John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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This meeting has been convened to consider the Revised Estimate for Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection, which was referred by the Dáil to the select committee with an instruction to report back to it. I welcome the Minister and his officials and than them for the briefing material provided which has been circulated to members. I also thank them for the constructive dialogue held with the committee secretariat's financial scrutiny team in developing its briefing document for the meeting. The committee has agreed to examine each programme area before broaching other questions. I refer to the briefing document prepared by the financial scrutiny team to guide our consideration of the Revised Estimate. We will start with pensions which are dealt with on page 7. I invite the Minister to make an opening statement.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Departmental officials have provided for the use of the committee detailed briefing material which includes comprehensive financial and recipient data. It also provides updates on the Department's performance in meeting its output targets for 2016.

It is useful, in the first instance, to outline the scope and scale of the Department's expenditure and its importance, not alone for those who directly receive the various payments but also for society generally. An allocation of €19.85 billion was provided for the Department this year. This represents 37% of gross current Government expenditure and is €229 million more than was provided in the Revised Estimate for 2016. Each week some 1.35 million people - pensioners, people with disabilities, people on maternity or sick leave, carers and jobseekers - receive a payment from my Department. In addition, over 623,000 families receive child benefit each month for almost 1.2 million children. What is significant about these figures is not just their scale but also what they represent - a social compact where the State, on behalf of all citizens, provides support for those citizens who, for whatever reason, need support at certain points in their lives. Importantly this compact which in 2017 will take about two thirds of all social insurance and income tax receipts can only be sustained if all citizens have confidence in the integrity of the system.

There can be a misconception that most welfare payments go to unemployed persons, but that is not the case. The biggest single bloc of expenditure in 2017 will be on pensions - the State pension, the State contributory pension and widow's and widower's pension - which will amount to almost €7.3 billion or 37% of overall expenditure. Expenditure on working age schemes comprises two programmes, namely, income supports and employment supports which, combined, account for about €4.7 billion or 23% of total expenditure. Income supports, including jobseekers allowance, one-parent family payment, maternity and paternity, account for almost €3.7 billion or 18% of overall expenditure. Expenditure on employment supports, including community employment, back to education and enterprise and various employment programmes, amounts to just under €1 billion or 5% of my Department's expenditure. The next biggest subhead is expenditure on illness, disability and carers' payments which will amount to over €3.8 billion or 19% of overall expenditure in 2017. Expenditure on children and families will account for nearly 13% of total expenditure or €2.6 billion, of which €423 million will be spent on family income supplement paid to low-income working families. Expenditure on supplementary payments such as rent supplement, agencies such as MABS and the CIB and miscellaneous services accounts for €863 million or 4% of overall expenditure.

Nearly all of the expenditure incurred by the Department is demand-led. This demand is driven by demographic trends, including ageing of the population, and economic factors such as developments in the labour market. As we all know, Ireland has experienced a recovery in employment that has been much more rapid that even the most optimistic analysts projected. There are now more than 2 million people in employment, with 65,100 net new jobs added in the past year alone. As a result of this growth in employment, CSO data show that the unemployment rate as of April 2017 was 6.2%, a reduction of 3.5 percentage points over two years and about nine percentage points lower than its peak level of just over 15% four short years ago. Long-term unemployment now stands at 3.6%, which represents a reduction of 43,700 people in the past two years. The level of youth unemployment has fallen to 12.9%, a fall of 8.5 percentage points over two years and down from a peak level of over 30%. These trends in unemployment have fed into the live register. At the end of April there were 42,000 fewer people on the live register than at the same time last year and over 79,800 fewer than this time two years ago. The live register peaked at a figure of 470,000 in mid-2011 but stands at 263,400 as of last month, a reduction of over 44%. The last time it was at this level was nearly nine years ago, in October 2008, when the population was lower than it is now.

The reduction in the live register is freeing the resources we need to meet demands emerging from demographic changes. In addition, it provided the basis on which I could, in budget 2017, take steps to ensure everyone would benefit from the recovery, including retired people, people with disabilities, carers, lone parents, farmers and people who were unemployed. In doing this and referring back to the concept of the social compact mentioned I sought to balance the increases in social welfare payments with measures designed to make sure the system was seen to work for and by people who were contributing to the system such as people in employment and paying PRSI, including self-employed persons. On budget day I announced the first general increase in all weekly rates of payment since 2009 at a cost of €284.5 million in 2017. Approximately 1.5 million people have benefited from this increase, which took effect in March. As promised in the programme for Government and the confidence and supply agreement with Fianna Fáil, I also extended social insurance benefits for the self-employed. Since March self-employed contributors can avail of the treatment benefit scheme which includes free eye and dental examinations and contributions towards the cost of hearing aids and contact lenses.

This will be extended in October to include other benefits for those employed and self-employed.

I also introduced changes to improve the reward for work for lone parents who take up some employment. The income disregards for the one-parent family payment and jobseekers’ transition payment increased by €20 from €90 to €110 per week. This change improves the level of take-home earnings of lone parents. Farmers in receipt of farm assist also saw the reintroduction of disregards from their farm and off-farm income from self-employment last March. I was also pleased to be able to increase the number of places on the rural social scheme by 500 this year.

A number of the 2017 budget measures have yet to take effect. Most significantly, from December, self-employed contributors will be eligible to apply for the invalidity pension for the first time. This will give them access to the safety net of a guaranteed income support if they have the misfortune of experiencing a debilitating illness or injury that prevents them from returning to work.

Treatment benefit entitlements will also be extended from October 2017, which will provide further dental and optical benefits to both employees and to the self-employed for the first time. That includes free eyeglasses or a subsidy towards them, certain periodontal treatments, certain contact lenses where medically necessary and scale and polish from the dentist. This was removed some years ago but is now being restored to employees and extended to the self-employed for the first time, as well as their dependent spouses.

From the commencement of the next academic year in September, a €500 annual cost of education allowance will be made available to back-to-education allowance participants with children. This includes lone parents as well as couples. This will help parents to return to and remain in education.

From September, young jobseekers age under 25 years will be entitled to receive the full maximum rate of jobseeker’s payment of €193 per week when they engage in educational activity under the back-to-education allowance scheme. This is an increase of €33 or 21% on the previous level of payment and represents the largest single increase in the budget package. That is expressly for people under 25 years who enter education, having been unemployed.

Budget 2017 also provided for the inclusion in the school meals scheme of an additional 80 schools newly designated as DEIS by my colleague, the Minister of Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton. Furthermore, for the first time in many years, school meals will be extended to schools outside of DEIS, with the phased extension of the scheme to breakfast clubs in non-DEIS schools from September 2017. I do this noting and being aware that more than half of children who suffer disadvantage do not attend disadvantaged schools. They very often attend the school in the district or parish next door. That is why this is a programme that I would like to make universal in the years ahead.

Finally, a Christmas bonus, of 85%, was paid to over 1.2 million long-term social welfare recipients, such as pensioners, people with disabilities, carers, lone parents and long-term unemployed jobseekers at a cost of €220 million.

In comparing the Department’s expenditure in 2016 with the allocation for 2017, it is important to note that variances in expenditure on most social welfare schemes are typically explained by a combination of factors. These include trends, including downward trends, in recipient numbers, changes in average weekly payment values and differences in the number of paydays in any given year. In addition, comparisons between 2016 and 2017 expenditure are further impacted by the measures introduced in budget 2017, including the increases in the weekly rates of payment; and the payment of an 85% Christmas bonus is 2016 costing approximately €220 million. Provision for such bonuses is made, subject to the financial position of the State, in October of each year as part of the budgetary process and is not included in the Revised Estimates at this time.

