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

I reiterate what the Chairman has just said. I also welcome the 100% return of the Christmas bonus, which is made possible by the lower payouts under the jobseeker's allowance and jobseeker's benefit schemes thanks to the increase in the number of people working. However, that is offset to some extent by increases in payments of illness benefit and so on. There seems to have been a marked increase in payments under the different disability and illness headings and while I know that all of these things are demand led, I would like the Minister to comment on that.

On page six of the briefing note there is a payment of €21.3 million for agency services. I ask the Minister to outline what exactly is involved there. I note that under the exceptional and urgent needs payments category, the number of such payments is 16,000 over profile, which is a significant number. While that has been provided for, it indicates that the Department seriously underestimated the demands on that particular fund. On the other hand, the back to school clothing and footwear allowance is around5,000 below profile. I appreciate and accept that there have been some changes to that scheme around rates and so on but does the Minister have any plans to change or relax the rules? I have been contacted by a significant number of people who are just on the margin and who do not qualify for the allowance. There are 3,000 fewer people availing of the school meals scheme and I ask the Minister to explain that. Spending on community employment is slightly below profile. I made the point to the Minister in the Dáil last week during Question Time that the rules relating to community employment, CE, schemes should be relaxed. I do not say that because I want people to spend 12 years on a CE scheme but because some people in their mid to late 50s find it hard to get work and it would be better for them to be doing something. Furthermore, sometimes it is easier to get a job when one is actually doing something. On Tús, I note that the decline in numbers has been reversed and the reason for that is that in most of those community type schemes, increasingly Tús members are replacing CE participants.

Spending on rent supplement is down by €9.5 million. Does the Minister have any figures for the corresponding increase in spending on the housing assistance payment, HAP? I know that the latter payment comes from a different Department but it would be useful to have that data to get the total picture in this area. The back to education allowance payments are 579 over profile. A report was prepared in recent years on the back to education allowance scheme which indicated that it was not working particularly well and that the results were not very impressive. On carers, I note that the Minister can make more than €13 million in savings due to the fact that there are 1,300 fewer people qualifying for the carer's allowance. The figure for the carer's support grant is approximately €2,500, which is surprisingly high. All of the statistics show that the number of carers in Ireland is gradually increasing. What I detect from these figures is that because of the rules, a bigger percentage of people who are actually caring are not entitled to the carer's allowance or carer's benefit. Certain changes have been recommended by the various organisations representing carers that would make quite a significant impact and introduce much needed flexibility into those schemes.

The back to work family dividend payments are 541 below profile. The working family payment, previously known as family income supplement, FIS, is just short of 3,000 below profile. There were suggestions that a lot of people were not aware of their entitlement to FIS.

Has any action been taken by the Department to increase awareness of this scheme?

On illness benefit, I refer to the figures for disability allowance in particular. Disability allowance is nearly €2.4 million above what was anticipated. Is there a proposal to employ additional medical assessors in the Department? If so, how many and at what level and salary scale will they be employed?

I take it that the increase in treatment benefits is due to the extension of the benefit to those who are self employed.

On pensions, I noticed that the figure for non-contributory pensions is only up 3%, even taking the actual increase into account and it is something similar for contributory pensions. Does the Minister have any actual figures on the extra number of pensioners we had to pay over and above last year and over and above the previous year?

Has the Minister studied the recent Supreme Court decision on pension entitlements for somebody who is incarcerated and what are the implications of that decision for the system?