 billion Third Level Access Fund is to provide grants and supports for students with disabilities, mature students, Travellers and students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

An Adult Education Guidance Initiative is to be developed to reach out to excluded groups and guide them as to what courses, schemes and supports are available to them.

Funds totalling €300 million are earmarked to assist the rehabilitation of ex-prisoners and their reintegration into the workplace.

The key points of social inclusion are:

* €49.6 billion is allocated to “Social Inclusion” programmes aimed at improving quality of life for people left behind by the Celtic Tiger

* €19.2bn of that is earmarked for people with disabilities, with a special emphasis on improving specialist health services

* €12.3bn will be spent on supports and services for children, particularly children considered vulnerable or at risk

* €9.7bn is for older people, specifically for extended home care and day care packages to aid independent living

* €4.2bn is promised for long-term welfare recipients with a key aim of bringing people back to work or education.