David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

I thank the officials from the Department of Social and Family Affairs for the briefing we received on the Bill today. I find all the officials in the Department extraordinarily courteous and helpful. Many colleagues have said the same and it is something other Departments could emulate. I do not say this to get on the good side of the officials.

I would like to raise a concern I raised when making my speech on last year's Bill. I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that in 2000 the Bill for that year was published on 10 February and debated on 24 February. Therefore, Opposition Deputies were given 14 days to study the Bill and come up with a reasoned response. In 2001, the Opposition was given 20 days to do the same. In 2002, it was given 13 days; in 2003, 12; and in 2004, 13. In 2005, the number of days provided dropped to seven. Last year it dropped to one, the same as this year. There is much in the Bill which is complex and important. Does the Minister think it is fair that Members on this side of the House have only one day to examine, take advice on and respond to the legislation which calls for constructive debate? Last year he said in his closing speech:

I apologise to those Deputies who feel that we are dealing with this Bill too quickly. That was not my intention, but it was just the way it happened on the day. I particularly regret inconveniencing Deputies Stanton and Penrose who had to respond at one day's notice to the legislation. The process has slowed down since then, but I appreciate that it was a bit unfair to them. It was not intentional, but the Bill appeared on the Order Paper rapidly.

Why did the same happen this year? This is not good enough.

I asked the Ceann Comhairle last week, while the Minister was present, what the convention was and he said the time allowed was normally two weeks. It is an insult to the Opposition and the House that the same has happened again this year. I can understand it happening once and believe it was unintentional, but now that it has happened a second time, I must put it to the House that it was intentional and meant to discommode the Opposition. I cannot understand why the Bill could not have been brought forward two weeks ago, as the Minister had the whole year to put it together. In other years this happened. I will not continue to moan about it, but I want my annoyance noted. That it happened a second time is indefensible and the Minister cannot make a valid defence. It is unfortunate that it has happened again.

The briefing on the Bill was scheduled for yesterday. However, as we all know, many Deputies from rural areas are not in Dublin on a Monday and I am glad it was possible to reschedule the briefing for today. If we were even given one week instead of the conventional two to prepare for the debate, it would be helpful.

Much of the Bill implements provisions and changes made in the budget, mostly increases in payment rates which are always welcome. I welcome, in particular, improvements in payments rates of child benefit, maternity and adoptive benefit, and respite care grants, as well as improvements to qualification criteria applying to transfers between payments, illness benefit, carer's benefit, jobseeker's benefit, injury benefit, invalidity pension and bereavement grants.

While increases in child benefit, and child dependant allowance last year, are welcome, I am disappointed that there has still been no progress in other areas of child income support. The Minister stated in his speech last year:

In the area of child income support, the Government's policy is to concentrate resources on enhancing the child benefit scheme. Child benefit now accounts for some 67% of child income support, while in 1994 it constituted less than 30%. There are sound reasons for this policy. Child benefit is both neutral vis-À-vis the employment status of the child's parents and it does not contribute to poverty traps. As a near universal payment, child benefit is not taxable, is not assessed as means for other secondary benefits and is payable to the primary carer, usually the mother. When account is taken of these aspects of payment, child benefit is a most effective child income support mechanism.

It is clear from statistics and reports that increases in child benefit alone do not improve the circumstances of young children in low income households and have failed to confront the unacceptable blemish of child poverty in the Ireland of the 21st century, an Ireland of "exceptional wealth", to use the Minister's words last year. I agree with him when he says child poverty is unacceptable and that we must strive to banish it for good. However, current policies are not working. If they were, we would not have seen an increase in the rate of consistent poverty for children under 18 years, up a percentage point since 2004 to 10.7% in 2005, as published in the most recent EU SILC 2005 figures published last year by the CSO. A recent UNICEF report shows that under the "material well-being" indicator, Ireland ranks 19th out of 21 countries surveyed, ninth on average when all six indicators are taken into account.

I see in today's newspaper that the Minister is going to Brussels on Thursday and remind him that the risk of poverty in Ireland is a matter of great concern to the Commission. We are not out of the woods yet in that regard. We all come across frustrating cases in our clinics each week. People are trapped and can see no way out. If there was more flexibility and imagination, more help could be provided. A 62-year-old man in receipt of disability allowance rang me today. He is living in a house in which the roof is falling in and water is coming through the walls, but he can do nothing about it. He is trapped. He owns the house, but there is no support for him to help him improve his circumstances. Such cases are heartbreaking and we find it impossible to get help for such persons.

