Cowen Criticises Welfare Clampdown

Fianna Fáil's Barry Cowen has criticised new plans that would see people claiming unemployment benefits given limited periods of time to get off the Live Register.

Mr Burton said the plan by the social protection Minister Joan Burton presented existing control measures as a ‘crackdown’ on the unemployed.

The Social Protection Minister Joan Burton said she will outline details of the so called ‘Prediction of Exit’ scheme next week as part of efforts to address the jobs crisis.

Deputy Cowen said: “Unemployment is the single biggest problem that our country faces at the moment. What we need are solutions that create jobs. What we absolutely do not need is the sort of ‘tough on spongers’ Tory rhetoric that we saw this morning from Minister Joan Burton.

“In their ongoing effort to achieve sympathetic headlines at any cost, the Government has sensationalised straightforward control measures that were already in place before they took power.

Mr Cowen said the effect of unemployment on self esteem and people’s sense of place in the community was well documented and that by encouraging the portrayal of the unemployed as ‘malingerers’ Minister Joan Burton had made a bad situation worse.

"This approach to politics may have a market in other jurisdictions, but I hope that we can continue to avoid it in Ireland. Isolating the unemployed in this way is deeply insulting to the vast majority of people on the dole who would do anything to get back to work."

(DW)