Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Those of us who are privileged to work in the field of social protection see the human side of what can be rather dry figures for other Departments, which engaged in overall financial management.

On the point about retired people and pensioners, the Department has absorbed between an extra €190 million to €200 million of additional costs every year. We have never made a big issue about it partly because in this and previous governments it has always been accepted that we provide for our pensioners. Socially, that is the absolutely correct thing to do but because the Deputies are experts in the field it is important that they be aware of it. We simply bear it. It is not an issue that is in any way a cause of contention in this Government or as I understand it, in the previous Administration because people accept that we are lucky to live in a country where there are older people who are living longer. It is a significant burden nonetheless. The risk of poverty rate for older people in 2010 was 9.6%. That was a big decline on the 2004 rate which was 27.1%. The significant increases in the rate of retirement pension contributed largely to that decline in those years. That is a very significant social achievement which we would all, across party lines, stand over and seek to protect and defend.

The indicative demands which are set out for next year and subsequent years are very significant. The critical point to understand is that the Department is demand-led. We respond to valid requests from people for income support. The numbers of people benefiting from the Department's schemes, compared with the end of 2008 has gone up from 1.2 to approximately 1.5 million That has put a huge pressure on expenditure. The Department has taken cuts but we must take three things into account: the demographics factors, population changes and demand. The biggest increased level of demand is from people who lost their jobs after the bank crash and I suppose one does not hear on the Anglo Irish Bank tapes that after the crash this country lost 350,000 jobs. We fell off a cliff in the following three years. That had an enormous impact on social welfare costs and the Social Insurance Fund. As people return to work some of those pressures ease. I remind members that of the fund in the actuarial review, the shortfall in 2011 was €1.5 billion, on expenditure of €9 billion.