ESRI confirms Irish welfare dependent population is TWICE that of Germany or France

Social welfare should only ever be a short term safety net ,but our system is a 4 bed front and back garden with comfortable furniture and a duvet ,

There needs to a full review of the whole system from top to bottom ,more people should be made to take up training and employment and not be allowed to have benefits from the cradle to the grave without ever having to make an effort , when you look at it we spend 100bn every 5 years on welfare that's crazy for our population

If they look at the comparison to their country of those claiming disability here it will fully blow them away.

the fact that you have to ask …

https://www.esri.ie/publications/irelands-household-worklessness-and-working-age-market-income-inequality

The other option is to reduce welfare.

The benefits of reducing welfare as an inducement are it costs us all less and the former dole recipient is now in employment getting work experience and used to a culture of work.

As things stand now you can be born in this country and never work a day in your life.

It's all arseways.

If you reduce welfare it'll actually cost jobs as nearly every penny of welfare is back into the economy, PUP saved the banks arse again, I think that free health care for all would do more to help people escape welfare trap than anything else, the loss of a medical card is more of a block to people taking up employment than you'd think.

That's what corporation tax and the MNC tax take is for n that's going to increase forever so we're grand!

Well it better coz we're the third most indebted country in the developed world. What could possibly go wrong?!

Someone needs to update Wikipedia

Ireland is the THIRD most indebted country in the developed world with €201 billion mountain of debt

The debt equates to every man, woman and child in Ireland owing €42,000

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pffft that's well out of date I'm afraid

Certainly is out of date. It’s currently over €48k per capita, c. €20k above the EU average

Here's a gaff in Balbriggan to rent at the minute, e2100 a month for a townhouse! Totally unsustainable for a working couple paying their way. The government will rent it on hap no bother and the tenants pony up 40 quid a week. Would you blame people for not bothering?!

https://www.daft.ie/for-rent/house-28-bremore-pastures-drive-balbriggan-co-dublin/3656726

I thought the thread was about how generous the dole is,I gave you an example of my experience on the dole.I was able to save,have nights out and go on a foreign holiday.

Im sorry it doesn't suit your narrative.

Worse I would expect. Sure we're throwing about billions for covid.

Welfare payments aren't just for the unemployed so you argument of the "false statistic of Irish unemployment rate of 5% or so pre-Covid" is completely wrong. That 12 percent of households could include lone parents, people on disability payments, carers or widows/widowers etc. As a report there a no details of the metrics used and the source of it's data. For example does it assume a household with a lone parents working but also in receipt of one parent family is a non-working house hold or have the cross referenced social welfare records with current revenue records. It also doesn't say if those in the asylum system who are entitled to welfare payments but not allowed to work are included.

That's not to say there aren't issues with some long term unemploymed people especially intergenerational unemployed households but from the get go the assumptions are wrong

a) only a complete moron would think this refers to absolute numbers

b) dismissing this rather alarming fact as clickbait is...interesting

70 euros a week (your 'high' number) is indeed nothing. Your mortgage on a 300k house will be around 300 euros a week. And rent for an 2 bed apartment in Dublin on the open market will be closer to 400 a week.

There aren't easy answers here but it is very dangerous to create a class of people who are entirely welfare dependent as guess what most of their kids (note that middle-income earners are struggling to afford to have children) are going to do when they grow up?

You are right, it could be and probably is including all those categories of people - but presumably Germany and France have those categories too...

In fairness how can anyone expect people to work for minimum wage which is currently 10.20 an hour that’s just over 400e for a 40 hour week, take away tax and you are left with just shy of 400e. Now that may be fair enough for students, people just out of college or mothers with young kids that just want to make some extra money but if you take a 30 year old that works in a factory, 30kms away from their home, who needs to pay rent and all the usual bills they would actually be foolish even considering working for that kind of money.

Between petrol, car insurance, tax, nct, work clothes, food for work etc they will be left with no more than they would get on the dole. On top of it they actually have to get up everyday and actually do some work to get paid.

Now take that same person on the dole:

203e a week

HAP

Medical Card

Fuel allowance

Little to no need for a car so that’s your petrol, insurance, nct costs down to 0.

At home all day so doesn’t need too many clothes.

Plenty of time to cook or go to mums for dinner so saving on food costs here.

No real need for phone top ups can just use WhatsApp or messenger to call/text people.

Let’s now say that this 30year old decides to find himself a partner and have a baby. Calculations are looking even better now:

203e for himself

150 (almost) for herself

40 (almost for the baby)

almost 400 here x 4 weeks= 1200

140 a month child benefit

=1340

On top of this their rent is now even lower and they are entitled to a bigger house. Medical cards for all. Fuel allowance (additional almost 200e a month)

Almost free Creche. If he decides to do some work for extra hand in cash and she does some house cleaning for a couple of ladies down the road now you are looking for a monthly income of 3000e on top of hap, medical cards, heavily subsided childcare. And remember they are on their way to a social house which they could subsequently buy at a serious discount (the lower they earn the higher the discount).

So why would anyone of sound mind work for minimum wage ?

Pensioners maybe but it’s close to 300e a week with fuel, telephone and in some cases living alone allowance. I know fuel is only paid for a portion of the year but they would generally have around 250e a week without it.

Because someone else was providing your accommodation, paying your utility bills, washing your jocks and socks, dishing up the meat and two veg, paying for your TV and broadband....

Check your privilege.

I have been studying this for a few years.

Yes, Ireland leads the EU in what is know as people living in households with Very Low Work Intensity.

Similarly, we have a lot of jobless households.

It's important to know that unemployment is not the same as joblessness.

We have had low unemployment here, but high joblessness.

We have high levels of economic inactivity, meaning we have lots of hh with zero market income.

Barra Roantree of the ESRI gave a nice lecture on it:

https://www.esri.ie/sites/default/files/media/file-uploads/2020-01/Slides_1.pdf

What ever happened to survival of the fittest? If there is no jeopardy in life then you won't get any growth and productivity. Why are people entitled to anything? If a cheetah is too slow to catch an antelope it dies. Hence cheetahs have evolved to be fast to live. It's seems humans want to de-evolve, since the slowest seem to procreate the most because we incentivise it.