Mr John Ledwidge is 38, long-term unemployed and well educated. He is one exam short of being a qualified lawyer. He receives £63.50 (€80.63) a week unemployment assistance, and has rent-free accommodation. He also gets a fuel allowance for six months of the year.

With a keen perception of the sense of stigma surrounding the unemployed, he believes it contributes to the low sense of self-esteem which sets in among people who find themselves on the margins of society.

He describes himself as motivated, innovative and "always looking for the apple falling upwards". But for personal reasons - he had three family deaths in three years - he never completed his legal studies at Blackhall Place in Dublin after doing his Leaving Cert in 1979.

"I re-evaluated myself," he says. "The cut and thrust of law at that time was not what I wanted."

But he used his training to good effect, working in the voluntary sector over the years in his home town of Bray, Co Wicklow, getting referrals from voluntary groups such as Women's Network and the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed. He is familiar with "gaps in the legal system" and points to the lack of legal aid available for civil law cases.

He worked as a clerk in a legal office but has been on the FAS register for the past eight years and completed a Community Employment (CE) scheme five years ago, which involved doing a placement with an employer. But there was no appraisal by FAS of the scheme.

Asked why, in a booming economy, he has not worked in recent years, he says he is looking for a job to suit his requirements in the legal area. He believes wage rates should compensate unemployed people for giving up their medical and rent allowance entitlements. Once they give them up, it is difficult to get them back.