Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegations for their presentations. We are snowed under by the amount of documentation we are getting from the different organisations, but I thank the delegations for their very professional presentations and being here today. I have a few observations on TASC. I know it has mentioned savings under the Haddington Road agreement and said there should be no further cuts. That obviously concerns the pensions and payroll bill. I accept that and it is agreed. We supported the agreement. In the summary TASC does not talk enough about front-line services provided by public service workers. I do not get from its presentation a concern for the delivery of services to people on social welfare. It is more concerned about the staff delivering the service rather than the service provided. It was specifically excluded from the Haddington Road agreement, but it is Government policy to proceed with a targeted redundancy package in the next year or so involving up to 7,000 people. Does TASC believe it should go ahead? It is Government policy to do this.

I thank Dr. Healy for his presentation on behalf of Social Justice Ireland. I understand what he is saying about an increase in social welfare rates. A person about whom I am equally concerned is the low-paid worker. This is the person who goes out to work and is on the minimum wage of about €300 or €400 a week. He or she is regularly worse off than the person whom Social Justice Ireland proposes be given an increase. Will Dr. Healy develop that point for me because I suspect his time was limited and he did not deal with that issue?

Social Justice Ireland proposes a tax of one third of one cent on each text sent by SMS through mobile phone operators. Is it proposing that this be extended to Facebook and Twitter because many young people have moved on from text messages to Facebook and Twitter?

In respect of social housing, will Dr. Healy give me a quick observation about Social Justice Ireland's views on the need to provide loans for persons who want to buy houses and are unable to obtain loans from the banks? Yesterday I heard about a case in my constituency in which a house in Mountrath was on the market for €40,000. It is an adequate house and values are low. One of the pillar banks into which we have put billions of euro has refused to give a loan on the basis that it does not give loans for houses valued below €90,000. Here we have a bank stating it will not give loans to persons who can buy cheap houses. I find this incredible. The person concerned had to put up one third of the value. The bank would not give a mortgage of less than €60,000 and the house is on the market for under €40,000. We need something through the local authority system or the banks to provide funding for those who buy get low-cost housing.