The Department has also provided briefing regarding claims processing last year. For most of my Department’s schemes, claims are processed without delay and within or close to the Department’s processing time standards. However, for some schemes the processing time standards were not achieved in 2016. This was particularly the case in schemes such as the carer’s allowance and domiciliary care allowance, which is of great concern to me. The Department now reports that there have been significant improvements in the processing times across these schemes since 2016. For instance, in April 2017, 75% of carer’s allowance claims were processed within target, compared with7% in April 2016. That is a dramatic improvement and I am grateful to our staff in Longford and Carrick-on-Shannon for that. In addition to this, the number of claims on hand is 36% lower at the end of April 2017 compared with the same month last year. We are very much getting through that backlog.

Committee members will be aware that in recent months, delays have been experienced in processing maternity benefit claims received via the postal system. In order to tackle these delays additional staff have been allocated to the processing team in Buncrana and performance is beginning to improve. I had the pleasure of visiting the staff in Buncrana last Friday.

It is important to note, and this may not have come across very clearly in the media, that these delays only apply to postal claims. If one claims online, claims can be processed much more quickly and in fact, almost two thirds of people who claim online will get a decision instantaneously. If, in their constituency work, members come across people who have made a paper application and are still waiting for an answer, they can still put in an online application. An applicant does need a public service card to do so but that is all. I would encourage any expectant mothers or fathers to use the Department’s online facility .

A lot of public attention has focussed recently on my initiative to raise awareness of fraud. This campaign aims to encourage people to comply with social welfare rules and to report any instances of fraudulent activity of which they have knowledge. We all know the vast majority of people on social welfare are claiming the correct entitlement due to them. However, a small minority are claiming payments to which they are not entitled either because they do not understand the rules or because they deliberately choose to ignore them. Many are employers, paying people in cash who do not pay PRSI on behalf of their employees and therefore deny them social benefits. Some have hundreds of thousands of euro in the bank, and we have many estate cases on hand on those lines. Others have jobs, do not pay tax on the work they do, and claim social welfare. Some do not even live in the country or may have dual identities.

Given the scale of our expenditure even a low level of fraud amounts to very large sums of money; money that is desperately needed in other areas of Government activity, including within my own Department’s schemes and services. While fraud rates of 0.5% or 1% may seem minuscule to some, in the context of a multi-billion euro budget, the sums are considerable, certainly tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of euro. It should be borne in mind that €10 million is what it would cost to increase the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance by 25% this summer. If I can, it is my intention to use any savings made from this campaign to do that. In addition, if the public is to retain confidence in the integrity of the welfare system, it is important that we not only tackle any fraudulent activity but that we are seen to do so. Taxpayers expect us to do that. For this reason it is appropriate that we engage in a public awareness campaign from time to time and I make no apology for so doing. To date this campaign has seen a 50% increase in reports made by members of the public to the Department. I should point out that it accounts for maybe one sixth of my Department’s publicity budget this year, five sixths of which has been spent telling people about benefits they are entitled to but may not claim, for instance the new benefits for the self-employed, the Abhaile service for people who are in mortgage arrears and the new paternity benefit scheme before that.

None of us know if and when we might require the support of the schemes and services operated by the Department. What we do know is we want supports to be available if and when we need them. For this reason we need to build and sustain a consensus across society regarding the funding model and benefits that make up our social welfare system.

Social welfare legislation provides for the carrying out of an actuarial review of the Social Insurance Fund every five years. The Department has engaged KPMG to carry out the latest review and this will be completed by mid-August. The review will examine the financial health of the fund in the short and long term. The outcome of the review will help to inform the debate on the funding approach and the types of benefits which should be available as our society evolves, the nature of work changes and our population ages. I intend to consult widely on these questions and the committee will be an important stakeholder in this discussion.

To conclude I have sought, in this opening statement, to provide a broad overview of the role of the Department and its expenditure programmes and to set out the changes made in budget 2017 that are reflected in the Estimates presented here today. I look forward to hearing members' views and will welcome any questions.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister. Before he arrived I indicated to the committee that we would go through these under the various headings to ensure there is adequate scrutiny and analysis.

The first heading is pensions. I call Deputy O'Dea.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for his presentation. We will go through this heading by heading but I will ask the Minister one general question which affects all headings. In the supplementary document issued subsequent to our receipt of the main documentation, there is an item titled "administration". Administration costs are divided between pay and non-pay. Pay has not increased significantly. It seems to be non-pay that has increased. Pay has gone down slightly, actually, but non-pay has increased from €190 million to €254.9 million, which is quite a considerable increase. It is an increase of €50 million and perhaps the Minister would like to comment on that.

The pension figures are interesting. There is almost a 5% increase in the Estimate for contributory pensions. As the Minister will be aware, there was an increase in the rate of pensions this year which kicked in in March. Can the Minister tell us how much of that actual estimated increase is due to the extra numbers? The Minister made the point, when we were discussing this prior to the budget, that he must find a certain amount of money before he provides for any increase in the pensions. How much of this is due to the actual budgetary increase and how much to increased numbers of pensioners? I notice that the increase in provision for non-contributory pensions is very low in comparison - only 0.7% - despite the fact pensioners under this scheme have also benefitted from the increase. I can only speculate that the numbers may have dropped there.

The Minister will also be aware of ongoing controversy surrounding the methods used to calculate contributory pensions. Two changes were made to the pensions system in 2012. A different averaging system was introduced and basic qualification changed from 260 contributions to 520. If we were to go back to 2012, could the Minister tell us how much it would cost from here on in, on an annual basis, to undo those change and return to the position in 2012? I would like separate figures for each change.

Finally, I congratulate the Department on the more rapid processing times but there seems to be a bit of a drop in the processing times for non-contributory payments. Obviously, a different situation applies in that regard - a means test must be carried out etc. - but perhaps the Department would take note of that. It is down to about 75% now. The target processing time for non-contributory pensions is ten weeks. Ten weeks is two months. If the chart here is correct, it shows that while processing times have improved - they improved quite considerably last year - they seem to have dropped back again. They were up to 85% at some stage last year. They are now back to 75%. Perhaps the Minister would comment on that.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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There were a few direct technical questions, so I will allow the Minister in before I come to Deputy Brady.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I will starting with the Deputy's first question concerning administration. There are two key reasons for the increase in the administration subhead. First, we have engaged in a detailed staff education and training programme whereby the Department now has a contract, or a partnership, with the National College of Ireland to upskill and educate our staff. This is for many reasons. Obviously, we want staff to do more and do things better. We also want to give them opportunities for promotion and that has a cost to it. The JobPath contract falls into this subheading as well. As the Deputy will be aware, the main cost of this is when people get jobs that pay more than 30 hours per week and they sustain it for more than 13 weeks. That is when the payments to JobPath start to kick in. I think 20,000-odd people now have gone through that programme and managed to sustain a full-time job for more than three months. That is when the payments kick in.

Regarding the contributory pension, we can provide a breakdown as to where the increases are for the Deputy. Last year, the number of people entitled to a State contributory pension increased by 4.6%, whereas the number entitled to a non-contributory pension fell by 0.5%, which is something the Deputy identified. This reflects demographics. There are more and more people now retiring who have a history of paying into the PRSI system and are therefore entitled to a contributory pension. Those who are passing away are obviously much older and would often be people who did not pay into the PRSI system and only received a pension on a means-tested basis.

Regarding the rate increase, this cost 1.8% in respect of contributory pensions and 2.1% in respect of non-contributory pensions. There are other factors at play, as I mentioned earlier. The payday has an effect as well because there are a number of different paydays in any given year. We can give the Deputy an exact breakdown and if he wants it in numbers, it is on page 7 of our brief. The allocation for the State pension contributory was €4.844 billion, which was an increase of €182 million on the outturn. Of this, €210 million was due to an increase in pension recipient numbers. The cost of the rate increase was €81 million, but this was offset by things like the Christmas bonus, the number of paydays and a number of other factors. I should point out that the figures we use in our brief include the Christmas bonus for 2016 but do not assume there will be a Christmas bonus in 2017 - although I do assume there will be a Christmas bonus in 2017; I am just not permitted to put it into the accounts, barring a major recession.

