Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 5, between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following:

1.—The Minister shall within 6 months from after the passing of this Act prepare and lay before both Houses of the Oireachtas a report on the implications of providing that accrued savings from old age pensions should not be regarded as means for the purposes of payment of the old age non-contributory pension.

I raised this matter previously with the Minister. Some of the ways we have of effecting social transfers are not effective in terms of reducing poverty. A large proportion of our social protection payments are means tested. The average for the 15 states in the EU before enlargement was that approximately 10% of social protection payments were means tested. In Ireland, the figure is 28%. Means testing is supposed to be an effective way of targeting resources to those most in need. In reality, however, complex means testing leads to a low take-up of services by those most in need. We referred earlier to those who accrue money from pensions that have already been means tested. When these people pass on to the next world, someone is waiting to initiate a clawback. This matter has been raised on numerous occasions and I await the Minister's reply in respect of it.

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