Burton's welfare comment criticised

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has been heavily criticised for suggesting that social welfare is becoming a "lifestyle choice" for some young people leaving school.

Ms Burton said some individuals were drifting out of school and into the welfare system and that more needed to be done to address this.

The Minister again warned of cuts to welfare payments for those who refuse to take up training or employment opportunities.

Mr Burton also said there was a rate of abuse of the social welfare system of between 1 and 3 per cent.

"I think as a country we have a lot of thinking to do about the fact that we have so many of our people, very good people, now only able to get income support from social welfare," she said on RTÉ's Morning Ireland.

"What I'm trying to do is have a debate about a cultural change where if somebody is 14 or 15 years of age, and perhaps they're not doing very well in school . . . what happens in the current climate of jobs, they tend to drift out of school and end up not working [and] dependent on social welfare," she added.

The Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU) said it disagreed with Ms Burton's description of people making lifestyle choices and said it was a lack of choice which had led so many people to sign on.

Fianna Fáil claimed that Ms Burton's comments were meant to soften the blow of a Government u-turn on protecting welfare rates.

The Party's spokesman on Social Protection Barry Cowen said the Minister's comments had caused confusion and concern among welfare recipients."

While we accept the need to continue to root out fraud within our welfare system, we must be careful to distinguish between those who refuse to work and those who would do anything to get back to the workplace or get a foot on the career ladder," he said.

"Fianna Fáil supports a tough stance on welfare fraud. However we recognise that the very last thing that this country needs at this time is to create a stigma around being unemployed. There is no doubt that the vast majority of those in receipt of job seekers payments would jump at the chance of meaningful employment if they had the opportunity," Mr Cowen added.

Sinn Féin social protection spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh said it was galling to hear the Minister speaking of welfare recipients making lifestyle choices to stay on the dole when the Government had failed in its promise to create new opportunities for the unemployed.

“The fact of the matter is that there are no jobs out there. The best way to lower the social welfare bill is to create jobs. This is where the government’s focus should be rather than on further punishing those who are dependent on social welfare,” he said.

Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party, said Ms Burton’s "arrogant insult to unemployed young people" served as a cover for the Government’s failure to create jobs

“The statement by the alleged Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, that young people are choosing to go on the dole as a ‘lifestyle choice’ is an arrogant and gratuitous insult to a generation cruelly betrayed by the current economic system and totally let down by a government that is floundering in face of the need to create tens of thousands of new jobs," he said.

“The reality is that young people are desperately anxious to find employment but with 440,000 ahead of them in the queue, it is near impossible for many of them.

Mr Higgins accused Ms Burton of clumsily attempting to justify further cuts in social welfare and to distract attention from the Government's failure to create more jobs.

Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams said Ms Burton's comments were "disgraceful."

"To suggest that working people choose to be unemployed shows that the minister has lost
touch with the reality of people's lives," he said.