40,000 jobless people snub Fás interview
The state training and employment agency, Fás, said 118,000 people on the dole were referred by the Department of Social Protection for interviews last year — but a third did not show up.
Despite the no-show, they continued to be paid welfare, the agency’s director general, Paul O’Toole, told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
“The only option was to knock them off benefit with a series of other problems ensuing,” he said.
The committee heard the “root of the problem” was there wasn’t “an absolute requirement for somebody to attend interviews”.
Mr O’Toole said: “If for whatever circumstances... people don’t attend there is no effective follow up to it. There hasn’t been, in the past, a sanction that could be imposed.”
Of the 440,000 people on the Live Register in 2010, just 118,000 were referred to Fás interviews by the department; 87,000 others made contact themselves.
This meant that more than 200,000 — or almost half of all those out of work — did not even get a chance of an interview.
The high rate of non-attendance was described as “shocking” by Fianna Fáil’s spokesman on public expenditure, Seán Fleming.
New rules introduced last April mean the dole can be cut from €188 a week to €144 a week if a person refuses interview opportunities. However, the rules are not compulsory and it is generally up to the discretion of the local welfare officer, taking into account individual circumstances. So far, this action was taken against only 221 people, according to the Department of Social Protection.
“Basically, there is a right to a payment but also a matching responsibility on the unemployed person to engage with the system,” the department said.
Mr Fleming said cutting payments is not enough, especially when there is no follow-through system for people who don’t turn up.
He is calling for a reversal of the current arrangement where people first receive jobseeker’s benefit or allowance and then go to Fás for work.
Under current arrangements, a person has to wait at least three months after signing on the dole before being referred to Fás for employment advice.
“If a person loses their job they should first be required to register with the Fás office and then the following day go in and seek their job seeker’s allowance, not the other way around,” Mr Fleming said.
There was no “valid reason” why people would not turn up to interviews for training or work. “If you are meant to be looking for work then what else can you do but turn up for an interview.”
Mr O’Toole said that from next year, there will be a more joined up approach with some Fás workers moving to Social Protection to ensure citizens do more to get back to work.
“The new approach and the new policy is to be a lot more proactive in the linking of income support with the mutual obligation of an individual to find a way back to employment or find a route into employment.”
