36. SJI Interviews Ep20: Welfare Conditionality and Stigma with Joe Whelan, UCC

"Spongers", "Scroungers", "Welfare Cheats" - just some of the many tropes used to belittle people dependant on social welfare supports.  But the idea of these supports being free and easy money just doesn't ring true.  

In the latest episode of our SJI Interviews series, Colette Bennett chats with Joe Whelan, Lecturer in Applied Social Sciences in UCC and author of the paper "We have our dignity, yeah? Scrutiny under suspicion: Experiences of welfare conditionality in the Irish social protection system", among others, on the experiences of people in receipt of social welfare.  This is an eye-opening conversation, and gives another layer of understanding beyond the statistics to the lived experience of people dependent on welfare payments.