John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Christmas bonus payout of €266 million to 1.2 million needy people. It has to be warmly welcomed. It also has to be welcomed from the point of view of the injection of money it brings to local economies because I said it at a previous committee meeting - probably last year's Estimates - how important the Christmas bonus is for individuals and for the local economy because very few, if any of those people will be heading abroad to spend that money. Every penny of that money will go directly into the local economy. It is an invaluable injection into businesses and retailers at this time of year.

On the figures and community employment, CE, under heading A12, there is a massive underspend of €7.2 million in 2018. I went online today and I saw that there are 1,678 vacancies for CE places across the State. I have said before that this is a serious problem and I will say it again. I ask the Minister what her views are on why there are so many vacancies on CE schemes across the board.

On heading A31, which is the working family payment, again there is a really large fall in the spending for this. Could the Minister give additional information on why exactly that is the case? Has there been a fall in applications or has there been a serious change in people's circumstances which means that they are no longer entitled to the working family payment? It would be useful if we could get that information. I appreciate that the Minister might not have all of the information to hand today but it would be useful.

I refer to heading A32, which is on the back to school clothing and footwear allowance. Again, there is a fall in the number of recipients and the money being paid out for this allowance. Given the increasing cost of sending a child back to school which is only going up, does the Minister have the actual number of applications that were refused to hand? I know we have the numbers that were granted and I know that many people do apply and there are many criteria that have to be met. Does the Minister have the exact figures for how many people have been refused?

I raised it with the Minister that there were a lot of delays in people getting payouts and I know she said that it was because people applied late but that is not the full reason there were late payments.

People were getting payouts in September and October when kids were long back at school. There are problems there.

The underspend on school meals is a little strange. The Minister said it is due to a lower uptake from schools. Is there an explanation for that? Has she considered that? Is there a reason schools are not drawing this money down? It is badly needed and if there is a reason, that needs to be examined. Will the Minister elaborate on that a bit?

Under subhead A2, administration non-pay, there is a sum of €4.2 million for "Office Equipment and External IT Services". Over the past few months, there have been major difficulties with the payout of illness benefit for many thousands of people and it transpired that there were problems with the IT system being rolled out by consultants. Was some of that money for the roll-out of that system supposed to be for illness benefit or where are those figures to be found? There are issues in this regard and the Minister said they related to the IT system. Has that money been paid to consultants for the roll-out of that system, which caused massive difficulties for many people?

There is a reduction in the amount for rent supplement, which is understandable because people are being moved onto HAP. That falls under a different Department but the intention is to ultimately move everyone off rent supplement onto HAP. Is there a timeframe for that? How many people have transferred from rent supplement to HAP? There are difficulties with some landlords who refuse to sign the HAP lease. That is putting people in serious difficulty because their rent supplement payment is being cut. Claimants are being told their landlord has no choice, he has to sign HAP or the rent supplement will be cut. Could the Minister give an overview of that? There are concerns that there are higher standards for HAP, which is brilliant because a minority of landlords have been getting away with blue murder in respect of the conditions they have been providing through rent supplement. Much of that goes back to local authorities that failed to carry out inspections. Landlords do not want to go to the additional cost of having to carry out refurbishment and upgrade works to meet the HAP criteria. I would appreciate it if the Minister could outline the figures in this area.