Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his presentation. This Estimate only deals with non-contributory payments as insurance contribution-related payments are dealt with from the Social Insurance Fund and this accounts for just over half of the annual expenditure on social protection. I note that the number in receipt of non-contributory pensions is only 130 over profile, so the big increase in pensioners is obviously in respect of State pensioners. I do not have an objection to the Supplementary Estimate but I have a few ancillary questions for the Minister.

The Minister will recall that representations were made to both him and his predecessor regarding the abolition of the retirement pension, where people are compelled by the terms of their employment to retire at 65 years of age but they must wait a year, and it will shortly be two years, for a pension. In such cases, many of them are obliged to seek jobseeker's allowance. I was informed that an interdepartmental group is examining this issue to see how it can be resolved, and I thank the Department for recognising that there is a problem in this regard. Can the Minister give an update on that? Will the Minister also say what the extra cost would be to the Exchequer in respect of pensions if the pensions had been paid from 1 January rather than from 7 March?

As regards the one-parent family payment, I notice the work-related family dividend is 900 over profile. In other words, 900 fewer people than anticipated availed of the family dividend. What are the implications of that?

I note that the increase for rent supplement is just over €9 million. That reflects the change in the levels introduced by the Government. Does the Minister have a figure for how much was spent on discretionary payments? He will note that his predecessor issued a notification to all local welfare officers that, in certain cases, discretion could be exercised where people did not strictly meet the requirements of the scheme.

The Minister referred to demographic trends and the difficulty of anticipating how many people will qualify, present and so forth. However, some of the figures are quite large, for example, disability allowance and carer's allowance were 5% and 19%, respectively, over what was anticipated. Carer's grant must be paid to 7,580 more people than anticipated and the domiciliary care allowance has to be paid to 12% more people than anticipated. The Minister is seeking an increase of €1.3 million for the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. According to the figures provided, that will benefit 4,140 customers. It shows that even small increases in the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance have a wide impact. It appears to be a very efficient way to target poverty.

The opposite is the case with the farm assist scheme.

It was paid to 800 fewer people than was anticipated. Can the Minister comment on how the changes he is introducing will affect that and give us some idea of what he anticipates this will cost and how many will avail of it next year? I also note there is a €21.5 million underspend on community employment, CE, schemes. The Minister will note a lot of agitation on the ground about the rules surrounding these schemes and the difficulty in qualifying for them, particularly for people on the JobPath scheme who want to transfer to the CE scheme. In view of the underspend the Minister might consider relaxing some of those rules.