The tough life of the 'hardened unemployed'

Howitzer said:
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Think about it. Poverty in this country has been turned into a lucrative industry. How many tens of thousands now work in that industry, making quite a substantial living? If we didn't have the deserving poor, most of those people would be out of a job.
 
Howitzer said:
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There are a lot of people who make comfortable livings out of poverty.

e.g. someone starts lobbying on behalf of a category of deserving people. If they are successful, there are a couple of things that can happen. Firstly, the Government will set up a programme for these people which will invariably be headed up by the prinicpal lobbyists (as they are the experts). Lobbyists can look forward to years on the public sector payroll.

Secondly, a charity or non-profit group gets established. This becomes funded through a combination of donations and Government support. It needs a CEO and staff - the lobbyists, as founders, fill these roles.

Essentially in both of the above scenarios, people have created well paid jobs for themselves by "protecting the deserving poor".

I'm such a cynic at times
 
csirl said:
Essentially in both of the above scenarios, people have created well paid jobs for themselves by "protecting the deserving poor".

I'm such a cynic at times
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There's an even more obvious one: the lottery.

Anyway, there's a lot of broadbrush strokes as to generalising all unemployed with those who work the system. No system is or can be free from abuse. The question is whether we have a social ambulance like a social welfare system, if so what's the most effective way to prevent abuse.

Well, I don't think the virtual workhouses proposed is the right way to go.

But second, a greater emphasis on monitoring and supervision of the system requires more resources, aren't we trying to cut down on a bloated PS?

The current system obviously needs some work to prevent abuse. But then simply posting out letters to claimants to ask for more information on their claim has seen a huge success in terms of people then withdrawing their claim. So simple inexpensive stuff can be done.

But we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Like all those suddenly unemployed over the last 2 years, those in regions who were reliant on one or two large employers now gone. There is no other work there for them and the "social ambulance" is essential. How do we implement a system that ensures the right people get the benefit without creating a how new job sector in social welfare enforcement and having more of those officers than Gardai?
 
cork said:
Upskill to anything to help getting a job.

GP, Barber, Butcher, Banker, Barman etc
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Without export focused jobs which bring money into the country there will be no way to create these other jobs.
 
UptheDeise said:
I'm going on what the Purple posted. Are you suggesting that he is lying?
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What I'm suggesting is contained in my earlier post - but I'll say it again if you like. It is usually a good idea to get two sides of a story, before you rush to judgement.
UptheDeise said:
There is always someone out to protect the deserving poor, because at the end of the day they are essentially a goldmine.
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Here's a challenge - I won't ask you to find the 'tens of thousands', but maybe you could find 1,000 employees in this 'lucrative industry'. Start a list of some of these organisations that employ large numbers of people in this 'lucrative industry'.
 
Complainer said:
You might want to check out .
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I'm sorry if you regard these as terms of abuse to you personally, that was not my intention which is why they were in brackets. The public generally perceive people with your opinion on this topic to be "do gooders or bleeding heart liberals" I would regard myself as a "liberal" in certain matters but not when it comes to people who just take advantage and spin a good yarn.
 


I'm part of 'the public' and don't generally have these perceptions.
 
johnd said:
I'm sorry if you regard these as terms of abuse to you personally
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I was referring to this section from the guidelines "Attack an opinion by all means, but please don't attack the person expressing the opinion."

Resorting to name-calling and labelling is generally an indication that you've run out of sensible things to say.
 
Complainer said:
What I'm suggesting is contained in my earlier post - but I'll say it again if you like. It is usually a good idea to get two sides of a story, before you rush to judgement.
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I still have no idea what he was saying, or should that be implying, either UptheDeise. I was simply relaying an experience that my wife told me about. By the way, she told me that it happens regularly, but not frequently. I saw no reason at the time to insinuate that she was exaggerating or lying and I see no reason to think so now.

For the record she is very much in favour of the GMS system but thinks that payments to GP’s should be cut further and well off people shouldn’t get free healthcare that they can easily afford to pay for themselves, even if they are over 70.
 
Complainer said:
What I'm suggesting is contained in my earlier post - but I'll say it again if you like. It is usually a good idea to get two sides of a story, before you rush to judgement.
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If you mean your posts and purples, then after some consideration, I'm going with Purples, even though we had our spats in the past .

Here's a challenge - I won't ask you to find the 'tens of thousands', but maybe you could find 1,000 employees in this 'lucrative industry'. Start a list of some of these organisations that employ large numbers of people in this 'lucrative industry'.
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Lucrative or poverty industry whatever you want to call it, is doing fine and well in this country. How many quango's and their associative quangocrats now work in well paid jobs to assist the deserving poor? The government spends billions of euros each year paying out wages and pensions for this. Without the deserving poor those people would be out of jobs.
 

