Don’t mind lowering it, if they refuse work, cut them off!

Reduce reduce reduce if they continually refuse work, to look for work, training or apply for interviews or work without taking any of these up then the same cuts should apply. And any that are found to be working and claiming should loose all benefits

Joan Burton finally says something right!
Our sinking boat has no room for slackers and moochers anymore.

I feel it’s wrong that someone who genuinely wants to work gets lumped in with the same crowd as those on the dole ten or twenty years. These spongers milk the system and if this goes through at least it’s one step taken on a long staircase of reform to address the issue of a glorious amount of wasters who have more money that people who are working their asses off to provide for families etc. Root out the wasters!!!

Only an Idiot wouldn’t agree with the headline…..

But if Joan Burtons plans are the same as the Last shower of FF Idiots (the FAS work placement position scheme), I can only see people being cut off.

If a person takes up (or forced into) the offer of a WPP from FAS at the moment it means, they work for a private company for up to 9 months, but rather than being paid by the employer, they will be paid by FAS (the same amount of money the person is entitled to on the ‘dole’). at the end of the 9 months, what happens next, is there a job offer or are they returned to the ‘dole queue’?

Now considering a person will be paid below minimum wage for a private enterprise, they are then expected to make they’re way to and from work and feed themselves from the current the entitlement. so basically a person will go out and work for an employer for less money they are on at the moment. Nothing extra/no incentive. Admittedly the drop in money (due to Lunches and Travel) won’t be extreme. But some people are struggling on the dole as it is!

So it’s not as simple as, “Is it right to cut benefits for those who refuse work or training?”

Yes it is that simple.., why should those who don’t want to work get money for doing nothing?

I agree that there are probably some good opportunites out there to be had from the WPP. The chance for some people to spend 9mths getting invaluable experience and possibly even being offered the position full time by the employer at the end of said term. That is wonderful when something like that happens.

Then there are the times when the employer knows they are getting 9mths of free employment and after the 9mths the person is back to the dole and the employer back looking for another WPP candidate.

This very much happens in the private sector I am sure. And yes better sanctions and management of the WPP would sort this out.

What really annoys me is this: in my local area quite a few of the advertised WPPs are in the public sector!!!! The local VEC for example. So you get your 9mths there, you learn their specific systems etc and work hard for your 9mths and at the end of it there is no hope of there being a possible job as they are in the midst of a recruitment freeze!!!! And the long term employees are annoyed that the bosses are constantly getting free employees in to do the jobs for various reasons. Now tell me that’s fair!

The Dole is a drop in the ocean compared to the swindling bankers and Developers losses. They should pay before you lay a finger on the most disadvantaged in out society. However we all have to pay. I suggest food stamps and electricity vouchers be handed to those who dont want to work.

Re: Cutting Jobseekers of those who don’t accept work or further education/training. I think the focus is on the wrong people. In 2005 when work was available, only 4.2% were unemployed. In April 2011 unemployment stands at 14.6%. This suggests that 78% of unemployed people would work if they were offered work. The real problem here is clearly a dire scarcity of jobs.
There is a growing problem with the black market economy and that is something that needs to be tackled. But it will never succeed when it is clearly evident to people that those on the top of the pile, who prospered during the Celtic Tiger, continue to prosper no matter how culpable, negligent or plain greedy they were in pursuing their own interests at the expense of Irish society. The real hurdle to progress in rejuvenating this country is simple equality and justice; we don’t have it.

The countryside has never been as dirty and untidy would it not be a good idea to give people an extra incentive to help make our country a better spectacle to tourists and generate more revenue by making some of the long term unemployed make the country a better place. Surely some job satisfaction is worth something.

About time

How about cutting the dole and benefits of those who engage in anti social behaviour? They cost the country more in damaged property, hospital visits, police time, court time, more court and police time chasing up when they reoffends and fail to pay fines, I also have to include those charged with multiple driving offences and all public order offences. Those who abuse society and other citizens should not be allowed benefit in any way from societies social benefits!

This scheme is only going to benefit the employer not the employee!!! It will also cut hours of anyone that is already employed so the employer will have free labour!! So even though we know alot are on benefit and need to work let the government employ them in the council so that the roads are of a high standard, towns and cities a new lick of paint and cleaned up and to pay them a little extra than the dole to give the people a reason to work!!! No one should be out of pocket to work, we go to work for a better life and no one should judge people on the dole as lazy, alot have tried and failed to get work but if you give them an extra few euro for expences such as lunch and travel then I think it’s a great idea!! No one should be penalised or bullied by anyone depending on their circumstances!!!

Banks, multinational corporations and gombeen developers are the benefit cheats you should be chasing, billions of euros of uncollected taxes are languishing in offshore tax havens. It is in the interests, however, of the government and big businesses to use the unemployed as a scapegoat for a crisis that they caused and have continually exacerbated.

Furthermore, the rhetorical devices used by Burton and her colleagues are typically classist. I live in a working class area in the north and I can assure any readers who have never even set foot in a working class housing estate that the prevalent attitude towards work is not as the media portray it. Unemployment is not a resulting factor of laziness or ‘work shyness’, rather it is a punishment that is inflicted on the working class and rural communities as soon as it is no longer profitable for an employer to hire a person’s labour. To most this may seem quite obvious and it frustrates me that I have to dispel these myths in such juvenile terms, however the frustratingly narrow discourse in this thread reflects the wider crisis in Irish political discourse. People have neither the political backbone nor the moral courage now to stand up and fight for what is right, neither do they have the critical intellectual faculties to do so.