Joe Walsh
Ceist:15 Mr. J. Walsh asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will give an estimate of the average live register for 1997 [2618/97].
Priority Questions. - Unemployment Levels.
Máirín Quill
Ceist:16 Miss Quill asked the Minister for Social Welfare the current Government estimate for the average number of people who will be signing on the live register in 1997; the number of the 45,000 new jobs referred to in the Economic Background to the 1997 budget which are expected to go to persons on the live register. [2609/97]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 15 and 16 together.
The average projected live register figure for unemployed persons for 1997 is 262,000. This is a decrease on the average figure for 1996 which was in the region of 279,000.
In projecting the live register figure for 1997, a number of factors were considered, including the projected strong growth in the economy which will enhance job creation, the various programmes in place to help unemployed persons wishing to return to work and the positive results expected to continue as a result of the recent package of measures to combat social welfare fraud.
This year's budget and Estimates are framed on the basis of an expected additional 45,000 jobs in the economy in 1997. It is impossible to say how many of these jobs will be filled by people coming from the live register. I hope, however, that the buoyant labour market conditions will result in many persons on the live register getting an opportunity to take up work. There is substantial movement of people off the live register each month, on average about 10 per cent of the total, and analysis carried out by my Department indicates that some 50 per cent of this is made up of people finding work.
It must be acknowledged, however, that the number of people in the labour force is also continuing to increase. Young people who have completed their education, emigrants returning from abroad and considerable numbers of women formerly on home duties all seek to avail of job opportunities.
A number of other specific positive measures were announced in the budget which will help unemployed persons to get back to work. These include an increase of 5,000, to a maximum of 22,000, in the number who can participate in the back-to-work allowance scheme and the provision of an additional 3,500 places on community employment projects for unemployed persons. The back-to-work allowance scheme has proved to be very popular among unemployed persons and has been a great success in helping them to get back to work. Since last August the number of participants in the scheme has increased by some 3,000. Other initiatives which will continue to reduce the number unemployed include the part-time job incentive, Jobstart and educational opportunity programmes.
The average projected live register figure is 262,000. This demonstrates that the Government is failing to make an impact in reducing the unemployment figure, particularly the long-term unemployment figure. The average projected live register figure is the same as that which applied when the Minister took office. While there are technical changes to the family income supplement scheme and an increase of 5,000 in the number who can participate in the back-to-work allowance scheme, there is nothing for the local employment service. Speaker after speaker on the Government benches has mentioned the number of jobs which have been created, but the taxpayer is still funding an average live register of 262,000. Is the Minister satisfied with this figure?
Like every other Deputy on both sides of the House, I am sure the Deputy will never be satisfied with the live register figure until it has been eliminated. The Government has been extremely successful on the jobs front. It has enabled 100,000 new jobs to be created and anticipates a further 45,000 new jobs to be created this year. A number of new schemes are in place.
I have also improved the family income supplement scheme which enables people with dependent children to take up work which may be low-paid. We are spending the significant sum of £30 million for this purpose this year. Despite the strident criticism by an ISME spokesperson on radio this morning, this is also a significant subsidy to employers as it enables them to pay low wages. It is difficult to take criticism from an organisation such as ISME which is crying that its members cannot get people to work for what are effectively slave wages.
Those crying that the social welfare system is a competitor of small business should look at the facts. There is the family income supplement scheme to help people with children to take up work while under the back-to-work allowance scheme people retain 75 per cent of their unemployment assistance payment in the first year, tapering off to 25 per cent in the third. In the budget provision was made for the retention of adult dependant allowances primarily to help women whose spouses may be in receipt of unemployment assistance to take up work. A variant of the unemployment assistance scheme has been introduced to enable people who take up part-time work for a period of three days per week to retain substantially their unemployment assistance payment.
All these schemes assist the unemployed as well as employers who should perhaps look at the pay and conditions they are offering before offering any further criticisms of the social welfare system. It seems that much of the criticism is based on ignorance of the social welfare system and what I as Minister for Social Welfare am doing to assist the unemployed and employers.
We have also introduced substantial tax relief and reform in this year's budget, which excludes people in low-paid employment from paying tax. Last year we introduced an £80 PRSI allowance which ensures nobody pays PRSI on the first £80 of income. This year we reduced the employee's PRSI rate from 5.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent, another significant benefit and incentive to employees to take up work. I do not accept criticisms that this Government, or I as Minister are not doing anything to assist the unemployed to take up work. I reject criticisms from ISME, who are constantly on radio and television complaining, whingeing and crying about how they cannot get employees. Perhaps they should look at the wage levels they are offering.
Can the Minister explain how, in these times of rapid economic growth, where we are told a record number of new jobs are created every year, there is not a corresponding reduction on the amount of money set aside for unemployment payments in the overall social welfare bill?
I have read the abridged Book of Estimates for 1997 where the Minister has set aside £1 billion for dole payments in 1997. This would appear to anybody who can do ordinary arithmetic to contradict the promises implied by this and other Ministers that a record number of new jobs are being created. Who is getting these jobs? Why is there no reduction in the dole bill if we are creating all of these jobs? Is the Minister trying to tell me that nobody who is now on the live register will get a job in 1997? Why is there a bill for £1 billion?
In my original answer I indicated in part the reply to the Deputy's question. First, there was a fall of 17,000 in the live register last year, which resulted in significant savings. The average saving per thousand who come off the live register is about £3 million. The estimated average live register figure for 1997 is 262,000. That, compared to the average provided for last year, is a further decline of 17,300, between what was provided for in last year's Estimates and what is provided for in this year's. That is a significant decline in the cost of unemployment payments.
