Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)

The details of the financial changes made across a range of social welfare payments have been well covered by this debate. I note the recognition from all sides that the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, has taken heed of the dissatisfaction which clearly existed among the electorate and within his party and has attempted to return Fianna Fáil, whatever about its Government partner, to a more socially responsive and caring image. At the very least, this has meant there has been no attempt to repeat some of the more blatant cutbacks witnessed in previous budgets.

A number of Deputies referred to the difficulties of navigating through the regulations governing social welfare, and I concur with Deputy Haughey who admitted that it is only when confronted with a particular case that one realises just how complex they can be and how confusing it must be for those whose entitlements depend upon understanding and satisfying various provisions.

I have dealt with a number of constituents who have lost out on their entitlements through a failure to understand or because the information was not readily at hand. Last year, I dealt with an elderly woman who had worked all her life abroad and had returned to this country. She was living on a totally inadequate income because she had not accessed the benefits to which she was entitled. In fairness to Department employees, they were extremely helpful and resolved the situation within a matter of hours. However, that situation and many others could be avoided if the system were simplified.

The Minister referred to the proportion of Government spending which is devoted to social welfare spending and to the number of people who benefit from the various schemes. However, as my colleague, Deputy Crowe, pointed out, this has not led to any reduction in the gap between rich and poor, which continues to grow. There is a message in this for us to explore adequately the reasons for it.

One of the reasons, apart from the level of direct payments, has been the failure to assist people who are dependent on social welfare to escape from poverty. We witnessed a series of cutbacks in the back to work, community and education support schemes, as well as changes that affected access to child care for social welfare dependants participating in such schemes. Those cuts continue to have an effect on people who were forced to give up schemes that held out some promise of their being able to enter full-time work or education.

I recognise that the Minister has attempted to undo some of the damage done by introducing changes to the back to education scheme and I urge him to reduce further the required qualifying period. The assumption must be removed that people attempting to enter education are motivated by a desire to avoid work. Surely their acquiring new educational and work skills will be cost effective in the long run in providing them with the requirements to attain work and cease being dependent on social welfare.

The same thinking should also be applied to support payments for those re-entering employment. The Minister has introduced changes to the one-parent family support and I urge him to extend it. Again, as with the educational grants, this should be examined not as a means whereby people might get something to which they are not entitled, but as a support mechanism to assist them in their transition to full-time work.

Much of the difficulty with such supports is that they often apply to people in part-time or low-paying jobs and thus, whatever social welfare benefits are available, they become an essential part of providing people with an adequate income. That reflects not on the State but on employers who pay inadequate wages. Nonetheless, the State can play its part by increasing the minimum wage to the level proposed by the trade union movement. Sinn Féin concurs with that.

There is a range of other issues which the social welfare system can help to address, many of which were highlighted in the recent report of the Tallaght west childhood development initiative which showed that high levels of social welfare dependence and all the income factors that involves are coupled with poor inadequate housing and educational deficiencies leading to anti-social behaviour and crime.

Right-wing commentators who rail against creating a dependency culture have a point in that no one should have to spend his or her entire life existing on what is barely a subsistence, which is what social welfare is. The way in which to break that dependency is not for the State to drastically cut such provisions, which I accept is far from the Minister's objective, but for the State to target schemes in a way that will allow people to use State benefits as a stepping stone to work, education and community improvement, which will pay dividends in the long term.

This is not the sole province of the social welfare system. It will require input from those responsible for housing, policing, education, job creation and so on. It will also require a real commitment on the part of the State, not merely to maintain people on a low level of subsistence, but to pro-actively set about creating a society in which, apart from those who are obviously unable to support themselves without State support, most people are given the opportunity to fulfil themselves through work.

See this speech in context