Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all the witnesses here today. I have been following a lot of their work with interest because I am interested in social welfare. I have Dr. Murphy's report, and there is quite a lot in it.

I could talk all day about these matters but I will try to summarise what I want to say. On the access to programmes, Mr. McKeon has contradicted that by stating that applicants have access. According to his report, they will not have access to funding but they will have access to all the activation programmes.

On women in the home, prior to 1995 the women had no homemaker's credits. The men are sick of me because I bring this up at every committee meeting they attend. The women who are facing pension reductions today are in that position because we moved the goalposts. I state constantly that these women should be given credits the same as the women after 1995. What is the difference between women prior to and after 1995? I cannot see it. Obviously, it all boils down to funding.

Ms Higgins has much in her presentation. Of course, needless to say, in a wonderful world it would be great, but the fact is we are dealing with limited funding and there is no getting away from it. Where someone has been in the home rearing children or whatever, the children have gone off to work or are going themselves, and the person can go back to work, he or she cannot access jobseeker's allowance because the person's spouse is earning too much. No doubt we cannot merely open a floodgate and state that everyone can get a payment, even if his or her spouse's earnings are considerable, because we do not have the funding to do so.

For the departmental officials, I will give the example of a carer in the home where the child being cared for is gone off to school for the day and the carer wants to do a course to retrain. Such carers find they can access the course but they cannot take it up because, if it is over 15 hours, they immediately lose their carer's allowance. That is ridiculous because the child is in school for those hours and the carer should be able to do that course. I have had several cases of carers who tried to do that and lost their carer's allowance, which is ridiculous. They should be allowed to do a training course to retrain themselves in another area. Even when the person being cared for passes away or no longer needs caring, the carer has a wealth of experience and knowledge in caring. They could be a special needs assistant or a home help, but they must access a course to get their qualifications for it. All of these matters are proving to be problems for them.

Ms O'Brien stated that one third of those who are on jobseeker's benefit do not make the transition to jobseeker's allowance where they are unable to access activation supports, but I cannot understand why they are not signing for credits which will give them access to the activation supports. There should be no reason they cannot. The only ones who cannot access credits are those who come off a self-employed contribution, which is another issue I have taken up with the Department on several occasions. Someone who is self-employed, comes off a class S contribution and signs on for jobseeker's allowance and is successful does not get a credit contribution even though he or she is signing for jobseeker's allowance. It does not make sense to me. I will keep that fight going.

The issue of child care has to be tackled. Last year we hoped to put in the second free year of preschool. We all know what happened there, that the funding had to go to retraining.

There is another matter I want to raise with the officials. I have a lady who is coming off the one-parent family payment and going onto jobseeker's allowance. She went to the local office last week and she came to me for help with the forms. While I have every faith in Intreo, which is good and is really working, she came into my office and asked would I help her fill them. I filled five forms, one of which is large and has detailed information and four others, including a yellow one and a white one which for some reason means test twice those on jobseeker's allowance. The five forms contained the exact same information about one's children, one's relationship with them, whether one lives with the applicant, etc. I cannot understand why, in this day and age, one form will not suffice and the information is not keyed into the computer from the one form where all the social welfare officers can access that information. The woman was overwhelmed. She has not worked in many years because she was rearing her family. She has no choice but to go onto jobseeker's allowance and here she is presented with this barrage of paperwork. It is crazy and I cannot understand it. I immediately rang the social welfare office in Killarney and spoke to a social welfare officer who said she had no idea what I was talking about. I said I would bring it in, and I meant to bring it today to show the officials present in case they think I am exaggerating, which I am not. Five forms containing the exact same information does not make sense.

I will leave it at that. I will come back in afterwards, if I have time. I could speak all day on this issue.