Burton: Up to 43,000 suspected of dole fraud

NEARLY 43,000 dole recipients could be abusing the social welfare system, according to Social Protection Minister Joan Burton, as she defended moves to get claimants off the system and back to work.

Representatives for the unemployed rounded on Ms Burton yesterday over efforts to cut the dole of welfare claimants who pass up job or training opportunities.

The Labour minister was also likened to Margaret Thatcher after claiming the dole has become a “lifestyle choice” for some school-leavers.

Ms Burton outlined reasons for cutting as much as €44 a week from claimants and indicated that tens of thousands of people could be abusing welfare claims.

“We don’t know the full extent because we don’t have all the data. What we know is there is probably a rate of abuse of social welfare of somewhere between 1% and up to 2% or 3%.”

The latest figures from her department show that 1,425,199 people made weekly social welfare claims in May. This suggests as many as 42,755 people could be abusing the system, according to the minister’s indication.

Ms Burton said: “We need to look upon every person that lives in this country as a resource. We need to look upon the social welfare system as something you contribute to during your working life. That’s the social contract and in return, the state has to assist you in terms of helping you find a job and find training.”

Under a tougher system rolled out in April, dole claimants who fail to take up work or training opportunities can have their pay cut. Figures show 55 people, mostly Irish, had claims cut up until July 8. More cuts in the coming months are expected.

“What I’m trying to do is have a debate about a cultural change,” Ms Burton told RTÉ radio. “If somebody is 14 or 15 years of age and they’re not doing very well in school; what happens is, in the current climate of jobs, they tend to drift out of school and end up not working, and dependent on social welfare.

“If it lasts over a long period of their life, it’s not good for their family or their children, when they have children.”

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed yesterday called for more information and services for young people out of work and refuted the minister’s claims that school-leavers were choosing a life on the dole.

Head of policy, Brid O’Brien, said the challenge was the lack of choice and jobs.

Sinn Féin’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh said Ms Burton’s words were akin to those of the Tory prime minister 20 years ago: “It was like listening to Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s.”