Mr. Niall Egan:

I thank the Deputy. I take his point on his ideological perception of the social welfare state. I flag that Ireland is an unusual social welfare system in a European context. Almost all our EU member state colleagues have social insurance contributory-based systems. Ireland has a dual system; there is social insurance with significant social assistance schemes. It is about how the resources are limited and targeted. Our budget of almost €26 billion is substantial within the Irish economy. We know it is well targeted but is important to highlight the strong social insurance contribution perspective. We see that with the high number of contributory State pensions in particular but also with other significant insurance schemes, such as jobseeker's benefit. The Minister has the intention to bring in pay-related benefit, with maternity, paternity and parental benefits, as well as illness benefit. There is a significant insurance base. If the eligibility and social insurance contribution criteria are satisfied, those benefits can be accessed irrespective of means. The means components are those that do not have that social insurance contribution.

Therefore, there is a strong safety net for people, provided they satisfy the contingency of the original payment. That is the strength of the Irish social welfare system. Obviously, with a means tested approach, there are points where people fall on either side of where the means test is drawn. I can understand the points raised by the Deputy and other members about people’s perception and frustration if they fall on the wrong side of the test. The purpose of the review and of several budget measures that have been introduced in previous years, and what the Minister has done, is to increase key aspects of certain means tests to make them more attractive, whether that is for farm assist or the carer's allowance or to encourage people to go back to education. These are all positive, progressive steps in terms of how the Department treats means but it is all done within an envelope in terms of other community resources as part of the budget cycle.

Qualified adults can get a proportion of the payment paid directly to themselves. That would help as regards the independence argument. If there are issues there, in that this might not be possible on the home front, the Department has protocols in place to enable a qualified adult to contact the Department and we can make that payment directly to the individual. That would be handled carefully from the Department’s perspective. As I said previously, as regards qualified adults, irrespective of whether the payment is insurance based or social assistance, there is a means assessment. That is something we will look at as part of the review.

On kinship carers, I am not au fait with the example highlighted by the Deputy. If he has the details, we will happily follow up and come back to him on the specific case. As he said, we have just introduced the new legislation on child maintenance. I just want to be clear that I have a firm understanding of how that impacts or does not impact in the kinship care case the Deputy highlighted. We will revert to the Deputy in due course.