At the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) Annual Delegate Conference in May 2024 delegates discussed the General Election and the key issues to be addressed under the following headings: ensuring adequate levels of income; addressing welfare to work barriers; improving welfare to work supports; providing quality training and education; enhancing labour market programmes; accessible and decent jobs; supportive employment services; and inclusive technological change. These discussions and other work undertaken by the INOU informed our General Election Manifesto.
As the politicians elected on November 29th, 2024, plan to form the next Government, the INOU urges them to support the benchmarking of all social welfare rates so that they lift people above the poverty line and provide them with a Minimum Essential Standard of Living. Continuing with the theme of ensuring adequate levels of income, we are also calling for the development of “a Social Welfare Health Check that proactively informs people of available and appropriate social protection income and welfare-to-work supports.”
Under the theme of improving welfare to work supports it would be vital to “Inform people who are moving from a weekly social welfare payment to a monthly wage of potential back-to-work supports, including the Supplementary Welfare support – Payment Pending Wages” and “Improve the length of time back-to-work support payments are available for people.”
Under the theme of providing quality training and education “Ensure unemployed people and other people distanced from the labour market are properly supported to take up meaningful education and training options”; provide support for “outreach and development programmes to support participation and follow-up work with participants after the completion of their programme”; and “Properly resource youth projects, community organisations and adult education.”
Under the theme accessible and decent jobs, “Address barriers in the labour market facing people because of their age, ethnicity, the community / area they are from, their family status / responsibilities, that they have a disability, have addiction or mental health issues.” It would be critical to address the other barriers facing people including affordable and accessible transport, a travel card or a voucher system may assist in supporting some people; provision of affordable childcare, preferably through a public model; and access to affordable and sustainable housing.
Along with our colleagues in the Add the 10th Alliance, we are calling on the incoming Government to address a serious gap in Ireland’s equality legislation and, as a matter of urgency, add socio-economic status as a ground.
Ireland may technically be at full employment, but it is important to note that this is an economics’ term applied when Ireland’s unemployment rate falls below 5%. It does not mean that everyone who is seeking employment will find it, as there are many barriers to entering the labour market, including duration of unemployment. In our General Election Manifesto, under the theme of supportive employment services, we sought a refocusing of “employment services to ensure that the individual is at the core of these services”, to ensure a more constructive way of engaging with people who are unemployed.
And finally, under the theme of inclusive technological change “Improve use of technology by Intreo to ensure better access to accurate and timely information for people” and to “Provide access to computers to support people to apply for jobs online”.