If Government policies were working, we would not have had to see the establishment of an End Child Poverty coalition with members from OPEN, the Combat Poverty Agency, Barnardos, etc. These groups had to get together in a coalition to make their case. The Government has failed to meet its child poverty target set in the national anti-poverty strategy. It promised that relative income poverty among children would be eliminated and that consistent poverty levels among children would be reduced to under 2% by 2007, but this has not happened.

Despite the announcement by the Minister in 2004 of the introduction of a targeted second tier payment and recommendations at national and international level and an ongoing study by the NESC, this payment has still not been introduced. I acknowledge that child dependent allowance was increased to €22 per week in the budget and that there were increases in the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance and FIS, but the take-up of FIS is still low, estimated at about40%, while many families miss out on the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance due to the September deadline, a matter I raised previously. Bureaucracy rules, however, and there is no movement in the matter.

Greater efforts must be made to target the State's resources towards low income families with children. If we can help children at that stage, their education and life chances will benefit significantly. However, if they are stuck in poverty, their life chances suffer, while the opportunity for them to reach their potential in education, training, employment and life is diminished. We must focus more attention on children experiencing poverty. Year after year Ministers come and tell us there has been an improvement. We have never had so much money and wealth. Why, therefore, do we still have children experiencing consistent poverty, as measured by the Minister's measure? We are talking about families who do not have the price of a pair of shoes, a change of clothes or track suits. Their children cannot go to birthday parties because they cannot afford to bring a present for their friends. Some children go to school hungry. We are not dealing with these problems.

In September last year the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child called on the Government to strengthen its support to families to ensure children were protected against the negative impact of economic hardship on their development. Therefore, it is not just the Opposition which has pointed this out. The committee also called for the introduction of a supplement to the existing universal child benefit payment as an additional and targeted allowance to assist families which experience the highest levels of poverty. I appreciate that there may be barriers to the introduction of a second-tier payment, but three years is a lengthy period to determine those and reach a solution. Perhaps the Minister might tell us when the NESC review will be completed.

Another important element of the child poverty debate is the campaign to restore universal child benefit launched by the Free Legal Advice Centres. The current weekly payments are €19.10 for an adult and €9.60 for a child.

In addition to there having been no increases in the rates of direct provision in recent budgets, some 2,000 child asylum seekers are denied child benefit. The application of the habitual residence clause to those children denies them. While it also affects the children of immigrants, child asylum seekers are more severely affected, since their parents are denied employment and live from very limited cash income while on direct provision.

We must debate and discuss this major issue. There are currently 2,200 children in Ireland whose families receive €9.60 per week to care for them. What is the price of a pair of shoes and a change of clothes? In many cases, such children will be granted permission to remain in Ireland when their cases are heard. Another issue is why it is taking so long to make a decision on so many of them. Some of those children have experienced such deprivation for several years. What kind of impact will it have on them as adult citizens? What damage is being done to them? They are innocents and surely we should do more for them.

The Minister should consider their plight. As far as I know, there are only 2,200 such children, but they are living in extreme poverty with only the barest necessities. We should try to integrate them if possible. I am not sure whether the Minister has visited any refugee centres — perhaps he might tell us in his response. However, it would be useful if he called to see where those children are living and witnessed the conditions. For example, the children will never see their own parents cook a meal. One might contend that it is irrelevant, since they are provided with food, but something is fundamentally wrong with that and perhaps we should reconsider the entire area. The children in question will probably remain here as future citizens and we are giving them an awful start in life.

I also note that section 29 of the Bill provides a statutory basis for decisions on habitual residence conditions identified by the European Court of Justice. Have guidelines been published regarding their interpretation? Some of them seem rather subjective and open to interpretation and we may require more information. I have been contacted in cases where payments have been denied under the "main centre of interest" subsection. The reasons are confusing and the area should be re-examined.

Another important means of tackling child poverty is creating better education and employment opportunities for parents, which will allow them to move from welfare dependency to gainful employment. The Minister published his proposals on lone parents in February 2006. At the time they received much media attention and were subject to a great deal of public debate. The Minister said the following regarding the lone parent review:

It is my intention that the outcome of these reviews, together with initiatives already in place in my Department, will contribute to the development of proposals designed to better support and encourage both lone parents and those seeking work in achieving a better standard of living, employment and education opportunities, a better future for themselves and their children.

