Dole will only be removed as last resort, says minister

Removing dole payments will be used only as a “last resort” for unemployed people who fail to engage with new services to help people get back to work.

The Government yesterday launched a Pathways to Work plan that aims to cut dole queues by interviewing unemployed people and setting them up with training, workplaces or other routes back to the workplace.

Under the plans, those who lose their jobs and sign on to the Live Register will have to also sign a pledge to attend meetings with a case worker and prove they are looking for work.

They will also have to register with the new National Employment and Entitlement Service, which will identify how a person can be helped to get back to education or work.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny warned that those who failed to engage would “put their entitlements in some risk” but he would not indicate the scale of sanction.

Joan Burton, the social protection minister, said removing people’s dole payments would only be used as a “last resort”.

“If somebody comes to collect the money but not to engage, the payment will be suspended.”

If a person misses the first arranged engagement with case workers, their dole will not be cut. “We’ll contact them again, maybe there’s a reasonable explanation.”

The existing social welfare employees are very experienced at contacting people, she said, but would not say how many chances a person would get before losing all or part of their payments.

The initiative promises to take 75,000 unemployed people off the Live Register by 2015. There are 439,500 people on the register, with 183,800 of these out of work for at least a year.

The average amount of time spent out of work is 21 months, but Mr Kenny said this would be reduced to 12 months by 2015.

At yesterday’s launch, he called for an end to the culture of job snobbery.

Asked what employers would have do to ensure jobs were given to the long-term unemployed and not to cheaper labour, he said he met a nursing home owner who had interviewed 24 Irish women who did not take the jobs, which paid €10.50 an hour.

“Twenty-four women were not of a mind to take up the employment, in a good nursing home. So she said, ‘well now I’ll have to employ four Polish girls’.

“I do think that, certainly in the ’80s and in the ’90s, we’ve had a culture in the country here where there was an assumption or an opinion, that particular types of employment were off limits for Irish people. And it shouldn’t be so in the future.”

He said there were “so many opportunities out there that we have to make people understand are available”.

Seán Healy of Social Justice Ireland said most people wanted to take up a job if it was available and the focus of the plan “should not be on penalising certain groups”.

At least 700 staff who used to work for Fás employment service have been moved to the Department of Social Protection to engage with unemployed people.

Fianna Fáil spokesperson on social protection, Barry Cowen, said: “It will come as a surprise to the country’s social welfare staff that they have not always been required to match a job-seekers’ skills to the opportunities available. When did social welfare staff stop following up with all job-seekers, particularly the long-term unemployed?”

Getting back to work

What will an unemployed person have to do:

* People signing on to the Live Register for the first time and those already out of work will have to register with the new National Employment and Entitlement Service.

* An appointment will be made to attend the local office.

* Jobseekers are profiled for their suitability for certain jobs or training.

* They are then asked to attend either a group information session or a one-on-one meeting with a case worker depending on how long they have been out of work.

* After four months, they will be asked to attend a meeting with a case worker and prove they are genuinely seeking work.

* If on the dole after one year, they will be referred to a one-on-one session with a member of the case management team.