Regarding the figures on the cost of the changes made in 2015, the Deputy refers to the two reforms brought in by the former Minister, Deputy Burton, in 2012, namely, a change from five years' contributions to ten and the averaging system. If we were to reverse that, it would cost €60 million in 2018, and if we were to backdate it, it would cost €200 million. Because the changes work into the future, it would cost €10 million more every year. Therefore, it would cost €60 million next year, €70 million in 2019, €80 million in 2020 and so on.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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That is to change both criteria.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Yes.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Does the Minister have figures for just the one measure - the averaging?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I do not. Averaging would form the bulk of it, though. I apologise - the figures I have given the Deputy concern a reversal of the change made to the averaging system. I do not have the figures for the change made to the number of contributions required. However, the Deputy knows where we are going on this. I am not satisfied with the way we contribute to the State contributory pension. I do not think it is the right way to do it. What I - or certainly the Department - will have for the committee in the next few months, when we have done the actuarial review of the Social Insurance Fund, is a set of ten options as to how we can have a new, fairer system to contribute to the State contributory pension and how much it would cost. Obviously, any time one changes the rules as to how one calculates something, there are winners and losers. Before we make that decision, we need to know who would lose and who would win or who would benefit and who would end up with less. We also need to know, if we were to make sure nobody lost out, which I am sure would be the desire of all of us, what the cost would be. It is pretty phenomenal, by the way. It is important the committee sees those ten options. Then it can decide in its pre-budget submissions whether it would prioritise them over other measures.

Regarding the target time for non-contributory pensions, 73% are done within ten weeks, which is the target. The average is 11 weeks. I am informed that the processing times at the end of April - that is, so far for this year - are well ahead of target for the contributory schemes. We are doing much better on processing except for maternity, unfortunately.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Also on the matter of pensions, I call Deputy Brady.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister and the officials from the Department. I will begin with a similar question concerning administration. I note the Minister's remarks about JobPath and his acknowledgement that it comes under the spending under this subhead. There is a lack of clarity and information on JobPath and constant rhetoric and comments about commercial sensitivity surrounding it. To find that money relating to JobPath is now appearing under this subhead with no clarity or information just adds to these issues.

I want to come back to JobPath because I have a series of questions. Could the Minister elaborate on that? We have heard that money for the two private companies, Seetec and Turas Nua, is buried in administration under non-pay costs. Could the Minister elaborate on that? I am somewhat concerned and confused about it.

In respect of pensions, I note the Minister's constant use of the words "winners" and "losers". He is certainly very used to employing those words. There were certainly no winners from the changes introduced by the former Minister, Deputy Burton, in 2012. The Minister stands over those changes and he continues to roll them out. The real losers were women. Does the Minister agree with that? There were certainly no winners- only losers. Women lost out. Over 36,000 people were on reduced pensions up to June 2016 as a direct result of the changes in question. The figures bear that out. Does the Minister think this is fair? The figures underpin the argument to the effect that those affected were, in the main, women. The breakdown shows that there was a reduction of 100% in respect of the State pension transition. We know that this is another group of people who are losers. Again, there are no winners under this Minister and I think he would agree that this is very much a case of losers. This is where people who retire at 65 are forced to accept a jobseeker's payment instead of drawing down a full State pension. Many of these people, and I am sure the Minister agrees with this, have worked their entire lives and paid their contributions hoping to get their State pension only for it to be moved at the last minute. The State transition pension bridged that gap to ensure that people were not up to €40 worse off. Does the Minister think these people are winners or losers? If he looks at the statistics, he will see that 65 year olds make up the largest category of people signing for a jobseeker's payment. Over 5,200 65 year olds are signing for such payments as opposed to drawing down the full State pension, to which they should be entitled. Are there any updates on those figures? To use his terminology, does the Minister think they are winners or losers?

I said during the discussion on last year's Estimates that one of the worst cuts introduced was the abolition of the bereavement grant. I asked the Minister about its abolition at the time and he went off on a tangent saying there were three types of payments that can be used to pay families that are going through financial difficulties at very vulnerable and difficult time following the loss of a family member. The figures here show quite clearly that there was a 100% cut in the bereavement grant. This does not stack up with what the Minister said last year about three payments. Could he comment on that matter?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I did not quite catch the question about the bereavement grant.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Last year, I asked the Minister about the abolition of the bereavement grant. I think he was a bit bewildered. He did not think the bereavement grant had been abolished and told me that there were three payments, which is true, but there was a specific bereavement grant that was abolished. I raised the matter last year during the Estimates process. The Minister questioned it but the figures before us bear out the contention that the bereavement grant is gone. What is the Minister's perspective on that? Again, we have losers. There are certainly no winners in this instance.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am accused of many things these days but being bewildered is not one of them.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Sorry?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I have been accused of so many things in the past few weeks but being bewildered is not one of them. I will add it to the list.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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That is how the Minister appeared last year when I asked the question. I could use many other words but bewildered is the probably the most-----

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am happy to clarify that there were three types of payments in the case of bereavement, two of which still exist. One of these is an exceptional needs payment where a person can go to his or her community welfare officer and say that he or she cannot afford to pay funeral expenses or burial costs. We can help with that. Approximately €5 million was paid out to help 1,000 people to date this year. In the region of 3,000 people last year and 1,000 people so far this year received an exceptional needs payment to assist them with burial and funeral costs and that is still available. Under the PRSI scheme, there is an occupational injury payment if someone dies in work as a consequence of that work. That is still part of PRSI. What was abolished in 2014 was the more general bereavement grant. That would cost about €20 million to reintroduce. It is something that should be considered in the context of the budget. We must prioritise. We can never do everything we would like to do in one year but it is certainly something that could be considered for budget 2018, along with the telephone allowance. These are two things I would like to restore in 2018. I got a lot in the previous budget and, hopefully, I will have enough influence to get a lot in the next budget as well.

I will be as clear as possible about JobPath. The allocation to JobPath in 2017 was €65 million. That roughly works out as an average cost per participant of €1,000. When we consider the number of people who, as a result of or with the assistance of JobPath, move from welfare to work and paying taxes, we can see that this is a very good investment at only €1,000 per participant. The cost is €65 million in 2017 and the return is very considerable. I do not like to compare JobPath with community employment because they are very different programmes with very different purposes. However, members might like to know that JobPath will cost €65 million in 2017 while community employment will cost €600 million. The cost per participant in JobPath is €1,000 while the cost per participant in community employment is between €5,000 and €7,000. That gives members an idea of the difference in cost compared to outcomes.

The Deputy is right that there were no beneficiaries or winners from the changes in 2012. However, those changes were made for a reason. They were made at a time when budgets were very tight and the then Minister, Deputy Burton, with my support and that of the Cabinet, decided that instead of cutting pensions, and we never cut the pension even throughout the worst recession in a generation-----

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The Government did. A total of 36,000 people had their pensions cut.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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No, they did not.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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They did.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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We certainly did not cut existing pensions. There were future expectations perhaps that is not the same thing. We both know what we are saying and the Deputy understands what I am saying. It was also done as part of a wider reform to better reflect the fact that when it comes to any contributory pension, including the Deputy's, there has to be or should be a link between the amount someone pays in and the amount he or she gets at the end. That is the contributory principle and it is not a bad one. It applies to the Deputy's pension and my pension so why should it not apply in social insurance as well - linking the amount someone pays in to the amount he or she gets back, with provision for caring and child rearing? I would hope that any new system would properly reflect that as well.

In the context of the gender breakdown of those affected, the figures are 58% women and 42% men. If we look at the population of people aged over 66 - as the Deputy is aware, women live longer - we can see that 54% are women and 46% are men. As a result, there is a 4% variance in the effect on men versus women. At the same time, the Deputy also knows that poverty rates are higher among older men than older women.

Men are slightly more likely to be in poverty in old age than women. The figure is 4% one way and 0.3% the other way, but it is certainly not as characterised or as one would think from the narrative and the discussion in the media that it was only women who were affected or it was 80:20 or 70:30. That is not the case, there is a difference of approximately 4% in the impact on men versus women.

