Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

On section 1, I will mention the fact that I tried to amend section 1, the Title to the Bill and how it will be cited as an Act in the future, as the Social Welfare and Pensions (No. 2) Act 2009.

That Title gives no indication of the scale of what this Bill involves. My attempt to amend the Title was ruled out of order. I got the Ceann Comhairle's missive, which stated that he regretted to inform me that amendments Nos. 1 and 9, tabled by me for Committee Stage of the Social Welfare and Pensions (No. 2) Bill, must be ruled out of order as they are declaratory in nature. That is ridiculous, they are not declaratory, they are descriptive. The whole idea is to allow a description of what the Bill intends to achieve.

The intention behind the entire Bill is to substantially reduce social welfare. Not only will it do that but it will lay the groundwork for emigration on a vast scale again, something this Government boasted for ten years that it had eradicated. Emigration destroyed communities across this country and that is exactly what this Bill will do if and when it is passed.

It is my intention to raise the issue that this Bill will substantially reduce social welfare. I was not being frivolous or declaratory, I was being realistic in what I intended to do, so that this Bill and its odious nature would reflect that in the future.

This Bill will substantially reduce social welfare payments to young people and turn them into second class citizens, it will discriminate against them and mean they are not proper citizens who enjoy the same benefits as those over 25. Where the 25 years came from, I do not know. I presumed that young people became adults at the age of 18 according to the State but there is a different system. The Short Title, construction, collective citations and commencements of this Bill should include information to that effect.

If I had the time I would have tried to alter the commencement of the Bill to ensure it would not come into effect until the number of unemployed had fallen back to where it was four years ago and that poverty had been reduced to a negligible level. We did not have that opportunity because this Bill was produced when the Department was burning the midnight oil at a moment's notice. That can be seen by the fact that the Minister for Social and Family Affairs is even, at this stage, trying to introduce amendments.

The other point I wanted to make on section 1 but I did not have the luxury of time, is that this Bill should not be coming into operation unless every aspect of is poverty proofed. Deputy Shortall mentioned the Cabinet handbook instruction that all legislation introduced should be examined to ensure it does not increase the level of poverty. The level of poverty will substantially increase because of this Bill for the vast majority of people. There is, however, a small cohort in society who will continue to increase their wealth and who will get away with it scot free. The taxation system has not been made fair. That is what we should be addressing.

If this Bill addressed the huge wealth that still exists in this country, we might be able to support it but I will not stand here and support any aspect of this Bill because its intention is to screw the people, to rob those who are already poor of the little they have, to take meals from children and to make young people emigrate.

It is scandalous what it will do to graduates. I remember the brain drain in the 1980s, where those who came out of university went away, so the State lost all the investment it made in their education. That is what will happen again, we will forego the investment the State has made in education, even though it was not enough. The young people will leave. In this Bill, the Government is ensuring those graduates, who started their university education with a career path in mind for when they finish, can no longer follow that path because the jobs are gone and the Government did nothing to protect them or to ensure they would come back.

Where will those people go when they finish university? Straight on to the dole at €100 each. How will they survive to ensure they are still around if the economy comes out of recession in five or six years' time? It will be more than five or six years if this Government has anything to do with it because it has no stimulus package to put in place.

That was the intention of the amendment and that is why I am objecting to section 1. This section and the rest of the Bill should be rejected.

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