When we seek to scrutinise policy, none of us is ever speaking about staff. When there is criticism of a policy, it is not about a lack of appreciation for staff. For the Minister then to say she knows her staff and how humane they are personalises the points someone else is making. It is as if they are being personal about employees when that is obviously not the case. It is not an attack on anyone's endeavour or how they do their jobs. It is more about the policy intent. As for the policy intent, as someone who r…

I fully understand and accept the intention but the experience is prescribed. It states that if you do not attend or participate in the scheme, you will potentially lose the benefit. Therefore, it is not of your own free will or off your own bat. The legislation actually implies that if you do not engage, you could lose your payment. That is a really big issue because it forces people into doing a job they do not want to do out of fear of losing the cushioning the Minister referred to. It is fine where people are r…

To be very clear, nobody is saying anything about people engaging or looking for work. I do not know whether the Minister is responding purposefully to confuse what we are saying or whether she does not actually understand what we are saying the legislation states. The legislation as it stands is not above scrutiny. The legislation states that it is if you do not engage with the prescribed scheme, not just with the Department. Again, it also refers to work experience. Are people expected to engage in work experienc…

Everything has changed.

It does not matter. It existed previously but there are issues with it there too. Nobody should do work experience for whatever minimum or maximum rate of social welfare they are on. Work experience should not factor as an option to receive social welfare. If you are doing work experience in a factory, an office, Google or wherever, you should be doing it for the same rate of pay or living wage as anyone else at your rate of pay. It says here that you can lose your payment if you do not engage in the prescribed wor…

Legislation states that is the case.

The Minister is not going to answer the question directly so I will move on to the next amendment.

I asked the Minister a direct question about if people will have to work, not whether there has been a shift or not.

I did not ask whether this has been a shift from other policies. Whether it exists in previous policies or this policy, it is wrong that people are expected to engage in work experience for the prescribed amount of pay-related benefit. If someone decides it is part of their care plan with social welfare, are they expected to potentially engage in work experience for whatever number of hours for a lower rate of pay than other people employed in that sector? I am not asking if it is a shift or if it is new or old. I …

Is it the case-----

Are you expected to work for your benefit?

Not necessarily.

It is not the case.

I move amendment No. 12: In page 20, line 38, to delete “which is prescribed for the purposes of this section”. This amendment speaks to the concerns we have outlined with regard to the previous amendment and the proposed new sections 68KG and 68KH. The purpose of this section is to direct recipients of pay-related benefit towards schemes or programmes of employment or work experience as stated in the legislation - even if none of us can decide what work experience is, it is in the legislation - "which is considere…

No, that is not what I said.

That is not what I said.

I said people without a profession.

It is very important to say that we have a history, as has been said by Senator Higgins, with the jobseeker's transitional payment, which completely put women and mothers in a vulnerable position. When they were transferred from the one-parent family payment to the jobseeker's transitional payment, they were expected to go to work when their child reached a certain age, not the age of 18, regardless of whether they had support at home or access to childcare. They were put on the jobseeker's transitional payment and…

I will make one final point. It is all well and good to say that the Department wants to help people get to work. This is a short scheme and participants do not get much time to actually explore what their next option might be. If they have just lost their job, they are not even given the breathing space to figure out what that might be. Second, people are not helped by telling them that they must avail of a scheme or work experience. The scheme states that if a person does not participate, that person can lose his…

I move amendment No. 1: In page 11, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following: “(I) in subparagraph (ii), after “or class of medicinal products,”, by the insertion of “to include Opioid Substitution Treatments,”,”. This is much in the same vein as the conversation we had last week, and I note we have not had much time in between to converse on it. To reiterate the points I made on the previous Stage, this amendment would insert an explicit reference in the Bill to the capability of registered nurses to presc…