Harris has had long term fixation on the unemployed. He had it when I knew him. Yet he never has a clue what he is talking about.
Many people down as long-term unemployed are on the wrong payment. They should be on disability due to long-term illness that makes them unable to work. However the disability bureaucracy is such that they keep being refused disability for idiotic technicalities. Eventually they just give up trying to get it, despite their doctor, social worker and everyone else knowing that they should be on it.
One in-law of mine due to ill health should unambiguously be on disability. He instead went round and round and round in circles, constantly getting ludicrous rejections. Social workers know a standard one - people keep being told they did not send in some document they unambiguously did send. So they send it in again, and again they get told they did not send it in. My theory is that the bureaucrats do that in the knowledge that many applicants are demoralised and depressed, and so will give up.
Others on long term unemployment are on it because they lost their job at an age where nobody now will employ them. Others get completely demoralised and suffer severe depression.
Simon knows nothing about the system. He has got the smug theories of a person with no experience on the topic. If he could get his way he would cut the payments. Luckily, Fine Gael has been in government with Labour, now Fianna Fáil, and unlike Fine Gael, they are not going to slash payments no matter how much Simon wants to.
If Simon ever had to survive on social welfare he would die of shock. It is nothing like he thinks.
