Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his comments on the humane way in which the Department's staff deal with people. That is much appreciated. There are well over 6,000 people working at the Department and they do their best to help people. As Deputies, we know that from our experiences in our constituency offices. The Deputy is suggesting that people be encouraged into the RSS. All present are aware there are great schemes there and a lot of work. The one thing we do not want to do is to penalise work. I certainly do not want to do that. That is why the working family payment is so important. We are looking at pay-related benefit, as the Deputy is aware, and there is a straw man proposal in that regard. In the context of that proposal, we are looking at the working family payment and what we can do to make it better. I want to support people who go out to work in the morning. We all want to make sure they are rewarded for their efforts. That is in the straw man proposal.

I note the Deputy’s comments on the social welfare budget from 2012 until now. Thankfully, there are far more people at work now than there were then. It is fair to say that social welfare expenditure is highly cyclical and very much linked to the performance of the economy. That is why when things are good we need to look at how we can make provision in the Social Insurance Fund for the winds or downturns that we all know will inevitably come.

As I stated, the review of the means test will be comprehensive. I will be happy to hear the views of the committee on it. We are all on the same page in terms of trying to help people.