Crackdown on jobless refusing offers of work

A CRACKDOWN on unemployed people refusing to take up work offers has sparked an angry response from representatives for the jobless.

Radical plans to push unemployed people back to work will see welfare claimants facing cuts to their dole if they refuse to accept job or training offers.

The targeting of dole recipients refusing to work forms part of Ireland’s bailout EU/IMF agreement, which has pledged to save up to €750 million this year alone in welfare payments.

Social Protection Minister Joan Burton vowed to change a culture of young people drifting into a life on the dole: “There are some people unfortunately who if they slip into unemployment, it becomes almost a way of life and that’s not good enough… If somebody fails to engage and they show no signs of being interested, in co-operating, then they may face some sanctions.”

The European Commission bailout mission chief in Ireland earlier this month told the Irish Examiner that a “phasing out” of welfare payments as an incentive for people to return to work was being considered as part of the EU/IMF bailout deal.

EC director Istvan Szekely said he had held a meeting with Ms Burton on the issue and that, unlike other countries, Ireland’s system was “very generous because it stays unchanged”.

As part of the Government’s jobs initiative to be launched next month, welfare recipients will be offered chances to take up work, training, education or internships.

Ms Burton told RTÉ: “If people are given reasonable options, they really will have an obligation to consider those options very seriously.

“We can’t have a situation where somebody at a very young age could almost drift into a life on welfare payments. It’s not good for them, it’s not good for their children and it’s certainly not good for Irish society and I want to change [it].”

Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed head of policy Bríd O’Brien said: “At the moment when there’s so little work, to be threatening somebody makes no sense. She [the minister] doesn’t have the courses or the jobs to be offering people. This is the third minister for welfare who has made this speech.”