Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I support the motion. The Labour Party has been leading the way regarding what we perceive to be the reduction or diminution in community welfare officer services at the most local level for a long time now. While many people will easily interact with a freephone number and that will capture perhaps a new audience, many vulnerable people living in rural areas will not have the wherewithal to go to local Intreo offices.

I continue to make this case to the Minister and ask that this be looked at again. We need to bring the service to as many people as possible. We have all quoted countless examples to her of what we perceive to be a creeping centralisation of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. That scheme is enshrined in legislation for a reason, which is that it would allow for discretion on the part of the local community welfare officer. We feel there is a departmental policy now to try to squeeze that as much as possible.

The Minister will say an increase of approximately €17 million has been paid out in additional needs. I was never aware of such a specific scheme set out in statute called an additional needs scheme. I always understood it to be an exceptional needs payment and urgent needs payment scheme.

Notwithstanding the fact that an additional €17 million has been paid out, which is acknowledged, the number of recipients has gone up to 97,000. I believe strongly that is a suppressed demand. What I mean by this is that if more people knew the service existed, they would come in to avail of it. Many people still do not know the service exists. We have evidence that where people have tried to engage with the service, they have found it to be cumbersome and overly bureaucratic. That has been the experience in my constituency office. That should be made simpler and more seamless.

The Minister will say that people have the right to be visited in their homes and the right to engage on a face-to-face level. If there was more of that in the communities at the most rural and local level, and not necessarily housed in or funnelled through the Intreo offices, that would capture many more people in dire need at the moment.

I speak not just specifically for the people who would have been recipients on a repeated basis for such payments but the new working poor who are on fixed incomes and whose mortgages and fuel costs have increased. While they are on fixed incomes, they are not able to meet the additional needs in a house and additional expenses that arise. I ask the Minister and Government to take this into account when are considering any proposals. The word "wean" has been used in Government circles. The Government is talking about weaning people off cost-of-living measures in the coming weeks. I ask the Minister to examine the evidence base in the Government's own figures, which were supplied to me in response to a parliamentary question and show that 97,000 applicants availed of more than €58.2 million in additional or exceptional needs payments. The supplementary welfare allowance scheme is the jewel in the crown that ensures people do not fall below a certain floor and that protections are in place for the most vulnerable when they are needed. Thank goodness we live in this State and that we provide these when we consider other examples around the world where there are no such supports.

I believe strongly, though, that we have to consider the evidence that is coming forward to us from NGOs and voluntary bodies. Again, the evidence is coming from this House through testimonials by individual Deputies who report back to the Minister on cases with which we are dealing. We need to ensure there is a protection of basic social welfare payments. There is definitely a need to ensure there is an increase to meet the additional cost-of-living increases.

If we think about the fact that in 2022, €5.7 million was spent on clothing, €6.6 million on funeral costs, €1.8 million on household bills and more than €7.5 million on general expenses under these schemes, based on the criteria for paying somebody, there is a clear evidence base there that those schemes are vital and necessary. They need to continue and they cannot be cut back. This argument of weaning people off is a very unfortunate use of language by Government. It is very right wing and it demeans people. These are working people in the main who need these payments because they are on fixed incomes. I am not directing this at the Minister. Let me be very clear about that. This idea of tapering down payments at a time when there is clearly a cost-of-living crisis has been used in other Government circles, however. The evidence from the Minister's own figures, as supplied to us in replies to parliamentary questions, is that there is a clear need for these supplementary welfare allowance payments. There is a very clear evidence base for them to continue. I would hope that they will continue and that there will be no effort to wean people off.

I will return to what I perceive to be the creeping centralisation of services within the Department of Social Protection. I am not asking for the wheel to be reinvented. I am merely asking that the Minister go back to the well. The well spring was always a Department that went out to the people to provide the services to them. It formed relationships with people on the ground. Community welfare officers knew the person with whom they were dealing. They knew their context and were able to make decisions in a very quick time. If, for instance, I was advocating to a community welfare officer on behalf of a constituent, we had that relationship. Thankfully, in some parts of my constituency, we still have that relationship, and I am very grateful for it. We have excellent community welfare officers. If, for instance, a piece of documentation or evidence was missing that would meet the criteria to pay somebody, that could be easily sorted. The person could be put into payment quickly and then come back the next day with the document and everything would be sorted. Now, there are too many hurdles for the individual applicant to cross because the relationship between the applicant and the system has become disjointed in a way that the person to whom the application is made does not have that direct relationship. We need to go back to that. That should be an easy thing to do and resurrect. It is on that basis that we support the motion. However, we will continue to lobby for a proper fit-for-purpose community welfare officer system and supplementary welfare allowance system that does not take the service away in a qualitative sense from the client. This is a customer-facing Department and it must continue to be one.

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