Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection

Social Welfare Bill 2014: Committee Stage

2:05 pm

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It was for the sake of a future social welfare Bill that we sought clarification on the back to work family dividend. When the Minister came to office and took up the portfolio of social protection, one of the first issues we dealt with as a committee was that of a single work-related payment. At the time the Department decided to reduce the number of schemes in order that they would be more manageable. In order not to create new schemes we called them add-ons, and here is another add-on which I do not oppose. Anything that helps people who are going back to work and have struggled for years is to be welcomed. Child benefit could have been increased by €10 and the same people would have benefited. Some of their payments would have increased but perhaps not to the same degree. The increase would have restored child benefit more directly. Changing some of the FIS thresholds would have had the effect of putting more money in people's pockets rather than creating a new payment called the back to work family dividend. I do not oppose add-ons, which have always existed. I am not making an ideological argument for one or the other. I just find this strange given where we were three years ago. According to the Department, we had to reduce the number of schemes and we were told the move was dictated by the troika. We were told the troika was unimpressed with the number of schemes here and wanted a more simplified social welfare code. Is the new scheme our way of telling the troika that now it is gone we will go back to looking at producing schemes which address problems and issues as they emerge, which will hopefully help people by providing the social transfer that is required?

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