Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is up to the Minister to decide how she interprets it. I have explained it to her and she can accept it or not. It is entirely up to her. We should all be about trying to represent the interests of all citizens, particularly those who depend on the State for their income. I am glad that the Minister has confirmed that the Christmas bonus will be paid.

On other items of expenditure, expenditure on paternity benefit is €1.9 million behind profile. The Department was probably anticipating that approximately 290 more people would benefit from this payment. Has the Minister a sense of why everybody who is entitled to the benefit is not accessing it? Does the Department have additional plans to promote the scheme or increase the payment rates? It is important that the large number of people who qualify for the scheme access and benefit from it because it is a very good scheme which, I think the Minister will agree, should be built on in the next period. I expect to see that happen.

With regard to the PRSI step effect, in the context of successive Low Pay Commission reports, I imagine that the Government will accept the report of the Low Pay Commission and do what is necessary in the budgetary discussions in the next couple of weeks.

There is a PRSI step effect when the national minimum wage increases, and there is the potential for national minimum wage increases to precipitate additional employer PRSI responsibilities and obligations. This adds to the cost of hiring people, and this is something that the Low Pay Commission has warned about time and again. The PRSI step effect has been addressed in previous budgets to ensure that employers are encouraged to continue employing, that costs are not excessively burdensome and that the increase in the national minimum wage goes where it needs to, namely into the pockets of the lowest paid workers in the country. Perhaps the Minister might give me her thoughts on how that PRSI step effect could be addressed in the long term and whether she has done any analysis on this matter to date.

With regard to the question of lone parents, a major mistake was made in some of the reforms introduced back in 2012. This needs to be addressed, and in truth these reforms never achieved the original stated ambitions outlined at the time. This needs to be acknowledged and fixed. The recent ESRI study confirms that, by and large, the original objectives of the reform programme were not achieved. I understand and accept that. We need to work collectively to try to address those issues. The Labour Party's alternative budget proposals will bring forward some proposals to address many of the shortcomings, as we see them, along with what we can learn from the kind of situation we should provide for some of the most marginalised families in this country.

I very much support and acknowledge the Minister's work on this and her personal commitment to this area. This committee will not be found wanting when it comes to supporting any budget proposals she might bring forward to address some of the very apparent gaps and deficits in the system.

I support the work carried out in recent years by my colleague, Senator Ray Butler, in highlighting anomalies in the system affecting the self-employed. I know that the Minister has committed personally to trying to address these anomalies. The process of providing some benefits through the PRSI system to the self-employed was started by my colleague, Deputy Burton, continued by our current Taoiseach when he was Minister for Social Protection, and then advanced further by the Minister herself in the form of the treatment benefit schemes now available. All of this comes at a cost, , and this needs to be looked at within a wider review of the PRSI system and how much we pay for social insurance in this country.

There should be a wider awareness of the kinds of payments and supports that citizens of this country manage to access through PRSI and tax. As Senator Higgins said, a social protection system is about investing in the social fabric of our State. It is not just about supporting those who may be out of work or unable to work for a short time because of illness. It is a matter of ensuring that we have a floor beneath which nobody should be allowed to fall, and it is a matter of a decent society. I know that the Minister understands and accepts that, and she has demonstrated as much in some of the decisions she has taken. One way of convincing people of the merits and value of the system is to provide them with more information about the benefits they will get from it. There is a lesson for all of us in public life when it comes to how we do that and why.