Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak about the Citizens Information Bill 2006. Essentially, the purpose of the legislation is to provide for the establishment of a personal advocacy service, especially for people with disabilities. I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Brennan, on his good and inspired decision some time ago to appoint Mr. Chris Glennon as the chairman of Comhairle. It is good to offer such positions to people who have been active in the fields of journalism, current affairs and developments over many years. Such people can have a great deal of experience of what is good, what works and what does not work. It is suitable to choose people like that to fill jobs of this nature. I am reminded that Mr. Michael Mills, who was the first Ombudsman, was a former political journalist. He brought great dignity and courage to that office. That position is now held by Ms Emily O'Reilly, who is also a former journalist. It seems a trend is developing in the approach of Governments to such positions over the years. The people who have worked in such roles have distinguished themselves. They may have been nice or severe to the Governments of the day on various occasions. Journalists who have experienced the rough and tumble of various jobs tend to be somewhat fearless when they are chairing boards, as Mr. Glennon is doing in the case of Comhairle. They are aware of the old dictum "publish and be damned". I am sure Mr. Glennon will act in a fearless manner on behalf of the people whose rights he is trying to improve.

The services of Comhairle are provided at 235 centres throughout the country. This legislation provides for the establishment of the position of director of personal advocacy services. People can use a number of existing information channels to get information from Comhairle. This Bill will bring the various channels together into a single service. In 2005, the Oasis website reached almost 2.5 million people, which is a large number. While 2.5 million different contacts were made, some people may have contacted the site on multiple occasions. Nevertheless, it is an important site. I use it intermittently since I became aware of it recently. The citizens information service, which dealt with 734,000 queries in 2005, provides face-to-face services at 235 locations, in permanent offices as well as in outreach offices where it may be available one morning a week, for example. It is great that such an outreach facility is available. The citizens information telephone service dealt with 88,000 queries last year. I do not know how many times I have heard the advertisement for that service, but I cannot remember the relevant telephone number. I know that a great effort is made in the advertisement to help people to remember the number. The services in question are competing with other channels which are providing information. The entire process will be easier and more user-friendly for the general public when all three services are brought together under the single and easily identifiable title of the citizens information service.

When I have encountered the service provided by the citizens information service at local level, I have been impressed by how up-to-date is the information given by its staff.

They travel with their laptops and have software, which will be the envy of every Deputy. People meet with the representative who can key in the particulars and give good quality direction immediately. This is to be welcomed. I recently came across a firm offering a similar facility to Deputies for use in clinics. While there is space for such a service, I do not know how many Deputies have taken up the offer. The nature of our work is such that it is often difficult to provide information on the spot.

While I am a fan of citizens information services, I know that historically other Deputies were not. My first contact with citizens information services came when I was selected as a Dáil candidate in 1997. I had not been involved in local government and did not have much experience of making representations on behalf of people. I called into my local office in Portlaoise where the staff provided me with the information and assistance I required. I was trying to increase my well of knowledge and found that office to be an outstanding facility.

However, I recall reading speeches at the time from Deputies who were giving out about citizens information centres. They felt it would put an end to the function of a local representative and his clinics and that the centres were subverting the work Deputies were doing. I certainly hope this attitude is dead and buried. There are probably a few Deputies who would like people to be dependent on them and not be in a position to get the information on their own. I believe that people should have access to all the information to which they are entitled. They should not have to depend on meeting a Deputy in a clinic.

After I was elected to this House, I had a good working relationship with the citizens information centres in Portlaoise and throughout County Laois. Occasionally, the staff would come across anomalies which they would informally bring to my attention so that we could raise it with the policy unit in the Department of Social and Family Affairs. There is a good exchange of information between the centres and elected representatives.

I had a number of clinics around the county that I would hold on Fridays or Saturdays. After a couple of years, I noticed that the citizens information service was going to almost all my venues on other days. They had obviously seen where my clinics were held and I felt that imitation was the best form of flattery. They felt that I had sussed out the outlying towns and villages where people needed assistance. It was good that the public should have such a choice.

However, I do not know how well the service is briefed on housing issues. I am not referring to housing for people with disabilities or disabled persons grants. Sometimes one has to advocate on behalf of constituents with the relevant local authority. While the brief of the service has been to provide information, I do not think it has been able to advocate with housing departments on their clients' behalf. Sometimes constituents will be referred to me by the citizens information centres. I am sure they give the names of other Deputies as well; there is no question of them operating on a partial basis for one Deputy only. It impresses me that they knew the limits of their powers but could refer their clients to someone who could help further.

Similar circumstances arise with social welfare queries. I do not know if the service has the authority to contact the Department of Social and Family Affairs on behalf of a client. It is normally up to the client to contact the Department directly. As elected representatives, we are fortunate that we can do this on behalf of constituents. If this facility is not open to the service, perhaps it could be further examined, subject to it being used judiciously. A dedicated information line could be set up for citizens information services so that they can determine to what office certain files have been dispatched and who is the deciding officer.

Deputies today received an extensive booklet from the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, on the various social welfare schemes. It contains a wealth of information and it is only when one sees the extent of the schemes that one realises the need for citizens information services. I do not think any Deputy could be fully conversant with all the details of social welfare schemes. Booklets could also be issued for farming and other sectors of society. There is much information to be assembled, and the service does a good job in helping collate it. It has excellent software that helps staff in the course of their work.

A number of Deputies have referred to the Title of the legislation, namely, the Citizens Information Bill 2006. A Deputy queried the cumbersome Irish language version of it. While I am not an expert on the language, I accept the point that has been made. Another Deputy asked that the advocacy nature of the service be reflected in the Title. That may or may not be a valid point. My main issue with the Title is that members of the international community living among us who are not Irish citizens may feel that this is not for them. I feel it is a genuine mistake and an amendment must be made to the Long and Short Titles of the Bill. This legislation gives the impression that this information is only available to citizens.

