Social Welfare Rates
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26
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Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo

I agree. We want to avoid people, particularly at a young age, falling into that poverty trap. We want to keep them connected to the labour market, which we all agree is changing rapidly. That is why extra payments are given to those in training and on work experience. As I said, we are working on a new Pathways to Work strategy.
We have had over 430 submissions. We had five stakeholder forum events across the country. We have also met our colleagues in government and in other agencies of Government. We are developing the draft document. I am certainly very much keeping an eye on the changing pattern of labour and the challenges of labour. As a former Minister of State at the Department of enterprise with a particular interest in the digital space, I am very much looking at where those trends are going.
Going back to the reports from the Department of Finance and the future skills group I mentioned earlier, I want to ensure we have appropriate training and appropriate opportunities in place for people regardless of where they live in the country.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-26