Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

Yes. As a lawyer, I can understand the rules in this Bill but no one else can. For example, there is a reference to rule 1 in paragraph (A) of Part 2 of the Third Schedule of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 1993, as amended by section 33 of the Social Welfare Act and so on. Will the Minister ever set a bonfire and burn these Acts and provide one decent Act instead? I am trained and paid to understand this type of work but others are not.

An example of the problem with the rules concerns a young lone parent whom I know and who had an opportunity to take up a casual postal job, meaning ten weeks' work over the year divided into a number of periods. The woman's earnings over the ten weeks might have amounted to €3,800 or €4,000, but the system is set up for a weekly disregard of €146. The Department will not spread the income over the year, which would have allowed the woman to earn up to €7,500 before she lost out. The €146 weekly disregard could have been multiplied by 52 weeks to give that figure and the woman could have taken up the employment for ten weeks, saving enough money to bring her son, who is now 12, on a little holiday or give him a treat.

The Minister should change this rule, get rid of the nonsense and get people back into work. The rules in the legislation prevented this woman taking on the work because if she worked for four weeks and was reduced to half her allowance, by the time she finished the employment and was reinstated on her full allowance, she might be preparing for another few weeks' work during the summer and the cycle would start again. This is bureaucratic nonsense. A five year old child would not devise such a system by scribbling on a page without knowing anything.

Will a small farmer who lives at home with his mother — who is confined to a chair — does his own accounting, looks after his mother in the morning, milks the cows and gives his mother breakfast receive the €1,000 respite care grant? I am afraid he will not because of the way in which the Minister has restricted the grant. Time will tell, but the Minister can be sure there will be an explosion on this side of the House if such a man does not receive it, particularly given that he is virtually housebound, leaving the house only when his 80 year old mother is in her chair as she depends on her walking frame to get around.

I have received complaints from people in Cork who write to Deputy Stanton and me regularly about the Minister's predecessor's actions in respect of the non-contributory old age pension. For example, a person who receives a non-contributory old age pension and lives frugally to save the money will have his or her case examined by the Minister's officials after he or she dies. The officials will find the money in the bank but it has come from his or her non-contributory old age pension. In other words, it is already a means-tested payment made by the Department of Social and Family Affairs, but the officials will test and assess the money with a view to establishing that the person should have received a lower rate of pension or that there should be a payback. The Minister should examine this provision because it is wrong in law.

Another Cork correspondent to DeputyStanton and me raised an argument about the manner in which free ESB units were shifted around by the Minister's predecessor, who juggled them between summer and winter. As the Minister said, his predecessor did so at the time because there had been a 1% increase in VAT. Nonetheless, the fuel allowance's real value has never increased. It does not help people in that regard. The Minister will have to examine these issues in the context of this Bill.

It is time the Government acknowledged that its strategy for increasing pension cover is in complete tatters. Virtually half the workforce has no pension cover to allow them to maintain their living standards into old age. Only one third of private sector workers are involved in a pension scheme. Ireland is almost unique in the developed world in having neither a State-backed income-related pension scheme nor an obligation on employers to offer pension cover. The basic social welfare pension is just that — basic — and while it will allow people to subsist, there is no margin to allow people to live with such modest comforts as running a car, taking a holiday, visiting relatives abroad or having repairs done to their homes without major worry. Having an additional pension for their job allows people to continue to live in retirement with dignity rather than being reduced to the breadline. However, the Government's strategy of relying on personal retirement savings accounts to increase pension coverage has been a dismal failure. Since their introduction, the proportion of the workforce with pension cover has barely inched up from 51.2% to 52.4%, an imperceptible increase. It is clear from the pensions board figures that in a great many cases, the PRSA pension plan offered to workers remains an empty shell; there have been no employers' contributions and no take-up by workers.

It should have been clear from the outset that placing a personal responsibility on low income workers, those least likely to be in a pension scheme, to navigate the shoals of the pensions industry was never going to be a runner. Experience in the UK with stakeholders' pensions and in the US with individual retirement accounts has already shown that this type of financial instrument proves attractive only to a minority and those are predominantly high earners.

I will return to these issues on Committee Stage. I could have done with another hour to address all the issues which need to be raised. The Minister need not look for consultants since Deputies are readily available to give advice and will not cost him a penny.

See this speech in context