Dublin has unveiled far-reaching plans to cut dole queues by targeting those at risk of long-term unemployment, introducing penalties for people who do not take up training, and inviting the private sector to provide job placements.
The plan copies several ideas already in place in the U.K., France and Australia, including immediate on-the-spot assessments for job-seekers when they first claim benefits.
Those job-seekers considered most at risk of long-term unemployment, because of a lack of skills and qualifications, will receive more intensive engagement from state training agencies. Dublin is also moving to reduce benefits to those job-seekers who refuse training or who are caught working in the black economy.
Ireland’s economic crisis, which led to a bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund in November, 2010, has caused unemployment to surge to 14.2 per cent.
There are currently some 440,000 people out of work claiming social welfare benefits, about 42 per cent of whom have spent more than a year out of work…
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