The proposal to  to phase out payments to long-term unemployed isn’t a unique idea, in fact its standard policy in many other EU countries, and now needs to be considered carefully and fairly here.

As a tax payer I strongly believe that the State should help those who can’t help themselves or those that fall on hard times, although I don’t believe that help should last indefinitely for those that are capable of providing for themselves.

The key point in this debate will be the defination of “long-term” as currrently the State classifies those out of work longer than a year as “long-term”.

Clearly in light of the recession no right thinking person would suggest that payments be cut after just one year; on the other hand we have some in society who have never worked for a decade and even longer, and such dependence is bad for both society and the individual themselves, not to mention financially unsustainable.

FG, the lead party in Government have been fans of the Dutch for some time, being an advocate of their Health System; its time now for them to also consider the Dutch welfare system; which is contribution based and provides much higher payments to genuine claimants than available in Ireland, whilst at the same time avoids long term dependency.

Other examples to look at include the Hartz IV system used by Germany.