Don’t smear the unemployed
The vast majority of the unemployed want to work, if suitable work is available for them in their area.
Tens of thousands of them took up jobs when they were generated during the Celtic Tiger period.
Contrary to the impression given in your editorial, unemployed people can only receive their unemployment benefit or assistance if they have been genuinely seeking work.
They must show clear evidence of definitive work searching.
In most cases work pays over social welfare, and combined with the clear non-financial benefits of work, the large majority of those on the dole are actively seeking a job.
The reference to the unemployed who "do not have a work ethic" is pejorative and not acceptable. Many unemployed are distant from the labour market, often underpinned by a lack of education, and need extra help to obtain a job.
It is simply not true that "virtually every able-bodied person who wishes to work can secure employment".
The unemployment statistics are made up of unemployed all around the country and in unemployment blackspots. There are simply no jobs in their location. We have witnessed around 25,000 redundancies in each of the last two years the highest two years since 1984.
Many jobs are located in large areas of population or tourist centres. Do you expect the unemployed to uproot their families and move hundreds of miles to lowly paid jobs elsewhere in the country? Those on the dole are entitled, in the first instance, to seek jobs locally which are commensurate with their education, training and income expectations.
However, if over time, these expectations are seen to be unrealistic, unemployed people will widen the net in their job search.
The vast majority of the unemployed do not have "an over-inflated evaluation of their own capabilities".
In conjunction with FÁS officials in the preventative strategy of the National Employment Action Plan (NEAP), unemployed people will make sensible choices in relation to work opportunities.
We should not treat the 150,000 on the dole as "virtually unemployable", which make them out to be pariahs.
We welcome Social and Family Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan's focus on this disadvantaged group in Irish society.
They will work if:
(a) jobs are available in their part of the country and
(b) their employability is improved sufficiently by the operation of the NEAP.
It is unjust and incorrect to abandon these people as workshy or unemployable. As a well-off member of the EU, we should be well capable of including this group in the world of work.
Eric Conroy
General Secretary
Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed
Araby House
8 North Richmond Street
Dublin 1