The State pension age must rise. I would love to go out in the next few days and tell people they are going to be able to retire at 60 years, 62 years or 65 years but that would be dishonest and not true. When one goes back to the 1970s, the State pension age was 70 years and in those days the average man lived to the age of 68 years and the average woman lived to 72 years to 73 years. People paid into the system through tax and social insurance for perhaps 40 to 50 years and received a pension for two or three years.

Things have changed. It is wonderful that people are living much longer but obviously that creates a potential time bomb in our pension system. We have time to diffuse the time bomb but we have to do something about it. Part of that has to be increasing the State pension age. Every other country is doing it. It is just basic maths. It adds up. The State pension age will rise to 67 years in 2021, and 68 in 2028.

It is important to remind anybody listening and members of the committee that there is no compulsory retirement age in Ireland. The year in which one gets the State pension is not the year in which one has to retire. There have often been people who have to retire at 50 years or 60 years for some reason or another. We have always had a case of people who have had to retire from a particular job earlier than the State pension age, but the State pension age is not a compulsory retirement age. Many people work into the 70s because they choose to do so and you and I know many of those people. What is interesting is a case taken to the Workplace Relations Commission, which issued a ruling in the past week or two on the case of a person in Knock Airport. The Workplace Relations Commission confirmed that just because one has a contract until the age of 65 years, the employer essentially cannot make one retire at 65 years. It must have some objective basis in reason as to why that is the case. I think that is a very significant judgment and one that has major implications across the private sector that people cannot be forced to retire unless there is a good reason as to why he or she should do so. The obligation is therefore on the employer.

The public sector is different. I am sure as part of the talks and negotiations that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, will have with the trade unions that the possibility of allowing public servants to continue to work to the State pension age will be part of those talks. I think that should be the case.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Is Deputy Brady still discussing pensions?

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Yes. On the last point, in essence we have compulsory retirement. While I am familiar with the court case the Minister referenced, prior to that there have been many other court cases that ruled the other way. The difficulty is the EU legislation was introduced back in 2012 is open to interpretation. That is the difficulty here. While I note the recent court case, there have been many other court case where the decision went the other way. That is wrong. The serious error and anomaly, and I believe the Minister has admitted it himself, is that when these changes were brought in with the abolition of the State transition pension, is that we have 65 year olds who are forced to retire. Many of those forced to retire, do so against their own will and are forced to sign on for a jobseeker's payment and those people would have preferred to stay working. Many women would have preferred to stay working to build up their contributions to try to get a higher pension.

I think the Minister acknowledges that the changes that were introduced in 2012 were unfair. He said there were no winners, that everybody was a loser. The Minister has come before us with flags flying, whether it is part of his leadership campaign, he is now talking about reinstating this or that, using the so-called savings generated by the fraud campaign to increase the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. Perhaps as part of his campaign, the Minister might give a commitment to those pensioners who are forced on to a jobseeker's payment to reinstate the State transition pension payment. Again, the Minister refers to other countries that have raised the retirement age. I put it to the Minister that what we in Ireland are doing is going far beyond what other countries are doing. A number of countries have increased the retirement age up to 66 years. We are proposing to increase it to 68 years. That is far higher than many other countries at an European level.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Does the Minister wish to comment?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Brady, absolutely everything I have said or not said, have done or not done and event I have been to or not been to in the past three years has been attributed to my leadership campaign. I will be glad at least in the next few weeks when that nonsense comes to an end.

The Deputy may have to accept at some point that I may actually say things I believe and do things I think are right. The Deputy may not agree with what I say but I do believe it. The Deputy may not support what I do but I think these measures are the right thing to do. That has always been my guiding principle.

We have had this discussion before. People may well be required by contract or even by law to retire from a particular job but nobody is required to retire. It is possible to take up other employment and lots of people do. We know lots of people who have retired from a job and then work part-time or who become consultants. Garda or Army people who retired in their 50s have taken up other jobs as well. The solution is not to reintroduce the State transition pension but to ensure that people can continue in their job beyond the age of 65 years and that is why the Workplace Relations Commission's ruling is very important. Deputy Brady has a Bill that strengthens the law further in that area.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The Employment Equality (Abolition of Mandatory Retirement Age) Bill 2016 has reached Committee Stage.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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That is very welcome. If I am to accept and take a criticism, I acknowledge it would have been better had all that been co-ordinated when the pension age was being raised. That is the solution. The solution is not to pretend to people that we are going to be able to have decent incomes in retirement if we do not increase the retirement age. While other countries are doing it on different dates, they are all moving towards a retirement age of 68 years.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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They all are?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Not all member states are going up to 68 years. I can give the Deputy the table. People are raising the retirement age in different years.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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We are going above and beyond most of our European colleagues.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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That is not true. I will be happy to provide that table for Deputy Brady and all the members of the committee. There is an OECD report which shows the schedule as to which countries are raised the age of retirement in each year. It is only common sense that there has to be a link between life expectancy and State pension age. I do not think we should delude people into thinking that is not the case.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I note the Minister's intentions and expectations in budget 2018 with regard to the bereavement grant and the telephone allowance. I hope he is in a position to deliver.

The second item is from the financial scrutiny team's briefing, on working age and income supports. I call Deputy O'Dea.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I will follow on a point made by Deputy Brady in regard to the abolition of the bereavement grant.

The Minister mentioned that a figure of €5 million was paid out last year in exceptional needs payments. Where does the provision for exceptional needs payments appear in the budgetary figures? Is it part of the supplementary welfare allowance?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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No, it is not. It is in appendix 1 on page 60. Subhead A11, which is other working age supports, is broken down into four categories.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I see that now.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is broken down into four categories: exceptional and urgent needs; other supplements; humanitarian aid and direct provision allowance. The outturn for 2016 for exceptional needs payments, ENPs, and urgent needs payments, UNPs, was €32 million.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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According to the figures in chart 11, the allocation for other working age income supports is down by 10% for 2017.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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What I have in the Revised Estimates for 2017 is €31.5 million. The outturn was €32.2 million in 2016 for ENPs and UNPs. We have €31.5 million in this table. That is a slight change.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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If one looks at chart 11 in the documentation submitted to members, A11 - other working age income supports.

The reduction is €4.25 million, or 10%.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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That is correct. The reason for that is the reductions in the other areas. We anticipate that humanitarian aid will fall from €1.7 million to €500,000 because we hope there will not be any major floods or similar things in 2017. The allocation for direct provision is going down as well because the number of people in direct provision is decreasing. We are estimating a fall in things such as heat and light from €6.7 million to €4.5 million. When it comes to ENPs and UNPs, we are not anticipating a major change. It will go from €32.2 million to €31.5 million. It is demand-led so it may well come out higher.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Will the Department supply figures for that item of expenditure since the abolition of the bereavement grant? Is that possible? The reason I ask is that when we raised the abolition of the bereavement grant initially with the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Burton, she said people would be taken care of from the exceptional needs fund. It was my experience at constituency level that even when the bereavement grant, which was €800, was there, many people who came to me needed extra assistance because of the rising costs relating to funerals. The extra assistance they have been getting does not reflect the fact the bereavement grant has been abolished. I would like the Department to send those figures to me.

On the total increase in the allocation for working age income supports, the main item is jobseeker's allowance. Could the Minister give us an indication of how the figures for the reduction in jobseeker's allowance and jobseeker's benefit allocation break down? How are they offset by the increase that came into play in March?

I have a point on the discussions the Minister has had on compulsory retirement. A Bill has passed Second Stage and has been referred to committee. If the Government accepts the Bill and ensures that it is passed, any individual who wants to stay on in his current job would not have to go see solicitors and lawyers. An awful lot of people cannot afford that or to go to court. I take the Minister's point that a person can take up another job at 65, but there are not that many openings for 65 year olds. If we are serious about this, the legislation is there and it is pretty unambiguous. The proposers, Deputy Brady and I, are prepared to accept any reasonable amendments from the Government side. I do not know when the Bill in question was referred to committee but we are still waiting for movement on it. The ball is in the Government's court.

