Internal Government documents have said that the welfare system needed a stronger “trigger” to force people who were unemployed to engage with employment services.
In briefings, officials said a €44 penalty reduction in jobseeker payments had not been changed in over a decade and should be doubled at a time of full employment.
The briefs were prepared for the then Department of Social Protection minister Heather Humphreys in advance of a controversial decision to increase a penalty for jobseekers who did not engage with employment services to €90 per week.
It said these welfare payments were supposed to be contingent on a person being “available for, capable of and genuinely seeking work.”
The briefing said employment supports were available to stop people “drifting further from the labour market” and losing any skills they had.
It said a small number of people – numbering around 1,000 at any given time – were on reduced payments for not engaging.
A briefing said: “In the vast majority of cases the reduction in the payment rate acts as a ‘trigger’ for the person to engage.”
However, officials said the €44 reduction had not changed even as welfare payments grew, meaning they were becoming less effective.
They said before a rate was reduced, an individual was offered at least two opportunities to re-engage or explain why they could not.“The consequences of not engaging are clearly communicated to them,” a ministerial briefing from late last year said.
“Where a person has valid reasons for any failure to engage eg illness, childcare considerations etc, these will be taken into account.”It said once a person made clear they were open to employment, training opportunities, and other measures, the full payment was “immediately restored.”
One question and answer for the minister said: “It is accepted that some jobseekers face significant barriers to employment, but this does not mean that they are permanently and irrevocably ‘unemployable’.”
“Many people facing significant barriers can, with the support of the state’s employment and training services . . . overcome these barriers and progress to employment.”
It said by the end of August 2024, around 200,000 jobseekers were in receipt of payments that needed engagement with employment services.
It detailed how around 1,000 were on reduced benefits on any given day with most only lasting a brief period.
Overall, by the end of September last year, 8,000 people had the jobseeker cut applied to their welfare payment at one stage during the year.
It said 45 per cent of them were young and aged between 18 and 30, while 47 per cent were between 31 and 50 years of age.
The briefing said that “the process of exiting a reduced rate is entirely in the power of the jobseeker. Once they re-engage the reduced rate is removed”.
Asked about the records, a spokesman for the Department of Social Protection said the measure had been introduced in January of this year.
He said their Intreo service helped jobseekers with a wide range of support including education, training, work placements and other programmes.
