Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

The Minister for Social Welfare has the art of being the first to think of a jazzy headline. While I agree with the name changes for the various pensions in this Bill, the leopard does not change his spots. We must watch to see what these changes mean for the delivery of service.

There are some fine provisions in this Bill so I will not spend all day castigating it. The Minister, however, is in the privileged position of distributing not the Government's money but that of the people who work hard for it. The economy is strong now and the redistribution of wealth is what matters to the elderly, the disabled and so on.

The benchmark of all civilised societies is the manner in which they deal with the elderly and the sick. I will discuss some of the black spots in this Bill and personalise my comments, which is the only way to show how the system has let people down badly. The change in the disregards in this Bill may be a small step but it could have serious consequences. Old age pensioners would hardly need to get up five mornings a week to earn the €100 permitted in the disregard.

Many people will approve of the principle behind these changes. Thankfully today people live longer and are healthier; many 66 year olds whom I know are healthier than were 56 year olds 25 years ago. There is a significant change in overall health and it would be foolish of any Government to consign people aged 65 or 66 years to the scrap heap because these people have a significant contribution to make.

The disregard is small, but I am concerned about how it will be calculated. I assume that employers who take on pensioners must comply with PRSI contributions and so on. Many people will worry about getting back into the system again and what it means for them. In other words, will it be costly for employers to take them on? If the limit is low, at €100, the need to pay PRSI and so on will make a significant difference. No one will want to earn over €100.

Times are changing but in the long time I have been in this House many people have told me they would lose more through earning an outside income while receiving a pension. That concept prevails in rural Ireland. I do not know whether the same is true of Dublin city. I met a man last week who said he would have been better off if he had never seen the pension book because he had to do so much to get it, but he says the book means everything to him. I will be interested to see how the €100 disregard will bed down while that concept persists.

The Minister was rather mean-minded in changing the means disregard from €7.60 to €20. That disregard existed for years. I do not know on what the Minister based the increase, but at €20 it is very small. Pensioners face a wider problem. If I were sitting in the Minister's seat I would be happy with what I was doing because I could argue that pensioners never received a larger pension. The Minister, however, must recall that they have never paid higher prices for ESB, and the ancillary services they receive, their heating fuel, petrol and diesel for their cars. Those items have never been so expensive.

The Government intends that the non-contributory pension, or the State pension as it is now known, will be €200 next year but no one will go mad on that sum. I know people who do not live in high society but would pay €200 to go out for an evening meal. Against that background, we should not lose sight of ourselves in saying how good all this is.

This sum will not be enough for people who may unfortunately have to end their lives in nursing homes, which can cost between €600 and €800 per week. Even with the payment from the Department to top up the pension there will be a significant gap as the years pass. We should not run away with the idea that the increase in the old age pension is a panacea. It must be seen in context.

I am surprised that when the Minister delved into pensions he did not proceed to ensure that some of the anomalies in the system were corrected. It was not that he was not told about them. While we all hope the Minister will not be on that side of the House for long, he is the most likely Member on the Government side to implement a change. I am not sure of the numbers involved nationally but I know of 15 or 20 pensioners in east Galway so I assume the problem is quite widespread. In 1979 a man in north Galway, since deceased, was employed by the Office of Public Works at Headford. In that year employees were asked by the OPW to sign up to a new pension scheme. He and many others like him did not understand the significance even though they were given information about the scheme. The widows of those who signed up are now in receipt of what is admittedly a very small pension but a pension nevertheless. I ask the Minister to imagine the frustration within the one parish where five or six people are in receipt of those pensions but three or four other widows of OPW workers, who are entitled by right to this payment, but whose husbands did not sign up in 1979, are not. Numerically speaking, there are not many of these cases.

I wrote to the Minister a few months ago on this subject and my letter was passed to the Minister for Finance who is responsible for Civil Service pensions. In the case of the widow for whom I was making a representation, it was decided that unless she could make a very strong case, there was nothing either Minister could do. The Pensions Board or whoever is responsible for these matters should be asked to investigate. It will not make any difference in ten years' time because by the law of averages there will be nobody left to claim it. I ask the Minister to examine this. I will send a copy of my letter to the Minister's office for his consideration.

I cannot understand the reason the Minister did not take action on a matter of great importance. A man from north Galway emigrated to Birmingham many years ago. He worked in this country for five or six years but did not pay contributions because there were none to pay at that time. He spent his working life in England and returned home to his native parish two years ago. He is in receipt of a British contributory pension. He applied for and received the free telephone rental allowance as he is over 66 years of age. However, he did not receive the living alone allowance nor the fuel allowance. It is difficult to understand the reason a returned emigrant could be entitled to the free television licence and the free telephone allowance but for some strange reason the free fuel and the living alone allowance are denied to him. Why is he not entitled to these allowances, given that he sent remittances worth far more than the pension home to his parents and siblings over the years? He returned to Ireland every year for 50 years. It is unfair to an Irish citizen who had no alternative but to emigrate because he had no job in this country, and when he returned home to live, he is regarded as being in a lesser position than his siblings who stayed here. I ask the Minister to consider the effect on Irish emigrants abroad which I assume was never intended. I raised the matter a few times in the past months but it is not provided for in the Bill.

I wish to highlight another problem which I regard as a national issue. An 82-year old man in my constituency had a review of his old age pension which he and his wife have been receiving for 17 years. He emigrated and worked hard with McAlpine's as one of their supervisors in London. He applied for the old age non-contributory pension for himself and his wife when he returned home. He informed the Department of Social and Family Affairs that he was in receipt of a British pension but he did not inform the Department that he was in receipt of a pension from McAlpine's. He should have informed the Department of this fact at the outset.

However, in a recent review of his entitlements he informed the Department of his pension. I compliment the departmental staff for their humane approach. This case was the subject of an appeal before an appeals officer. I accompanied the gentleman to the hearing and he was treated with consideration by the staff. His wife is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and is being cared for in a nursing home in Galway city. It was deemed he had withheld information and arrears had accumulated amounting to €25,000 each for himself and his wife. This man is 82 years and in bad health and his wife is dying. His question at the appeal hearing was whether his house would be taken from him. This man cannot afford to repay any more than €20 a week and €50,000 is due.

I ask the Minister to look at this case as sympathetically as possible. I reiterate that I would never support anyone trying to defraud the system but this is not the case in this instance.

My colleague, Deputy Crawford, referred to pensions for the self-employed and the associated problem. I was in the Dáil when the then Minister, Deputy Woods, introduced the scheme in 1988. It was a good scheme, under which the period set for the self-employed was ten years, provided they were under 56 on that day. A number of beneficial changes have occurred since under different Governments, making entitlement to benefit somewhat easier. However, a small cohort of people remains who have less than the yearly average of five contributions. They are deemed to be going nowhere and their RSI payments were refunded to them. As Deputy Crawford stated, it was considered a good move at the time to give people who had five or more contributions a half pension but they would not be entitled to a pro rata pension. People with nine contributions believed they should get more than half a pension but at the time it was considered that half a loaf was better than no bread. Something should be done for those people who have fewer than five contributions. They would have included themselves in the scheme had they been born in time. The problem lies with their age. No more than with the other categories, time will solve all of this. The case has been made and the Minister knows what I want.

It is usual for farmers to transfer farms to their sons or daughters when they apply for the old age pension. However, a technical matter that affects them is that if they transfer money held in bank accounts it is not seen in the same light as the transfer of farm assets. The transfer of money is considered to be a device to get the pension. I urge the Minister to examine this matter as it has serious connotations.

See this speech in context