Government told stronger ‘trigger’ needed to force welfare recipients to seek employment

Internal government documents said the welfare system needed a stronger “trigger” to force people who were unemployed to engage with employment services.

In briefings, officials said a €44 cut on jobseeker payments had not been changed in over a decade and should be doubled at a time of full employment.

The briefs were prepared for Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys ahead of a controversial decision to increase a penalty for jobseekers who did not engage to €90 per week.

It said these welfare payments were supposed to be contingent on a person being “available for, capable of and genuinely seeking work”.

The briefing said employment supports were available to stop people “drifting further from the labour market” and losing any skills they had.

It said a small number of people – numbering around 1,000 at any given time – were on reduced payments for not engaging.

A briefing said: “In the vast majority of cases the reduction in the payment rate acts as a…

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