John Dennehy (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I am happy with the current state of much of our social welfare initiatives and with many aspects of this Bill. The Minister, Deputy Brennan, has clearly proven the commentators wrong, who criticised him even before he took up the portfolio. I am happy that he has done such a good job. I am also pleased that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen has agreed to the provision of funding, to the massive sums that we are putting through in this Bill and elsewhere. I welcome the fact that through this Bill, the vast majority of the funding can be targeted at programmes other than unemployment benefit, which was not the case in the past. We are continuing to target the elderly, child care, carers, pensions, widows, widowers and a host of other very deserving causes and situations.

None of us should ever be totally satisfied with what is happening and become complacent. In that context, I am unhappy with the fairly rigid way that legislation is framed at times, giving rise to a situation whereby if people do not obtain what, in my opinion, is rightfully theirs it is described as an anomaly. That is a very casual way of describing a situation that can be lifestyle changing for many people. There are unfortunate people who get caught up in a situation whereby the positive effects that were intended in legislation cannot be applied to them. It is often due to the way legislation is drafted. I am aware of at least three such situations, one concerning widow's benefit for those who go abroad, another concerning people who return to education and have their benefits taken away and the third concerning a person who worked for 25 years and then worked as a self-employed person who can get no benefits. However, I do not have time to go into detail on these tonight.

I will deal with the Bill before us. It is one of the keys to unlocking the record €1.12 billion package of social welfare improvements announced in the budget last December, an investment to better the lives of the country's older and less well off people of which the Government should be proud. The Social Welfare Law Reform and Pensions Bill aims to ensure that everybody, not just a select few, can share in this country's continued prosperity. Bringing the level of social welfare expenditure to more than €13.5 billion in 2006 is a remarkable achievement by anybody's standards. It underlines the Government's commitment to tackling marginalisation in certain communities. Such an expansive programme is also an immense tribute to the people who are working so hard to keep propelling our economy forward. It is something I am sure politicians from all sides of the House applaud and welcome. On a personal note, I was very pleased to hear the contribution of Deputy Michael D. Higgins both tonight and during the earlier debate and how fairly he judged the Minister and the programmes being put in place.

Considering that we have record levels of employment, the investment of over €13 billion can be spent on particularly deserving areas and targeted at those most in need of State help. There are people who are not directly benefitting from the spawn of the Celtic tiger and the measured proposals in this Bill will make big improvements in their everyday lives by underpinning the safety net which they require. We often describe social welfare as a safety net, or in other ways, but we are all well aware of what I mean. The substantial funding commitment contained in this social welfare package is crucial in our attempts to make our society fairer. Euro alone will not be enough to solve all our problems and money on the table must be supported by energy in the community. One can certainly do much more if one can match ambition and constructive social plans with sound financial foundations. As the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure. This is why a much more proactive approach is being made across all Departments to tackle the issues that contribute to social exclusion and anti-social behaviour. This is an area in which there needs to be further development of that approach.

There should be increased co-operation between the Departments of Education and Science, Health and Children and Arts, Sport and Tourism when it comes to tackling community problems that have knock-on effects. If sport, health and community awareness programmes can be developed in and funded for our schools, particularly those in disadvantaged or RAPID designated areas, such as my own, such strategies cannot but have long-term benefits for the health and outlook of communities and individuals. This will ultimately be reflected in lessening the pressure on our health and criminal justice system and result in a better and fairer country in which we all live.

Everybody in Ireland today, young and old, has a contribution to make to the enrichment of our society. As Deputy Michael D. Higgins said, this should not be dependent on wealth, class or creed. I join previous speakers, especially my colleagues, and members of all parties in welcoming the Bill. The pensions issue was described for the past 20 or more years as a time-bomb waiting to explode. Nobody did too much about it until this Government got a grip on it.

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