Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

Ba mhaith liom cúpla focal a rá mar gheall ar an gcás sin. B'fhéidir go ndéanfainn scrúdú faoi leith air, más mian leis an Teachta an litir sin a thabhairt dom. Is éard atá i gceist ná liúntas faoi leith tar éis é a bheith 70 bliain d'aois nó níos sine. Déanfaidh mé scrúdú faoi leith ar sin.

More than 22 Deputies contributed to this debate and I thank every one of them for doing so. I particularly thank the main spokespersons of the Opposition parties who sat through the entire debate, or as much of it as they possibly could. Public representatives have a special knowledge of welfare because of the number of people they meet in their daily work.

I thank Deputy Stanton for his constructive approach to the Bill. He suggested that I set targets to eliminate poverty instead of relying on certain percentages. I would like to discuss this proposal further. He asked me to develop the family income supplement, which I certainly will do.

He took me to task for not getting on with the second tier but the National Economic and Social Council is considering ways to pull that together. Meanwhile, I have increased the family income supplement by €25 million which is the start of that process. He asked me to examine secondary benefits for widows and so on, and I will continue to keep that under review. He also suggested a voucher type of system as a travel pass for rural areas. That is complicated but we can continue to review it.

I was particularly taken with his point about local authorities' differential rent. I agree with him that when we make increases in the budget, local authorities claw them back by changing the differential rent. I will discuss this issue with the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to see whether we can make progress on it. I am not sure of the scale of the problem but I receive many complaints about it. We need to establish whether this can be standardised throughout the country. That, however, is complicated because local authorities have their own statutory authority with which it is sometimes difficult to interfere.

Deputy Stanton asked me to enforce further the maintenance from fathers. I am conscious of that issue. He also spoke about the quality of child care centres and so on. I acknowledge those points and will work on them.

I thank Deputy Penrose for chairing the Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs. He put it to me, without his tongue in his cheek, that I swiped many of his ideas. I do not often acknowledge theft on the floor of the House but the Deputy brought to my attention many anomalies, especially in the lone parent's benefit, to which I have tried to respond. I was impressed by his proposals on individualisation and the need to treat every social welfare recipient as an individual and would like to move on that premise. In effect it involves individualising qualified adult allowances and paying them directly.

We have had several meetings in the Department on this issue. I will see if further progress can be made on the matter. Many Members asked why the Government did not increase the child dependant allowance.

I took careful note of the warning on the poverty trap that could be created by people losing benefits because they return to work. I am conscious that as welfare payments are increased and the gap between the benefits of welfare and work is reduced, a clutch and accelerator type approach is required. This should allow people to move from welfare to work without suffering a drop in income. I have inserted new thresholds and new tapering reliefs and reduced the slope in this Bill. For example, recipients of rent allowance, when they return to work, are allowed to hold on to it for a longer period than before. It is the same with disability benefits. People must be eased off allowances as they go back to work. The family income supplement will also help in this regard.

Deputy Penrose always asks me about abolishing the carer's grant means test. I was briefed that it would come to approximately €145 million.

See this speech in context