Dole cut for 50 who turned down jobs

MORE than 50 social welfare claimants have had their dole cut after passing up employment opportunities as part of a tough new Government measure that will intensify in the coming months.

However, moves to catch out welfare cheats through a mobile phone voice recognition system are on hold while it is decided how best to address the growing numbers of social welfare claimants.

Social Protection Minister Joan Burton said she wanted to change the culture of social welfare claims through a system of “incentivising” people, particularly young dole recipients, to take up work.

“The job of social protection is to give people support if they become unemployed, but to do so in a hands up context, not a hand out context. It would be tragic if we were as a society to tolerate young people becoming long-term unemployed and in some cases drifting into it almost as a lifestyle of choice,” she told the Irish Examiner.

Department figures show 55 dole claimants have had their pay reduced since the new rules were applied in April.

The data until July 8 shows that most were Irish, while seven from five other countries also had their payments cut.

A profile of some of those with dole cut after passing up job or training chances shows they were aged 18 to 30 (12), 31 to 30 (11) and 31 to 40 (8).

Rates are being reduced by a maximum of €44 if claimants refuse training with FÁS, do not attend meetings with officials from the jobs agency, or drop out of employment courses.

“It’s a tough decision. This has never been done in the Irish social welfare system before,” she added.

The measures are part of the EU/IMF bailout deal which demand welfare savings of €750 million this year, including “sanction mechanisms” for the unemployed for not participating in job searching.

“It is in the context of people over a period of time who fail to engage with the system. They will be offered options and opportunities and if they fail to engage, then we will look at the option of reducing their dole. The numbers involved at the moment are small,” Ms Burton said.

The system was there to help those who retired, became sick or lost their job and who had paid tax.

“The system was never envisaged to be one where huge numbers of people would never be contributors. Where I would like to be is that we would move to a system over a period of time where people who are identified as being at risk are interviewed within a relatively short period of going on jobseekers and if they are still unemployed, say at 18 months, then [there will be] that much more intensive intervention.”

Separate figures show that under the traditional dole system, 541 welfare claimants had pay suspended as they were not “genuinely seeking work” in the first half of his year. Another 568 were disqualified after not being available to work.

Meanwhile, Ms Bruton said a previous plan to use mobile phone technology with dole recipients is on hold.

Her predecessor had proposed using voice recognition technology on handsets to verify claimants identities and stamp out fake claims.