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

I too thank the Minister for her presentation. Naturally, I was very happy to hear what she said about the Christmas bonus. Admittedly, yes, our Government, which originally introduced the Christmas bonus, had to cancel it back in 2009 in view of a catastrophic economic collapse, as she said earlier. She was pretty strong in her reassurance this morning and I just wonder how the newspaper got a hold of that story in the first place. In any case, we can now take it that the Christmas bonus will be paid at the same rate as last year at 85%.

As we will have Question Time tomorrow I will confine my questions today to pensions. I have received a number of queries on the following matter. The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection was supposed to write a letter to post-2012 pensioners in or about now. Can the Minister indicate when the letter will be issued?

I noticed that the opening statement included a number of references to targeting and not spreading benefits too thin, etc., which I understand.

Targeting is good in principle, but sometimes certain categories of social welfare recipient may not receive any increase or may receive an increase that does not compensate for inflation, leading to a return to regressive budgets. The Minister will also be aware that the headline inflation rate does not reflect the rate of inflation in the price of food and fuel endured by persons who are living from week to week and buying the bare necessities. It is important that people at least be compensated for that level of increase in the rate of inflation.

The Minister has mentioned the fiscal space of €800 million. I know that in the case of several budgets the figure for the fiscal space was exceeded on budget day. Of course, €800 million is a standstill figure and presupposes no revenue raising measures which are available to the Government if it wants to increase expenditure.

I have questions for the Minister on single parents. I recognise the increase in the earnings disregard last year, but there is a problem with the disregard for lone parents. It does not take into account the number of children in a family, which seems to be an effective way of combating child poverty. If people are dependent on social welfare payments, the more children they have, the more likely it is that they are living in poverty.

On taking account of maintenance payments as part of the means of lone parents, the Minister will be aware that proposals have been made to establish a statutory maintenance agency. A real problem I come across on a regular basis is the difficulty people have in going into court and pursuing somebody for maintenance. If someone obtains a maintenance order, the maintenance payment is immediately counted as part of the individual's means for social welfare purposes, even though the putative party is not actually paying maintenance. Many take the view that because this is the case, someone risks falling further into poverty if they apply for maintenance. A partial solution would be establishing a statutory maintenance agency along the lines of that proposed by various parties.

Financial support is only available to lone parents to pursue full-time education courses. It should be extended to part-time courses as the cost would be minimal. That level of flexibility is required, in particular, when one is dealing with lone parents who have to work part time. One possibly also needs it for lone parents in paying for childcare.

When is it proposed to update the national carers strategy 2018 to 2022? How long does it take to process an application for carer's allowance? The Department told me recently that, on average, it was taking four months. That means that in some cases it is taking longer than four months. If one looks for an appeal and an oral hearing, it takes another four months and perhaps as much as six, which is a long time to wait. Some 73,000 persons are in receipt of carer's allowance, which means that three quarters of the people who provide some care are not receiving any payment. The payment is only €60 per week over and above jobseeker's allowance, which works out at about 40 cent per hour for somebody who has to work 40 hours a week. Most of the carers whom I know are working 24/7.

The Minister will be aware that in the United Kingdom a commission was set up to examine the extra cost of a disability for an individual. Do we have any intention of following suit because this issue is the subject of significant debate?

Will the Minister find out from her colleague when the motorised transport grant and the mobility allowance will be restored? They were cancelled as the result of a decision of the Ombudsman in 2013 and have not been restored yet. We read in the newspapers that a memorandum was recently brought to the Cabinet by the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Finian McGrath, and that it was withdrawn for further consideration. I know that application processing times have improved, but I bring to the Minister's attention that they are beginning to slip back. In my experience the application processing time for disability allowance is about five months. It is startling to think almost 75% of appeals in such cases have been successful. If someone applies for disability allowance, it can take five months to obtain a decision. When someone appeals a decision, we are talking about the guts of another six or seven months and the person is likely to be successful. Some 75% of applicants are wrongfully deprived of disability allowance for all of this period.

There are a number of schemes operated by the Department for people with disabilities, including the reasonable accommodation grant and the employee retention grant to encourage people with a disability for whom the employment level is very low, at 36 %. I think only 17 % of people with an intellectual disability are in employment. Why has the drawdown of the reasonable accommodation grant fallen significantly in the past couple of years? People do not seem to be aware of it or availing of it. I understand no application for the employee retention grant has been received from any employer in the past seven years. These schemes were specifically aimed at people with disabilities and designed to encourage them to stay in work. They were also designed to encourage their employers to keep them in work. Unfortunately, they do not appear to be working.