I welcome the increase in treatment benefits and maternity benefit. Much of the increased figure is as a result of that.

Is supplementary rent allowance dealt with under this heading?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Yes.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Rents keep going up but the figure keeps going down. Is that due to the transition to HAP?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Yes.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Do we have any figures for it? What Department provides the assistance for housing assistance payments?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister referred to maternity benefits and I thank him for his advice regarding online applications. I am still not clear why many people are not yet in a position to apply online. I am still a bit unclear about how a glitch seems to have developed in the ordinary system by means of which people make written applications. It is not clear from the Minister's reply. Perhaps he will elaborate on the matter.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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On the breakdown on expenditure on jobseeker's allowance and jobseeker's benefit, these payments account for just over €2.5 billion every year. We estimate that there will be a reduction in the cost of jobseeker's allowance and jobseeker's benefit overall of €304 million this year; €341 million is due to the projected decrease in the numbers on the live register. We are projecting that those numbers will fall to an average of 268,000 this year, down from 304,000 last year. There is €30.5 million in the Christmas bonus which is in 2016 but not in 2017. That is an offset by €55 million which is the cost of the rate increases - the €5 increase in jobseeker's. There is €2.4 million to fund the cost of increasing the income disregard for lone parents on jobseeker's transitional payment.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Is it €2.4 million?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Yes, €2.4 million. That is the cost of changing the disregard on JST from €90 to €110. There is approximately €10.5 million in respect of other factors, including paydays and things of that nature.

On maternity benefit, I have been to Buncrana to witness it myself and to meet the staff there. It is probably down to a number of factors. It started to emerge as a problem in February. Some of it is down to staff changes and the high turnover of staff. Much of it is down to the new system. Essentially, the forms have to be scanned in. In the past, it was paper based. Now, where it is a paper application, the forms have to be scanned in. There are still a lot of old forms out there. Some of the different centres throughout the country are still giving out the old forms. It is our responsibility to solve it. I am not blaming those centres; it is up to us to tell them to withdraw the forms and bring in the new ones. In some cases the forms are printed out or photocopied and the scanners are not picking them up right, which means that staff have to go through them individually and re-enter the details. That has caused a delay that was not there in the past. We are catching up on the backlog and, as a result of that, we are starting to see improved times. We have additional staff from Letterkenny brought into Buncrana to help out and staff are being offered overtime. The office is opening on Saturdays on overtime to get through the backlog. I am confident that we will resolve the matter. If a person is entitled to any maternity benefit payment, that person will get paid in arrears so nobody will lose money, although there may be a delay in getting it. The online system can produce an instant answer in two thirds of cases and all that is required is the public service card, PSC, which requires a visit to the local Intreo centre. That is all it requires and signing up to www.MyWelfare.ie. I have encouraged people to do this because the PSC is needed for child benefit as well. It would be a good idea for anyone who is expecting a child and who does not have a PSC to get one because it is increasingly required for any public services.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Next we will have Deputy Brady and then Deputy Joan Collins.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I am not quite sure whether JobPath comes in here or elsewhere. Reading through the Revised Estimates, it is very unclear. There are only two or three references to JobPath. Any time I ask questions, I am told it is a commercially-sensitive matter and the Department cannot give out figures or statistics or any information on the contracts that are in place with Turas Nua or Seetec. I will raise the issue of JobPath because, like thousands of people out there, I am deeply concerned. The Minister will say that he has the results of a customer care survey, that the number of complaints is low and that his concerns have not been raised regarding the negative experiences people are having. The reality is that people are being hounded and they are petrified. They are afraid to make complaints. They are afraid to raise any concerns because the threat that their payments will be suspended or cut or that they will be penalised is constantly hanging over their heads. There are huge concerns, which I share. I have asked the Minister repeatedly to carry out a review of the operation of JobPath.

He has stated it has not been in place long enough to carry out this review. It was piloted in Bray and Longford and has been in place for two years in these areas. It has been in place a year in the rest of the State, since it was rolled out. It is timely and appropriate that a review is carried out.

The Department's target for 2017 is to refer 60,000 long-term unemployed people to JobPath, but the outturn for 2016 was 76,400. Why is the target so low this year in comparison to last year? The Minister often refers to contracting-out employment services in the UK and uses it as an example, but a 2004 report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee recommended greater transparency in the scheme there, with regard to visibility to the public about suppliers' performance, costs, revenues and profits. All of this is hidden away from us. We do not know what has been achieved. We do not know targets or performances. What are the Minister's views on this? He constantly cites the UK example. Does he share the concerns with regard to the alarm bells that went off in the UK in the Public Accounts Committee?

With regard to the fees payable to these private companies, Turas Nua and Seetec, have they been reduced in line with reductions in unemployment by between 4% and 16%, as was planned within the contract? Will the Minister gives a bit more detail on this? More than 94,000 people have gone through, or are going through, JobPath through the two companies. There are huge concerns. Is the Minister happy with their performance? Are they hitting the rates of employment they are contracted to meet? Why are the employment finding rates in the contract set at lower levels than those for local employment services, which have higher expectations? Why is the bar so low? It is 14.4% for the JobPath companies. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this is the figure set for Turas Nua and Seetec. Why is it so low? I would like clarity on some of these points.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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On JobPath, Table 9.5 on page 47 gives a breakdown of funding for the major outsourcing. These include payments to medical certifiers, such as doctors, of €21.75 million, nurse attendance €270,000, payments to branch managers of €16 million, because many of the branch offices are outsourced, and a payment of €37 million to JobPath. The figure is there as much as any figure in any payment to any agency. Similarly, community employment involves mostly private companies and the numbers are there for them also.

Quarterly reports will be issued on JobPath. The first one is done and the second will be out later this month. The report includes financial information, the extent to which targets are being met and the satisfaction survey from customers. The target is set at 60% of the counterfactual. Essentially, an assessment is made with a control group as to what percentage would progress to full-time employment and sustain it for three months and JobPath is then asked to do 60% better. This is how the target is met.

Bear in mind it is not easy for many people who are long-term unemployed to get employment because they have been out of the labour market for so long. We are not just saying any old employment, we are saying it only counts if it is for more than 30 hours a week and if it is a job that people are able to sustain for more than three months. The idea that people are being pushed into part-time jobs or jobs that are not suited to them does not really match the contract, which states that a job has to be for 30 hours a week and a full-time job. There are one or two exceptions, such as teaching, for obvious reasons. It has to be a job the person is willing to stay in for more than three months. This is essentially how the target is picked out.

The reason there will be fewer referrals in 2017 is because fewer people are long-term unemployed. For the same reason there are fewer referrals to local employment schemes, community employment and Tús there will be fewer referrals to JobPath. Fewer people will be referred to JobPath in 2017 than in 2016. I would have thought Deputy Brady would welcome this. He might want to come back in on it.

The Department is conducting an econometric review, which will be completed by October or November. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, the contract provided for the Department to reduce the payments made to Seetec and Turas Nua if the economy recovered faster than we thought it would at the time of the recession. We have implemented this and we have reduced the payments to the two companies, recognising that employment growth has been better than we thought it would have been at the time the contracts were signed. I compliment my officials involved in negotiating the contract for ensuring provision was made for claw back in those circumstances, and we have implemented it.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The figures are there, with an increase of 158% on last year, but the ambiguity starts coming in any time questions are asked as to the payments to Turas Nua or Seetec. There is no clarity. For the Minister to compare community employment to Turas Nua and Seetec because it is established on a private company basis is disingenuous. Turas Nua and Seetec are for profit. They are profit driven and this is their motivation. I hope the Minister will agree community employment provides essential and critical community services, and to compare it because it is set up on a company basis is disingenuous and a slap on the face. Many community employment schemes are struggling because of the creation of JobPath. People are being referred to JobPath and not to local employment schemes or community employment schemes. They are not allowed on community employment schemes once they are signed up to JobPath.

