Ray Butler (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and wish her all the best in her new job. I also welcome Mr. John McKeon. During the recession we had the self-employed disaster where, basically, the self-employed suffered big-time. We had to lower threshold levels to try to get people to become self-employed and, thankfully, the Minister of the day, Deputy Joan Burton, and the then Government did that. It was an absolute nightmare. One of the issues I found was that people who could have been paying an S class stamp did not know their entitlements. I asked a couple of years ago whether, when people get a P60 or P45, it could not be printed on the document exactly what that stamp entitles them to. Is it a big secret that they are not meant to know what they are entitled to because they might come looking for it? Could we look at that issue? It is not a big thing to say what a stamp entitles a person to, no more, no less.

It is wonderful that we have 2 million people in employment. I would say that 360,000 to 400,000 of them are self-employed and the number is growing. We have come a long way since I was elected to the Dáil and the Seanad. At a previous committee meeting I was told by somebody from the Department that a new stamp for a self-employed person would be at least 30%. That is on the record. The Mangan report was published subsequently and it stated we could set up a new stamp at 5.5% that would automatically give sick pay and disability pay to the self-employed, and we could introduce that over a period of perhaps 12 months, 18 months or two years. At the moment the self-employed person pays 4% and basically it gives a contributory pension when they come to pensionable age.

I know this is a priority for the Government and I thank Fianna Fáil, along with Fine Gael, for putting it in the programme for Government. I hope it is one of the main priorities for the coming budget. I would like to see this being mandatory but I will be happy once self-employed people are recognised. Whether it is mandatory or voluntary, I will be the happiest man in this country come budget day if we see a new stamp for the self-employed, because self-employed people have been discriminated against since the beginnings of this State. We are talking about something that should have been done 30, 40 or 50 years ago, but there was no voice for business people and the self-employed, and they were just left there, as it were. We then saw the disaster of the recession.

I welcome the new PRSI benefits for dental and hearing related treatment, and it is fantastic to see that coming back on stream with the S class stamp in order that there is no charge to self-employed people. We are the only country in industrialised Europe that does not have cover for the self-employed through social protection, a point that bears repeating. It varies in different countries from voluntary to mandatory and it is done under different schemes, but there was nothing in Ireland except the pension when the person came to pensionable age. Self-employed people do not want anything for nothing. They will pay for their new stamp, they will pay for a safety net and they will pay for security.

Last but not least, I welcome the increase in the back to school allowance. The Government in which I was involved cut that and it was a very hard pill to swallow at the time, so I welcome that it is going back up. I would also like to see the Christmas bonus going back up because it is huge for local businesses, local shops and the local community, in particular in helping keep small shops going over the Christmas period, given those who get their Christmas bonus will spend it locally.