Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is the point I am coming to. The chance of not giving the Christmas bonus is nil in reality. Therefore, why is it not included in the Estimate and be done with it? Why not just institutionalise it after all of these years? There is an old saying in the Irish language, “Ná dein nós agus ná bris nós”, which translated into English means do not make a habit and do not break a habit. One-off payments are becoming a habit. They came in during Covid. The longer this goes on, the more we will be forced into a situation where de facto the Government will not be able to get rid of a whole plethora of these. They will have to be factored into the arithmetic because some year we will not be as flush as this year but the problem for people living on welfare payments will be the same.

I welcome what the Minister did on the carer’s allowance. I will not be in the Dáil for the next term, so I will make my point here because the debate on the Social Welfare Bill was curtailed. I have to record that I am very disappointed we have not seen reform of means testing in my time. One thing that really woke my consciousness to means testing and how pernicious, old-fashioned, regressive it is and how it inhibits people from bettering themselves was way back when I was working in Joyce Country years ago as a co-op manager. My view has not changed. There has been some small tinkering with it but we need a radical reform now. We will send the Minister a committee report in the next week or two, I hope. The Department, for some reason, is very reluctant. I think the officials in the Department are great and I stand by everything the Minister said but at a policy level I have always found resistance. Many of the changes we need, rather than costing money, would cut bureaucracy and also stimulate more activity which would generate more money in the economy but also for social welfare. We are cutting off our nose to spite our face because there are attitudes here which I think are very regressive that would never be accepted by the tax paying public. If you told people we would penalise them 100% for earning more money they would say that was outrageous but effectively that is what happens to people at the lowest end.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. I thank the Minister for her indulgence. It is a long question.