THE TAOISEACH has warned Irish people that they have to be prepared to take up all kinds of employment, even in areas they would previously have considered below them.
Speaking at the launch of the Government’s latest jobs plan, Enda Kenny also warned that people who were long-term unemployed but failed to look for work risked losing their social welfare benefits.
The Pathways to Work plan proposes measures to incentivise unemployed people to take up employment and training opportunities but does not contain specific proposals for penalising those who fail to do so.
Mr Kenny said the plan was about ensuring that when economic recovery came, those who lost their jobs in the recession were not left behind.
The aim is to get 75,000 long-term unemployed people back into the workforce by the end of 2015. Listing areas in which there are job opportunities, including IT, the meat industry and fishing, the Taoiseach warned: “In the 1990s we had a culture where there was an assumption that particular kinds of employment were off limits to Irish people, but that shouldn’t be so in the future.”
He cited the example of a nursing-home owner who told him she interviewed 24 Irish women for four jobs but none would accept the work at a rate of €10.50 an hour. As a result, the employer said she would be hiring four Polish women.
The legal minimum wage is currently €8.65 an hour while the basic jobseeker’s payment is €188 a week.
Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton said no one would be allowed to drift into long-term unemployment without receiving support. “We will not repeat the mistakes of the 1980s and 1990s when unemployment remained high even after economic recovery took hold. This time, our people will be job-ready when the recovery comes.”
Ms Burton said that in cases where unemployed people completely failed to engage with her staff, they could have their entire welfare payment suspended. In cases where people engaged but did not make a serious effort to respond to offers of work or training, their basic payment of €188 per week could be cut by €44. Some 528 people had had their payments reduced in this way, she said.
Mr Kenny said we couldn’t have a situation where people were “serially and forever” drawing benefits that workers were paying for through taxes. “Everybody in this country can make a contribution and everybody will be encouraged to make a contribution and if they don’t, and fail to engage with the agencies, then they put their payments at risk.”