Welfare commission to look at payments to families

A PROPOSAL to set up a commission on tax and social welfare will go to Government “within the next few weeks”, Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has said.

This is in line with a commitment in the programme for government agreed between Fine Gael and Labour.

“One of its first jobs will be to have a look at payments to families and to see how best we can target those payments. We will be looking at every area of social protection,” the Minister said yesterday.

“My philosophy has always been that it is really important to give people an opportunity to participate and to be active in the community and the workforce.

“I don’t accept a culture in relation to social welfare which is about people being in a long-term dependency,” the Minister said.

She is also planning to activate a scheme initiated by the previous Fianna Fáil-Green coalition to provide 5,000 work placements for social welfare recipients.

“At the time of the last budget the former government announced a scheme called Tús, with about 5,000 places, which is to provide people in urban and rural areas an opportunity to work for at least a year in a community-based development or something similar and get a small supplement over and beyond their social welfare payment,” Ms Burton said.

She added: “I have to say when I came in as a Minister I was a bit surprised to find that none of the places had actually been activated, so we have been busy doing that at the moment.” As a contribution to the forthcoming jobs initiative to be announced on Tuesday next, she said her department would be creating and funding a graduate internship scheme with 5,000 places for graduates, or apprentices who had completed their courses.

“They will get an opportunity to work in a way that will give them valuable experience,” the Minister said.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said there would be a “significant” amount of funds allocated to the jobs initiative. “The idea is to give confidence and a stimulus to the economy. As the Minister for Finance said, it’s not going to be a massive spend because we are confined by the EU-IMF deal to have an exchequer-neutral package. But I think it will be a focused package, it will have an impact on sectors of the economy that we can see job creation.”

Both Ministers were speaking after attending the annual State commemoration of the 1916 Rising at Arbour Hill, in Dublin.