I am not sure whether the review the Minister spoke about will be a root and branch review of the full operation of the scheme and both companies involved, because there are other concerns with regard to cherry picking. This is another phenomenon that has been brought out and exposed in the UK. I have spoken previously about concerns in this regard. Will the Minister elaborate on this review? Will the findings be published? There are huge concerns.

With regard to redundancy and insolvency payments, which are in the same chapter, I note the Estimate is for a reduction of 20.5%. I wish to raise concerns carried in many national newspapers recently. The Department wrote off €345 million in redundancy payments due to the State. There is huge concern. I acknowledge some of the companies are legitimate, for whatever reason, but some companies have come back under a different name with the same individuals. There is concern that some companies have abused the system. They have wound down and let people go to avoid giving out redundancy payments. What process has been put in place to ensure these payments have been followed up and paid to the State? A total of €345 million certainly surpasses and puts in the shade the Minister's big campaign about welfare fraud, which I will touch on later on.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy, I want to give the Minister a chance to respond.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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It appears there are bigger issues here, that the State has written off €345 million.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The review will be done towards the end of the year. There is a contract. We can do reviews on any contract we have, and we should do reviews to monitor policy and contracts. The contract stands.

If Sinn Féin is in government next year, the contract stands and it will have to honour it or pay pretty massive compensation to any company whose contract it would choose to cancel. The Deputy should bear that in mind. It would be interesting if one of the first acts of a Sinn Féin Government would be to pay hundreds of millions of euro to a private company.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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What is the point of carrying out the review if we are not going to act on its findings, negative or otherwise?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am sure they are writing down what the Deputy is saying, and their lawyers too -----

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Do not provoke him.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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----- so the Deputy should bear that in mind before making a statement that could potentially result in Sinn Féin handing out a massive compensation payment. Community employment, CE, companies are not-for-profit, voluntary-based entities and I am not trying to suggest that CE companies are the same as Tesco or Aldi. The point I am making about private companies is that they are not inherently a bad thing. Private enterprise is not inherently bad and lots of Government and public services are provided by entities that are established as private companies. In the way the Deputy speaks sometimes, he makes out that he thinks it is inherently wrong for the Government to deliver any service through private enterprise yet, across the board, we do this very successfully. We do it in health care through GPs and primary care centres and in so many other fields. That is the point I was making. Turas Nua, for instance, has two shareholders, one is a not-for-profit, the other is for-profit, so it might be disingenuous to talk about the companies as being for-profit.

On redundancy and insolvency, we do pursue those companies for repayments. I believe we got back over €10 million in redundancy payments last year from companies, which is good but where we have to do write-offs is for obvious reasons. Companies exist in law, they have legal personality and where they cease to exist they can no longer be pursued, any more than one could pursue someone for fraud after they had passed away. One cannot pursue a company that no longer exists. If one looks at the trading status currently of the companies which are listed as owing the Department money, 36% have been liquidated, 20% dissolved, 1% struck off, 6% in receivership but about 37% are still classified as normal. While those companies continue to exist as a legal entity it does not mean that they are still trading but we will still pursue them if we can.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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No, colleagues -----

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Very briefly.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Very briefly, because we have a substantial number of other things here, so get directly to the point, Deputy Brady.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The quarterly report that came out in January to which the Minister referred relates back to 2015.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Sorry, what report?

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Did the Minister not speak about a quarterly report? Maybe I misheard him. That dates back to 2015. There has been nothing since, so when do these quarterly reports come out? We are looking back to issues dating back to 2015. What monitoring is in place by the Department regarding the type of employment, how the two companies are operating and what type of monitoring is in place?

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Thank you Deputy. Does the Minister wish to respond?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The next quarterly report will be out either at the end of this month or in early June. There is a lag because the way that JobPath works, as the Deputy knows, is that one is enrolled in JobPath and in it for a year, so it is not possible to get results until the year is complete.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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People will have been signed up at different points in that year.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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People had started to be signed up in 2015 but no one had completed the programme until 2016 or if they had, it was in very small numbers.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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What type of monitoring is in place for Turas Nua and Seetec?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Monitoring is provided in the contract. There are inspectors.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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We need to move on. Our agenda is substantial. The next item is working age employment supports. I will take the next two Deputies together, we need to move through these.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Working age employment supports is where we should be discussing JobPath. As I understand it, JobPath is an aid to employment. It is an employment support. Where exactly is it accounted for in chart 15? Community employment schemes, rural social schemes and all the other aids to employment are here but which refers to JobPath? We have JobsPlus and we have the wage subsidy scheme.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is in under administration. I take the Deputy's point, it would make some sense to have it in working age supports. The reason it is under the administration heading is that it is a payment out but so is JobsPlus.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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To make a general point on this section of the Estimates, as the Minister said in his opening statement, an awful lot of the payments in social protection are demand-led. Obviously, if someone fulfils the qualifications, one gets a number and multiplies the number by the rate and that is straightforward. This section is one of the smaller items of expenditure, only about 5%, but that is almost €1 billion, which is a lot of taxpayers' money. In this particular section, there should be different metrics. What is being done here is money is being spent to achieve a particular result - community employment schemes, rural social schemes and so on are designed to achieve something. There seems to be no method of measurement, no metric by which one can measure their quality, how they are performing and what they are achieving. If one looks at something like invalidity pensions or State pensions, an appropriate metric to put in is processing times, how quickly they are being processed and so on, but surely the metrics need to be different when we are spending money to achieve a particular result. Surely there should be some mechanism to measure how effectively that money is being spent, identifying what result is being sought and how well this is being achieved.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Deputy Brady wish to comment briefly on this point because we need to move through them?

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I have dealt with JobPath. The allocation for Gateway is down 65%. We know the purpose of Gateway and I questioned the Minister on this previously. The Minister said he was hoping to bring forward a replacement or an alternative scheme for local authorities. My preferred choice would be to have staff working directly for councils within councils. There has been no information on that replacement. Is it the Minister's intention to bring something forward on that?

The other area is that of CE schemes, on which there are huge concerns. The Minister has made an announcement about opening up the criteria to qualify for CE schemes but there is considerable concern that people who previously would have taken up CE schemes to provide essential community services are now being referred to JobPath and locked into it. That is the difficulty for many people. Many of the CE schemes and companies around the State are struggling to get people at present and the Minister's intentions are a little unclear.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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We will give him a chance to answer. We have to move on.

When the Minister answers the question about CE, he might give us the current number of participants compared with those of last year and the year before. From looking at the figures, I understand there was a reduction in the outcome versus the projected figure for the year, because of the uptake of CEs. The figure for participants in the last number of years might be helpful.

Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Could the Minister update the committee on JobBridge and the intention to bring in an alternative scheme for internships?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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To answer Deputy O'Dea's question, the performance targets and outputs for the working age employment supports are given in the brief to the committee. The outputs are things such as the movement of long-term unemployed people into employment, the reduction of the persistence rate, which is the rate at which short-term unemployed people become long-term unemployed, an increase in the exit rate for people on the live register for two years or more, long-term unemployed people referred to JobPath and the reduction in the overall ratio between youth unemployment and overall unemployment.

That shows the outturn for 2016 and also the performance indicators for 2017, which are relatively new.

Gateway is essentially being phased out. It was introduced as a recession measure when local authorities could not afford staff. We wanted to give people some work experience and have them do some useful work for the community as well. We are engaged in more general conversation with the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and local authorities on having a division of Tús for local authorities. My preference is that local authorities would take on more outdoor staff, which some are doing, in fairness. There is also space for people to get work experience through Tús working for local authorities doing outdoor works and then go on from that to get a job with a local authority. At any job interview immediately after being asked for one's name, one is asked to outline their experience. It is not a bad idea to have some mechanism to give people experience working for a local authority to put them into a position to get the job when they subsequently apply for it. In Fingal County Council a number of people who started on Gateway have gone on to work for the local authority, which is very positive.

