Noonan and the jobless

Michael Noonan’s comments about people who ‘will never work’ show how out of touch he is with the reality of what is actually happening to the long-term unemployed

Long-term unemployment is a failure of policy, not the individual. Picture: Collins
Long-term unemployment is a failure of policy, not the individual. Picture: Collins

Michael Noonan thinks there are some people who are work-shy – people who, if a job was in a bed, they’d sleep on the floor. People who run from employment like upper middle-class people run from foods with gluten in them because of their “allergies”.

During the week, at a Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce lunch, Noonan said: “We all know there will be ...