A route to a job, but very possibly the wrong one

While JobPath has led to more people starting work, the low retention rate raises questions about its benefits

In 2012, as Ireland wrestled with its second unemployment crisis in 30 years, we changed the way we did things.

The Irish model of unemployment support had traditionally been too “passive”, complained the troika. We needed to “activate” the labour market (and, by implication, the unemployed); to do so, we needed to impose “conditionality”.

Activation and conditionality are euphemisms. The point was to introduce sanctions.

In February that year, Joan Burton launched Pathways ...