A few weeks ago I announced a number of changes to open CE to a wider pool of people. The consultation is ongoing at the moment with the supervisors and so on. The plan is to have them in place for June, so they will take effect quite soon. I would particularly like to see those exiting JobPath entering CE. Many people spend a year on JobPath and get employment, but more of them do not. I regard Tús people, who have tried the year with JobPath and have not got a job, as ideal candidates for CE. There are 30,000 of them each year, which should be enough to fill any vacancies that exist on CE schemes. I am trying to put in a better and more seamless engagement so that Intreo and my Department refer people on quickly to CE once people have been through JobPath and have not found a job.

I have committed to consider and make a decision over the summer on those aged over 55. In rural areas, although not just in rural areas, it can be very difficult for people in their late 50s and 60s to find employment. I would be open to relaxing the rules there to allow older workers - I do not like to describe 55 as older, but people in that age group from 55 to 66 - to perhaps stay on for longer. I am very open to that.

The CE numbers are down. I do not have the figures for before 2016. As the Deputy knows, they were low, they went up and then they started falling in line with the recession. The number of participants at the end of 2016 was 22,567. Actually I do have the figures. It was about 21,500 in 2012 and 21,400 in 2013. It went up to 23,000 in 2014; 22,000 in 2015; and 22,500 in 2016. These figures exclude supervisors. Our estimate for this year is a fall to 22,311. While it has gone down, it has not gone down dramatically when one hears those figures. We are providing funding to keep the numbers the same.

The numbers in Tús, Gateway and JobBridge are certainly going down. We are trying to maintain the numbers for CE. The overall number on schemes went up to about 36,000, but that includes those on Tús, Gateway and all the rest of it.

We are still working on a replacement programme for JobBridge. There has been consultation with unions and employers. I have outlined the basic principles that I want to apply - hat there would be a training element to it; that employers would make a contribution; and that it not be paid any less than the minimum wage for the hours worked. That is ongoing. We still intend to have it operational by the second half of this year. The question arises as to whether it is needed. While I am meeting some employers who would like to see it reinstated, I do not have a huge number of people clamouring at my door to have a replacement for JobBridge. We might do it in limited numbers and see how it goes.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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In recognition of the diminishing amount of time we have left, we will take together the remaining sections, relating to illness, disability, carers, children and then the supplementary items.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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In his opening statement, the Minister mentioned he expected an increase in the number of recipients of carer's allowance. I ask him to give us details on that.

Regarding the metrics, the target is to have a decision on disability allowance within 12 weeks. Only 73% of claims are being decided within 12 weeks. People can experience great hardship waiting for disability allowance. They are people who do not have contributions and are too ill to work. I know the Minister has set himself an ambitious target to make a decision on carer's allowance within one week. Obviously, as he is only achieving 15% within that target, he may have to revise that. The target for domiciliary care allowance is six weeks with only 2% success. That is something that jumps out.

The allocation for the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance was down by 6%. Family income supplement increased slightly by 2%. Has there been a further uptake of family income supplement? I understand there was a PR campaign to advise people of their right to apply for family income supplement. There was some slight increase in the amount because of a slight change in the income disregard.

In the interest of efficiency, I will leave it at that.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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We believe the increase in the recipients of carer's allowance is largely down to demographics, with more people and an aging population. We are deciding 73% of disability allowance within 12 weeks, which has improved quite substantially. I appreciate that anyone waiting that long is waiting a very long time. Of course, we pay in arrears. Much of the time people are on basic supplementary welfare allowance while they wait for the decision. That is certainly something we need to improve and the same applies to DCA. We have had some difficulty hiring medical staff. I think we are at full complement now, which is the first time in a long time that we have had a full complement of medical assessors, which has helped significantly in improving waiting times. We will improve them further. However, at some times we run into issues. As with any application system we can receive incomplete information requiring us to go back for more information and so on.

The budget for the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance has been reduced. That is largely a reflection of the reduction in the live register meaning that fewer people are entitled to it. However, that is offset by an increase in the number of people entitled to FIS, which is a reflection of the increase in employment.

We estimate that an additional 2,000 families will become eligible to FIS in 2017.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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What will that bring the total figure to?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It comes to 57,900. That is not in any given week, but an average over the 52 weeks. That is up from 56,010. These are only estimates.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Additional employment, pay rises and other things need to be factored in.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I call Deputy Brady and ask him to follow Deputy O'Dea's lead.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I will try to be quick. Processing times for domiciliary care allowance payments are notable with only 2% of claims being awarded within six weeks. The current waiting time is 15 weeks for that allowance. What is the Minister doing to address that?

I note the Minister's comment earlier that he hopes to increase the back to school clothing and footwear allowance by 25% this year. He said he hoped to use the money from other campaigns, but it is highly debatable that he will achieve anything close to that. He mentioned a figure of €10 million. Is it the Minister's intention to move ahead irrespective of savings in his so-called fraud campaign? I will be touching on that campaign in a moment. What are his intentions around the back to school clothing and footwear allowance?

I have raised with the Minister previously the payment of the fuel allowance as one or two bulk payments. I agree perhaps with what he said around the nature of the payments for jobseekers, but for old age pensioners, one or two bulk payments could be considered.

I must question the Minister's so-called fraud campaign. It is very questionable and has come in for a great deal of scrutiny. Certainly, the Minister's figure of €506 million is very questionable. The Department's method of calculation is bizarre. We are talking about notional money. On overpayments since 2016, we had a saving of €61.9 million. It was €48.9 million in 2015 and €52.5 million in 2015. Last year, there was a saving to the Department of €41 million from overpayments and fraudulent claims. As such, giving the figure of €506 million is being described as a hate campaign. It is being described as the Minister going on a solo run and I tend to agree with what has been quoted from former employees of the Department. The whole campaign is a fraud in itself aimed at criminalising a whole sector which includes many vulnerable people. Does the Minister stand over those figures?

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy has made the point.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Michael Taft put it very well. He said it was like gardaí estimating how many murders there would be every year if there was no police force. That is what is happening here. These are not real figures. It is notional money and a campaign which is aimed at propping up the Minister. I made that point earlier.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy has put the question. The Minister needs to have an opportunity to speak. I want him to address the figures specifically. I call Deputy Kenny on the same point.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I find the whole campaign on fraud unsettling and bewildering. This is a family show so I will not use the expletives I would otherwise. I find it nauseating that the Minister would use €200,000 of public funds to humiliate people on social welfare. I ask the Minister if he has ever been on social welfare. He can answer that later. As Deputy Brady asked, is this a solo run or a team effort? If it is a team effort, everyone at the table over there should be ashamed. They are trying to humiliate people who are trying to find work. Bernadette Gorman touched on it on RTE when she said it was a type of class and ideological warfare committed by the Department of Social Protection. In the context of the overall budget, this is a fraction. More important is the other fraud that goes on in this country in terms of white collar and corporate crime and corporate welfare. I do not see anyone being named and shamed there. The idea that the Minister will publish the names of people who have in his eyes defrauded the State by miscalculation or misinterpretation is ideological warfare. What about those who have bankrupted this country? What about putting them on billboards and buses? I take my cue from Bernadette Gorman who was brilliant on RTE the other day. She gave a very good insight into the vindictiveness towards those who are trying to do their best. There is no doubt that there is a small element who are defrauding social welfare, which one cannot condone. However, in the greater context, the Minister ought to be ashamed of what he has tried to do here.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I was looking at the total allocation for social protection for 2017 and it is €19.854 billion. I submitted a parliamentary question to the Minister on the amount of that allocation which related to fraud and the figure of €41 million was provided. I have done a quick calculation and determined that €41 million is one fifth of 1% of the total social welfare budget. It could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as a major issue. While it is part of the heads of the Social Welfare Bill which we will be discussing in more detail in a fortnight, I ask for the following clarification. My reading of the heads is slightly different from that of Deputy Kenny. I ask for an assurance that if we go ahead with publishing names, an idea I do not like albeit we do it for Revenue defaulters, no one who has not been convicted of social welfare fraud will have his or her name published.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I will start at the top with DCA. The reason we are not meeting the target relates largely to a High Court judgment which required us to modify the process for deciding DCA and other medical scheme applications to demonstrate that the decisions comply with social welfare legislation. The High Court found in April 2016 that the decision letter provided in a negative decision for DCA cases was deficient. To ensure compliance with the judgment, the DCA section has introduced a much more detailed decision letter which requires significantly more work in each application. That has resulted in approximately 50% of applications having to be dealt with by a smaller number of officers at a higher grade in a manner which takes significant additional time.