You've asked the question ?

Now can you give us the answer ?

Name the quangos and outline the numbers they employ , if you can tell us how many billions are expended to maintain them as well then that would be helpful .
 
Deiseblue said:
You've asked the question ?

Now can you give us the answer ?

Name the quangos and outline the numbers they employ , if you can tell us how many billions are expended to maintain them as well then that would be helpful .
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Well the government spends around €21 billion in social welfare. I do not know exactly how much of this is ministered to the deserving poor but I'm sure it's quite a lot. We also have between 800 to 1000 quangos in existance. Again not sure how many exist because of the deserving poor but you can read about them here: [broken link removed]

Also, take into account charities which can receive substantial sums of taxpayers money and award their directors massive salaries.
 


Any chance that you could say 5 or 10 quangos that are part of this 'lucrative poverty industry' and maybe 5 or 10 charities that "receive substantial sums of taxpayers money and award their directors massive salaries". It would just be nice to get some specifics behind your wide (or should that be wild) allegations.
 

The Department of Social and Family affairs is a neccessity and I would hope that the vast majority of funds expended do go to does that depend on them , you are surely not suggesting that we dispense with this most essential of services.

Again I ask you to move away from the area of surmise and detail the quangoes you refer to with details of the number of their employees and the details of the billions they spend , more details on the charities you refer to would'nt go astray either !
 
OK I can speak with some authority on this one.

First, the DSFA or the Department of Social Protection is one organisation that deals with social security. Within this organisation you've got the Appeals board which is suppose to be independent but its funded by the Department.

You've then got the Citizens Information Board who through citizen information centres provides valuable advice and information services to the public - but if Departments done their job in the first place by telling people of their rights and entitlements that would then lead to the question do we need this organisation. This organisation also inputs into policy. Coincidently, funding and services were cut from this organisation to citizen information centres. The citizen information board also funds a range of community advocacy projects that have been set up for disabled persons. Part of these persons job is helping persons to advocate for themselves in accessing their rights and entitlements which again crosses over several departments and the work of citizen information centres.

Then we come to a spin off from the Department of Social Protection called the Family Support Agency that commissions research (although research its conducted is quite limited (look at the website)) and supports Family Resource Centres. It provides funding to the FRC's and also a range of community and voluntary organisations. It has few staff and its services are questionable. McCarthy asked that this organsation be abolished. Again, this is one organisation whose functions could be reviewed and then viable parts of it brought back into the Department.

You've got the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs who funds partnerships in areas of socio-economic disadvantage and community development projects and rural leader programmes. Again, it manages and funds these programmes and also offers funding under different programme areas to communty programmes which duplicates the work done by the Department of Social Protection.

You've got the Combat Poverty Agency that research's poverty that could be brought back into the Department.

You've got numerous homeless agencies whose function cross-cuts several departments from HSE, Social Protection, Housing, Environment etc. There's no coordination in services.

This is what McCarthy was talking about in respect to the need to cut funding and the duplication of services.
 
So you reckon that DSP is now part of the 'lucrative poverty industry'? So payment of job seekers benefit, children's allowances, old age pensions, illness benefit etc are now part of 'poverty industry'? Come on now - let's get real.


annet said:
You've got the Combat Poverty Agency that research's poverty that could be brought back into the Department.
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Your 'authoritative position' is a little out of date. From [broken link removed] "On 1 July 2009 the Combat Poverty Agency was integrated with the Office for Social Inclusion to form the Social Inclusion Division within the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
From 1 May 2010 the Social Inclusion Division will be part of the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs."
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annet said:
This is what McCarthy was talking about in respect to the need to cut funding and the duplication of services.
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Where exactly is the duplication that you are talking? What services/funding are being duplicated?
 
Have you read the McCarthy Report? It refers to the duplication of services. The McCarthy report also refers to the need to streamline funding so that organisations receive funding from one organisation so that there is not cross-cutting across several departments and organisations.

As for the Department of social protection while it does provide social security it is involved in the poverty industry since it provides funding through its spin offs to multiple other organisations that deal with persons who are deemed to be living in poverty.
 
I read every word of the bits of the report that applied to my own area. It was very unimpressed with the level of understanding of the services provided in my area. I've gone back over the DSFA sections of Vol 1 of the report now, and there is no mention of duplication. So again I'll ask you to identify the areas of duplication that you are talking about.

More vague allegations - who are these "multiple other organisations that deal with persons who are deemed to be living in poverty"?
 
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