Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will start with the Chairman. The first point relates to the step-up effect. There is a bit of work to be done with regard to some other Departments in terms of changes that are made in the budget and the impacts of those changes. In the main, there were increases. If payments under any scheme increase by €5 or €3.20 or whatever it happens to be, then the qualifying conditions have to be cognisant of that. One cannot suddenly no longer get access to a back to school allowance just because an increase has been provided. That is called the step-up effect and that is reflected in the legislation. Everything gets stepped up in line with the increases provided by the Department. However, that is not true of some other Departments. The Chairman and I have had conversations about medical cards and Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, and a body of work needs to be done in that regard, in particular in terms of positive changes that can be made to welfare payments.

One of the reasons the CIB's budget has increased is it has been asked to provide additional services. One of the Chairman's party colleagues was responsible for increasing the services provided to the deaf community. I put in a few million euro more to ensure the CIB could through its funding streams give money to the organisations that provide additional signing services and additional access to information, and to increase the availability of the service on a daily basis to people in the deaf community. That is very welcome. I accept that there are some reductions in the anticipated spend on the CIB and it is because there is genuinely not the same requirement for them that we anticipated. One can reflect on that and conclude that, thankfully, the number of people in long-term arrears on their mortgages are reducing. That means we must now change and reflect the services to suit the needs of the people. One of the changes that has been made in the past year is that to provide mentors to attend court sittings with people. That is positive and has been well received and we might further roll out that service. Some of the Abhaile services and the work with PIPs in the community have not entirely fulfilled some people's expectations of getting a deal and providing them with a long-term route to deal with their longer-term debt.

It might be time to consider putting in place some internal performance improvement plans, PIPs, in that service to ensure they do not have to use vouchers, but the Chairman is right. Some of the underspend is due to the fact that the number of people accessing the services is reducing. It is time to examine those services and make small changes and tweaks so that we can help the people equally as well as we have done in recent years.

I will come back to the training shortly.

On the administration, the original Estimate for 2018 was €119,820,000. The actual Estimate is €141,141,000, so it is an increase of €21,321,000. That is to pay our agents who carry out the work on behalf of the Department. To give some examples of that, An Post is paid for making scheme payments to customers and, thankfully, that is up this year. I believe we are the largest customer and user of An Post, and long may that last, and its services with us have increased this year, which is very welcome. Doctors are paid for certifying illness in respect of illness benefits and that figure is up this year, notwithstanding the difficulties we experienced. They did not come from the certificates but there is an actual increase in the number of people making applications for illness benefit this year and therefore the doctors have to be paid. I have the figures now if they are any good to the Chairman.