We are resolving this. A new assessment process was, co-incidentally, introduced at the same time with a new version of the application forms. Supplementary medical forms were also brought in. This has seen the percentage of applications awarded at first assessment and initial decision increase from 43% to 75%, which is positive. As such, 75% of people are being approved where it used to be much lower with many appeals. Over 80% of applications are ultimately successful and that has led to a significant reduction in appeal numbers. While the initial waiting times are much longer than we would wish, the fact that a higher percentage of people are being awarded on first applying has helped more customers to receive their entitlements more quickly, which is positive.

Any increase in the back to school clothing and footwear allowance will have to be on foot of a Government decision. We are seeing savings emerge across the Department of Social Protection Vote which is due largely to unemployment falling this year again and faster even than we had anticipated. I have no doubt that there will be overruns in other Departments, however, and public sector pay negotiations will come up also. I will fight the corner to be allowed to hang on to some of those savings, but that is going to be a Government decision.

In terms of the fuel allowance, Age Action has suggested a bulk payment for the fuel allowance while other groups hold a different view. I have an open mind on the matter. It would be very complicated for us to administer bulk payments for some and weekly payments for others. We would have to go one way or the other. There are differing views on the matter. I have no objection in principle to moving towards a bulk payment if that is the consensus.

The sum of €41 million represents overpayment fraud. I have a copy of the advertisement for the campaign in front of me. We clearly stated in it that the €500 million refers to control and anti-fraud activity. We put the word "control" before anti-fraud activity. I am not sure members are familiar with Aristotle's 13 fallacies. One of his fallacies is that one claims somebody said something and then lecture him or her on why he or she was wrong. We have always maintained that the €500 million refers to control and anti-fraud activity. The advertisement is on the billboards. One can clearly see that we put the word "control" ahead of anti-fraud in case anyone thought we were trying to say it was just fraud. The figure of €41 million refers to overpayment fraud, not just overpayments. There is roughly €110 million a year in overpayments of which €41 million is customer fraud. I do not think the sum is minuscule. It is taxpayers' money. I think it is a lot of taxpayers' money, quite frankly. Having been a Minister in Departments with much smaller budgets than this one I know the kind of things we could have done for €41 million, which would have made a big difference in people's lives. The contempt some members of the left in this country have for taxpayers, the work they do and the money they pay into the system bothers me.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I talked about other types of fraud.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As is the case with of any type of fraud, whether it is employer fraud, corporate fraud, tax fraud or whatever, one can only ever recover a certain proportion of the amount of fraud that takes place. The sum of €41 million is only a proportion of that and I would like us to recover a lot more of it. If I was in the Department of Finance, I would adopt the same approach to tax fraud and other fraud.

I did not invent the calculation of €506 million. It is based on a statistical model and it was developed with the CSO. The model is used in other countries and it is used for comparative purposes. My Department stands over the use of such a model. It is one of the more conservative models. Much higher multiples are used in Sweden when conducting its estimates. Sweden has a very advanced welfare state.

I will answer Deputy O'Dea's question and correct him and others. Any list produced of people convicted of welfare fraud will not be people who have committed welfare fraud in my eyes. They will be people who have been convicted of welfare fraud in a court of law in this State. It is already public information. News media outlets regularly report on these cases. We will do much less than what Revenue does. Revenue produces lists of settlements, as well as convictions. We will only produce a list of convictions and not of people who have appealed their convictions. The provision will only apply to new cases for constitutional reasons. The provision will not apply to people who are already in the process. The list will comprise people who have been convicted of fraud in a court of law.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It will cost €200,000 to compile the list. I have first hand experience of this matter where people were routinely humiliated in court.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy has made his point. We need to finish up on this.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is outrageous that the Department will publish a list of people like the one's I have referenced.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The matter can be dealt with separately as appeals, if necessary.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister should be ashamed of himself.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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With the exception of in camerahearings, our courts operate in public. The Deputy should table legislation to close our courts to public scrutiny because all these things are published. It is in the local newspapers as the information is taken from the District Court reports.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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In regard to the point made by Deputy Gino Kenny, one will have an opportunity to debate it when the legislation comes to this committee because it requires legislation.

Time is running but I wish to raise the following point. The Minister talked about control and anti-fraud activity, saving €500 million and the methodology used. The latter is not transparent. I know how the sum of €506 million has been calculated. The Minister has said that €172 million comes from jobseekers' payment. In 2016, his Department conducted 246,741 investigations or reviews. The answers to the following questions are not transparent to the committee. What percentage of those were found to have a liability to make up the sum of €172 million? What percentage of the total jobseekers were involved in the first place? What was the targeting process? We do not have time to go through these matters now. The same questions about the methodology of calculating the €506 million apply to all of the other schemes, whether it is the carer's allowance or otherwise. How did the Department select the investigations or reviews? What percentage of the total were they? What percentage of the reviews had an income?

With the permission of the Minister and his officials, I would like the financial scrutiny team from the Oireachtas, which has worked in preparing some of this, to work with the officials to bring some transparency to this and produce a document for the benefit of members. The Minister builds in the figure into the Estimates on an annual basis. We need some understanding of it but we do not have time today to adequately address this matter in full detail. Are the Minister's officials prepared to work with the committee secretariat's financial scrutiny team on this matter?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Yes. We will get our control people to talk directly to the committee.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The matter is complex and I am conscious that we must finish shortly.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Perhaps we can have the people from our control section, whose daily job is to do this work, meet the committee or meet it privately.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I would like the control section to produce a paper for us first.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Yes.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister quoted Aristotle to support the rationale for launching the campaign. When he talks about people with beards and wearing make-up, it is nonsense.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Does the Deputy think what I said is untrue? It is true. These are published cases.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister mentioned the figure of €506 million. I concur with everything the Chairman said. The figures do not stack up. As the Chairman said, it is not transparent. The Minister said the same formula is used by other countries but I disagree. In 2014, two fraud and error surveys were commenced and the savings generated were much higher than in 2015 when three surveys were conducted. Surveys take place on an annual basis. The Department does not need big fancy campaigns that have a budget of €200,000 to penalise and categorise people as fraudulent. That was the essence of the campaign.

I mention the redundancy payments where €345 million of taxpayers' money was written off. The Department did not roll out a similar campaign in that case.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I must conclude the meeting. I know the Minister would like to reply.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Can I make a brief reply?

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Yes. Please do not provoke Deputy Brady.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I will try not to provoke him.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Peace has broken out here.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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We have a budget. As much as five sixths of our publicity budget is used on telling people about things they are entitled to, and we will keep doing so. Not that long ago there was a campaign on insurance fraud that asked people to report fraudsters. It was broadcast on television, aired on radio and displayed on billboards. The reason for the campaign was because we all pay for insurance fraud through our insurance policies. Something similar applies to social welfare fraud because if it occurs, we all pay for it through social insurance and taxes. I do not remember a single person at the time suggesting that we were demonising everyone who had insurance or made an insurance claim. It is a nonsensical argument.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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That concludes consideration of the Revised Estimate for Vote 37 - Social Protection. I thank the Minister and his officials for attending. In particular, I thank the Minister for agreeing to working with our financial scrutiny team to address the control and fraud issues that we will consider further.