Ireland has long passed the time when only Irish citizens lived here. People from the EU or elsewhere who would rely on these services could be forgiven for thinking that it was not for them. There is only one appropriate response open to the Minister and that is to take this point on board. This problem struck me when I first studied the Bill and while other Deputies had views on the Title, I felt this was the most basic problem with it. I hope it can be examined in due course.

Section 2 provides a good definition of the social services that can be provided by a statutory body or voluntary organisation. I wish to make a general point that is not specific to this Bill. I consider almost every Bill that comes before the House to be badly drafted. Definitions should be contained in the first few sections. This Bill has definitions in sections 5, 7, 7A and elsewhere. The dispersal of these definitions makes legislation cumbersome. Perhaps it is because of old habits in the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel where they tend to define a particular aspect of the legislation only when they come to it. All the definitions should be outlined at the beginning. I do not think the Minister will change it in this Bill because it would require significant redrafting. However, I suggest that it be done in future. The Acts are referred to in this legislation, whose purpose is to amend the Comhairle Act 2000 and replace the Comhairle (Amendment) Bill 2004. It also refers to the Disability Act 2005 and the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004. At least four Acts or Bills are referred to in this legislation. We should opt for immediate consolidating legislation to bring it all together.

We are creating administrative work for the citizens' information centres and all those involved if they need four Bills or Acts at their fingertips to discover what a given section lays down. Legislation should be simple, and if it is a matter of providing information, it should all be in consolidated legislation rather than in four or five different Acts. Providing information is not easy when one has all that, and perhaps the Minister might address it. In the Department of Social and Family Affairs, there is an excellent practice of regularly producing consolidating legislation. Although this is a short Bill, there is a need for consolidation somewhere down the road. That should not be too complicated, since no issues of principle or policy are involved; it is merely a matter of tidying it up and facilitating people to use the legislation.

The Social Welfare Appeals Office has always intrigued me. I am pleased to say as a Deputy that I have referred several cases to it and that my attendances at oral hearings have been successful. I do not have the figures to hand, but the success rate in the appeals office is 40% or 50%. The real question relates to how so many wrong decisions were made by deciding officers in the first place. I would have hoped that they might have got many more of those decisions right initially. What does that say about the original decisions and the deciding officers? What have they done to those members of the public who came for their disability allowance, were turned down after three months' delay, dealt with the appeals office for months on end, perhaps going in and out to the community welfare officer, only to find that they had been entitled to a payment from day one? There should be some internal mechanism regarding how decisions are being overturned. We assume that the final decision is correct; we certainly hope so.

I know the answer to some of that. Officers are too lazy to write for information such as a copy of a bank statement and it is easier to get the file off their desks and refuse the allowance on the basis of insufficient information provided. However, the appeals officer or someone else at that level has to do the work to get to the bottom of the case. There is too much trying to get rid of a case and closing it off, even if it means refusal.

For that reason, one of the few reports that I read every year is the case studies of the appeals office. I have gone back through some cases that mirrored those initially refused by deciding officers. Given what the appeals office has said regarding the case studies that it prints in its annual report, I have now taken cases back to the appeals office. I may achieve satisfaction on behalf of the clients. There must be a lack of quality control if so many decisions are being overturned. I know that it is not specific to this legislation, but it is very relevant to the general topic being discussed. I also know that the Minister likes changing the names of schemes, but people still refer to the children's allowance. We can change them all we like, but old habits die hard. People like familiarity, since it is part of human nature.

I agree with the idea voiced a few moments ago that family income supplement payments are routinely under-claimed. There is a substantial need. The Department should be helped through its own devices, and those with an income below a certain level should be known from the tax office. Some of them do not even reach the threshold for the 20% tax rate. It would not hurt to send them all a leaflet stating that they should check their entitlements. One would know by definition if they were on low incomes. Perhaps not all work long enough hours to qualify for family income supplement, FIS, but many will. When we pass legislation, there is an onus on the Government to help citizens make claims. Mechanisms might involve links with the Revenue Commissioners if the social welfare staff lacks details of all those on relatively low incomes; it is possible to get them.

In this evening's debate and previously, the rights of children in a referendum were mentioned. It goes without saying that we support that. One may agree or disagree with the need for a referendum, but all fair-minded people will be happy that the principle of children's rights will be enshrined in our Constitution in due course once there has been a proper, full and public debate. I heard Deputies from the Labour Party say last night that there was no need for such a debate, since the issue was closed. However, the debate has hardly started, and we need an informed discussion.

The term "dependent relative" is demeaning and belittling and it tends to be directed towards women. I hate this phrase. I would like to see that changed under the social welfare heading if the Minister has not already changed it in his recent alterations to titles. When men receive the old-age pension, their wives are normally described as receiving the dependent relatives' allowance, which is not the full amount. They are demeaned in two ways.

The concept of dependency must be re-examined. People come to me about it, and not only the title is wrong, since in this day and age, they believe that spouses are entitled to an equal old-age pension payment. I know that there have been tremendous improvements in raising dependent relatives' payments closer to the full amount for a single person, and I urge that in the next budget the Minister identify the funding necessary to equalise it. The people in question are the mothers who raised us all. They see younger women enjoying chances outside the home that they did not have, and they now feel entitled to some of the benefits and recognition. I ask that the Minister take that into account as part of the current budget and social welfare legislation. It would very much be appreciated by all dependent relatives, the majority of whom happen to be women.

See this speech in context