Big increase in calls to group for unemployed

QUERIES TO the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) about redundancies have increased dramatically in the last year, and the organisation has noted a big increase in calls from professional people.

In October 2007, redundancy queries accounted for 11 per cent of calls for help to the organisation. Last October, that figure had increased to 23 per cent.

It climbed to 34 per cent in November, and 38 per cent in December.

The vast majority of calls came from Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick, according to Robert Lynch, manager of the INOU’s welfare section. He said there had been a “significant increase” in the number of calls from professional people such as architects, auctioneers and solicitors.

The organisation is also receiving a large number of calls from self-employed people, particularly in the building industry.

Most queries concern jobseekers’ allowances and benefits, but people also ask about housing issues such as eligibility for rent supplement or mortgage interest supplement and debt management.

Because of the increased demand for information on redundancies, the INOU launched a new website – www.redundancy.ie – in October. At the start of this week, it had received more than 8,000 unique hits, Mr Lynch said.

The website gives information on redundancy and its implications to employees, unions, employers and information agencies. The site, in common with the INOU website, is also available in Polish.

Bríd O’Brien, INOU head of policy, said the organisation had become increasingly busy in recent months, particularly with inquiries from people with links to the building industry.

Self-employed people were finding it difficult to access social welfare entitlements and professional people were dismayed to find that there was no correlation between the level of salaries they were being paid and the social welfare payments they were entitled to. “A lot of people who are becoming unemployed have never been unemployed before and they have no idea where to go, what to do and what to bring with them,” she said.

Ms O’Brien said she was concerned that the Government did not appear to have a planned approach to improving the skills of unemployed people so that they would be able to re-enter the workforce as soon as possible.

“It’s going to be very challenging and we need policy responses now,” she said.