TÁNAISTE SIMON HARRIS has defended his promise to crack down on long-term recipients of Jobseekers’ Benefit, having been met with criticism from the opposition.

Speaking on Saturday evening at Fine Gael’s ard fheis in Cork, Harris told delegates: “The dole is a safety net, not a way of life.” His words were met with applause from attendees.

Calling for a new Pathways to Work plan, focused on tackling barriers to employment and helping the long-term unemployed back into work, the Fine Gael leader warned of “penalties” for those who choose not to engage.

While his leader’s address may have gone down well with attendees, others were less impressed.

Harris was accused of “punching down” and targeting a small group of people during near-full employment to score political points. Among his critics was Labour leader Ivana Bacik, who referred to Harris’s comments as “lazy nonsense from the lads that dropped the Living Wage”.

Appearing on RTÉ’s This Week in Politics programme, Harris defended his position and said it is “what a sensible government should be doing”. 

He took issue with Bacik’s criticism.

“Performative politics is coming from some of the opposition parties who criticised my remarks while having introduced penalties in this area when they were actually in government,” the Tánaiste said, referencing former Labour minister Joan Burton’s ‘penalty rates’ for jobseekers.

Fine Gael is suggesting upping the provision of training and apprenticeship opportunities, he added.

“We’re not talking about a person who’s getting a disability payment, or an older person or a carer,” Harris said. “We’re talking about people who are for to work, and we need to work with them to make sure they can make a positive contribution in this country.”

The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that unemployment measured 4.8% in October. Economists generally benchmark full employment as a country having around 4% to 5% unemployment.

Just over a quarter of those unemployed have been so for over a year. The long-term unemployment rate increased from 1.1% in Q2 of 2025 to 1.3% in Q2 2026, the CSO’s Labour Force Survey said.

Sinn Féin’s social protection spokesperson Louise O’Reilly accused Harris of “Thatcherite” politics in a “cynical attempt to shift blame”.

O’Reilly said long-term unemployment “does not emerge in a vacuum” and is the result of deprivation, a lack of opportunity and leaving education at a young age.

“After 15 years in government, Fine Gael cannot wash its hands of these problems or pretend they are simply a matter of individual choice. It has failed to tackle the underlying causes, and now Simon Harris is blaming the people left to live with the consequences,” the TD said.