Sir, - Mary Harney's plans to alter the basis of entitlement for social welfare payments seem to imply an alteration in the State's conception of its responsibilities towards its citizens, and seem unlikely to improve the living conditions of the poorest in Irish society.
Her proposals involve an alteration in the nature of the contract between employer and employee. Rather than being a voluntarily accepted contract for the sale of the worker's labour, the employment contract will now become something that the citizen might be compelled to accept, because the State seems ready to abandon the idea of social welfare as protection offered to all members of society against absolute destitution.
This seems likely to adversely affect the financial prospects of the person seeking to enter work. High unemployment traditionally kept wages low at the bottom end of the labour market in this country. More recently, training schemes which allowed employers to replace workers with government-subsidised trainees and income supplement schemes, which permitted employment to take on staff at unfeasibly low wages also helped to keep wage costs down. Now, the Government wishes to further facilitate employers who pay low wages by forcing people from welfare to work. Such work will inevitably pay the proposed minimum wage, for the employer will be guaranteed that the State will force people to accept low-paid work by removing their welfare entitlements.
The entire scheme seems likely not to improve the living standards and prospects of the poorest in Irish society, but to artificially force labour costs down by ensuring supply at the bottom end of the labour market. Such a scheme does not inspire any confidence in the government's commitment to lessening social divisions in this country. - Yours, etc., Conor McCarthy,
Kilmainham,
Dublin 8.