Deputy Walsh was correct when he said the taxpayer is paying for unemployment benefit and assistance. However, roughly half of the unemployed are paid unemployment benefit, which is an insurance payment which those in receipt of it paid for when they were in employment. They are not getting anything to which they are not entitled, although I do not suggest those on unemployment assistance are getting anything to which they are not entitled. It is a mistake to imply that unemployment benefit is a total burden on the taxpayer because the people in receipt of it are former taxpayers, who, through their PRSI contributions insured themselves against the contingency of unemployment. It is worth bearing this in mind while discussing social insurance.
Deputy Quill asked why the numbers of jobs being created in the economy are not reflected in a corresponding decline in the live register. There are a number of factors which explain this. First, we have net migration into this country. Last year, 5,000 more people came back to Ireland than left the country, compared to some years ago when it was substantially the reverse. People who went away in the 1980s and got work, experience and skills are now returning and taking up jobs available in this economy.
In addition, substantial numbers of women who were formerly on home duties are accessing available jobs. The recently published labour force survey shows that something like 70 per cent of new jobs are taken up by women, the vast majority of whom were not on the live register. There is also still a large population of young people coming through our educational system. Most of those are coming straight from education into the labour market and taking up the new jobs that are available, rather than, as in the 1980s, simply getting a plane or ferry ticket and heading abroad.
There are also increasing numbers of part-time workers on the live register who are registered as available for work and are in receipt of unemployment assistance for those days when they are not working. There are close to 30,000 of those on the live register who are not unemployed in the strict sense of the word but are in theory available for full-time employment. It is a growing figure because the number of part-time jobs in our economy is increasing and inevitably those people will be reflected in the live register.
There are also a number of people, primarily women, who, to maintain their entitlement to an old age pension, sign for credits. Because of their domestic circumstances, they are not entitled to unemployment assistance or benefit but continue to sign on the live register to maintain their entitlement to a pension. There are now close to 20,000 of those on the live register, which has risen from 12,000 or 13,000 four or five years ago. These factors explain why the number of new jobs being created in the economy is not reflected in the decline in the live register to the same extent and the gap between the numbers registered and the labour force survey.
It is clear from the effects of our anti-fraud campaign in the last few months that there is also an element of fraud in the system, which we are getting to grips with.
I am appalled by the Minister's intemperate and unfair criticism of ISME. He is the Minister and there is no point in attacking a body outside of the House for his failure to address the problem of the long-term unemployed. There are now about 1,000 people more on the long-term unemployed register than there were when the Minister entered office. Apart from tinkering around in the budget by putting 5,000 people on the back-to-work allowance scheme and adjusting the FIS, which were helpful, there was no real comprehensive attack on unemployment. The Minister will certainly do nothing for it by attacking ISME in the House in an intemperate manner.
How else will I get into the Evening Herald?
Was the report of the National and Economic Social Forum brought to the Minister's attention? If he had time, he might be better employed in reading it. It clearly showed that young people leaving the education system early are most disadvantaged and do not end up in secure employment. What comprehensive plans has the Minister, with his relevant ministerial colleagues, to address this problem seriously?
I do not have time to deliver an extended lecture to the former Minister on what the Government has done about employment and unemployment. I have already outlined the fantastic success of this Government in the area of job creation. More people are now at work than ever before and in the past year our population has grown by 40,000. The Deputy is being slightly unfair, but I suppose that is to be expected from a party that has no policy at all in this area.
The problem of long-term unemployment is a serious one, and we do not pretend it does not exist. We have sought to deal with it through the creation of the local employment service which is successful. It is a painstaking process, however, because the local employment service is based on talking to and assisting the long-term unemployed on a one-to-one basis. This means identifying what their problems are, what skills they have and what skills are required in the local economy within a reasonable distance of where they live. It seeks to ensure that they gain such skills through FÁS schemes or local schools.
Employers in the area are then contacted to ensure they employ people identified as long-term unemployed on the live register in any vacancies they may have. In order to assist them in doing that we provide an £80 subsidy for employers. We also provide a back-to-work allowance for employees in addition to an enhanced family income supplement. All these things were provided not just in this budget but in previous ones. The concentration has been on dealing with unemployment.
The facts are there for all to see, including the number of jobs created in the last two years, falling numbers on the live register and more people returning from abroad. People were virtually expelled from the country by various Fianna Fáil Governments that presided over high emigration. I accept no criticism from the Fianna Fáil benches about job creation and dealing with the unemployed. It is an area in which they have so patently failed generation after generation.
The Minister gave a graphic description of all the new people coming onto the live register in recent years for a number of different reasons. He failed to outline, however, the number of people who, by way of retirement or death, must inevitably come off the live register as some kind of a balancing factor to those coming on to it seeking jobs. There is still an inherent contradiction between the Government's claim to have created so many new jobs while there has been no reduction in the size of the dole bill.
This contribution is overlong.
It was Disraeli who said there are lies, damned lies and statistics. People are confused by statistics. They are interested in how——
The Deputy is making a speech. I apologise for interjecting, but other Deputies have tabled important questions and I would ask for brevity so that we can accommodate them. Let us make some progress, please.
Can the Minister make a monthly report on social welfare output? In that way we could do our sums on the matter. One Minister told us that so many new jobs had been created we would be able to relate that to the amount of money being paid out in unemployment assistance. Would it be possible to do that? We could then assess what progress we are making.
I have already dealt with the earlier part of the Deputy's question. In relation to a monthly report, I would be quite happy to answer a question from the Deputy every week or every month if she so wishes. I am here to give the Deputy whatever information she requires, in so far as it is available to me.
We have long since passed the time allocated for Priority Questions. We will deal with the remaining two questions as ordinary ones.