Mr. Mickey Brady:

I thank Dr. Fitzpatrick and Dr. Boland for their very insightful presentations. I have worked with the social security system since 1974 and still work with it every day. I was initially with the Social Security Agency, I was then a welfare rights worker and, subsequently, an MLA and I am now an MP. Because I represent a Border constituency, I also have a lot of contact with the system in the Twenty-six Counties.

First of all, I absolutely agree with Dr. Fitzpatrick that the system is punitive, cruel and coercive. She mentioned that the benefits system is at its lowest since 1948. The whole concept that Beveridge had of a safety net has long since disappeared. As someone who, as I have said, worked with that system for many years, I can see that there has just been cut after cut in terms of claimants. It affects people's health. I have done literally thousands of appeals over the years. The vast majority could probably have been avoided if common sense had been applied by the department. There is a myth that there is rampant fraud among people on social security. Statistics we get show that the loss of money in the system has more to do with departmental error. The department finally got around to admitting that.

Dr. Fitzpatrick also alluded to the effect all of this has on health. A report was published by the Chief Medical Officer in the North about ten years ago in which he stated that people who lived in inner-city Belfast, the majority of whom are on benefits, had ten years' less life expectancy than those living in Finaghy, in the leafy suburbs, who did not have to rely on the social security system. That is very important. In the North, we have historically had higher levels of disability, which leads to people being economically inactive. A report from the Mayo Clinic in America many years ago showed that my constituency has one of the highest incidences of multiple sclerosis in the entire world, for whatever reason. All of these things combine to ensure that people go down lower and lower. Another point I agree with both witnesses on is that sanctions and coercion simply do not work. They force people into situations they do not need to be in.

The witnesses also mentioned the bolt-on with regard to computers. I was on the Committee for Social Development, now called the Committee for Communities, in Stormont when welfare reform was being introduced. We were told all of the time that universal credit was going to work and that it would make a complex system less complex. Instead, it has made a complex system a hundred times more complex.

A person must apply online and if he or she lives in Cullaville or Cullyhanna and does not have broadband then he or she is snookered. The person must then contact the office, which was closed for two years during Covid. All of that is sort of festering, for want of a better word.

I have a couple of questions. Dr. Fitzpatrick referred to effective contact between the Department of Social Protection from the South and the Social Security Agency in the North, and that the committee in the North was involved in the summer school. In terms of working towards a new Ireland and constitutional change, would it make more sense to actually have them meet on a more formal basis? Obviously, that depends on the Government but I believe it would be a sensible way forward. As Dr. Fitzpatrick said, the two systems are diverging more and more and that divergence needs to be addressed.

Reference was also made to the Scandinavian system, which seems to be a good model. When considering the EU system, and particularly in terms of pensions for people in the EU countries, most of the pensions are based on the person's wages and what he or she is earning when retiring. In Britain and in the North, unfortunately, we have the meanest pension in the developed world. One gets a basic rate and it does not matter how long the person worked - I believe it is after 35 years of contributions. Women in the North have lost out by approximately £48,000 because of the change in pension age.

All of this goes towards highlighting a system that simply does not work. As I have said, I deal with this every single day. Atos and Capita were mentioned. These companies have absolutely no knowledge of the stuff they are dealing with. I have people coming into me with serious mental health problems, who are being assessed by occupational therapists, OTs. They may be very good OTs, or there may be very good officials, but they have no mental health training. All of that is going on and I am sure it is reflected in many parts of the legislation in the South in how the system there works. I believe it is something that needs to be addressed. The cliché is that any civilised society is recognised by how it treats its most vulnerable. Unfortunately, on both sides of the Border we have failed miserably.

Do the witnesses believe that the two Departments should have a much more formal engagement in leading towards a new Ireland, an Ireland that treats its citizens with dignity and with respect, and which does not force them down a tunnel? A lot of the people I deal with on a daily basis are forced down that tunnel. It is bizarre to have introduced the two-child rule. Another condition that was introduced more recently, of which the witnesses may or may not be aware, is the mixed couple age. This is where one partner comes to pension age and the other is not of pension age. In this scenario the couple lose housing benefit, would be forced to claim universal credit, and cannot claim pension credit for supplementary pension. It is completely bizarre. It is about getting the two Departments together.

I believe we have the opportunity, and the committee and the witnesses may agree, to create a system that is a model the world can look up to. That is my rant for today.