Call to slash minimum wage and dole money
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UNEMPLOYMENT benefits and the minimum wage should be cut as deflation continues -- while single parents should be forced back into the workforce once their children reach school age, the OECD recommends.
High benefits and the poor quality of job creation policies are likely to create permanent unemployment, says the report in a wide-ranging discussion.
Turning to single parents, the OECD wants lone parents to get priority access to childcare and remove benefit when children reach school age.
It also calls for a crackdown on disability benefit, saying too many elderly workers are claiming it and there should be a full assessment of claimants' disabilities.
Other controversial demands include the merger of job creation agencies such as FAS, compulsory work schemes for the unemployed, and tax incentives to encourage married partners to work and the over-65s to stay in employment.
The report pulls no punches when it comes to the state agencies that are supposed to help people return to work.
It calls for a single agency to pay out benefits and ensure that people attend employment programmes. This would effectively merge FAS, the Community Employment Scheme and the Department of Social Welfare.
"Ireland is unusual in the number of agencies involved with helping the unemployed; a single organisation should deal with paying unemployment benefit and managing activation programmes," the report says.
Another demand is for the curtailment of the "costly" Community Employment scheme which gives the unemployed part-time work placements for up to six years.
- Thomas Molloy
Irish Independent