If the Minister had introduced such proposals, he would have found Opposition Members very supportive. We encouraged the Minister to bring them forward, but we have not yet seen them. Perhaps the Minister can now outline the status of those proposals on low-income families.

Since his speech last year there has been no real movement, either on changing the one-family payment or on improving education and training opportunities for lone parents and providing them with successful and affordable child care to engage in new opportunities. Child care, its cost, availability and, most importantly, its quality are still major issues. The only change in the Bill is to raise the higher earning threshold from €375 per week to €400. That will do little to solve the child care issues that lone parents face or assist them in upskilling and entering better-paid employment.

Reports by the European Anti-Poverty Network, EAPN, and the One Parent Exchange and Network, OPEN, have clearly shown what poverty traps a return to employment can entail for lone parents and low-income families that enter poorly paid employment. Losses of secondary benefits such as medical cards, rent supplement and so on, coupled with the additional child care and transport costs that a return to work normally entails, render employment an economically non-viable option for lone parents in particular. I have had lone parents at my clinic ask me who will mind their children if they return to work. It is a major problem.

I note that changes to the rent supplement scheme will now allow a person in receipt of rent supplement who has been out of work for over 12 months to retain the rent supplement when he or she returns to work, as long as that person is on the RAS list. At a recent committee meeting with the End Child Poverty Coalition, concerns were raised regarding the administration of the RAS and the transfer of people on rent supplement to local authority housing lists.

I also note that changes to the means test regarding earnings limits, with a 50% disregard up to €200, are also included in Schedule 3 and those too should help lone parents and social welfare recipients returning to work. I wonder how RAS is now functioning. We know that a great deal of money has been transferred from the Department of Social and Family Affairs to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, but little has been spent and the scheme may need reviewing.

In the Minister's speech, he stated that the quality of much private rented accommodation was extraordinarily poor, with people living in very poor conditions. They come to Deputies all the time and state that the accommodation is damp and that water is running down the walls. Sometimes their children have asthma or a chest infection as a result. That major issue must be addressed in today's Ireland. We hear of two or three small children living with their mother in a cramped room with water running down the walls. It is hard to believe until one sees it.

Another important aspect to the proposals aims to end the cohabitation rule so that parents of children can live together without their income dropping. The Minister said that the rule is outdated and does not reflect modern society. However, in his Department there still appears to be a bias against unmarried fathers, who have little support from the State when it comes to access to their children.

Great changes are happening. According to the CSO Vital Statistics figures published in 2003, covering Ireland North and South, from "1980 to 2002, the proportion of birth outside marriage increased substantially in both jurisdictions, rising from around 5% to approximately one third of all births in both areas". That figure continues to increase in the Republic of Ireland, with the CSO Vital Statistics for the second quarter of 2006 showing:

there were 5,056 births registered as outside marriage in quarter 2 of 2006. This accounted for 31.6% of all births, an increase of 0.2% on quarter 2 2005. The highest percentage of births outside marriage occurred in Limerick City at 54.6%, while the county with the lowest percentage was Leitrim at 20%. In quarter 2 of 1997, 3,445 births were registered outside marriage or 25.2% of all births.

That substantial increase indicates a great change in society. We must consider that and introduce proposals to support families more.

We welcome the Minister's proposals regarding lone parents, the cohabitation rule and so on, and it would have been great if this Dáil could have ended with such proposals in place. Then we could all have supported the Minister in that work, happy in the knowledge that we had achieved something. The danger now is that, with the end of the Dáil, all those proposals could fall by the wayside. Who knows what Minister will be in power after the election? It is disappointing that the Minister has not achieved those aims. The ideas were laudable and, to give him his due, his intentions were proper. However, the reform has not been implemented.

Changes have been made in the Bill to child and maternity benefit. In the case of the first, we see the removal of criteria which presume that a child resides with only one person, which is of assistance. In the case of maternity benefit, there will be a payment for six weeks to a father automatically on the death of the mother. However, I am concerned that those will not apply to fathers not registered on the birth certificate.

I have questioned the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform several times regarding the establishment of a guardianship register for unmarried fathers, which would confer greater rights on them. However, the Minister has stated that he has no plans to do so, which is a shame. At present, a father can register, but it is only a piece of paper that both parties sign, with no central register. If that piece of paper is lost or destroyed, there is no record of guardianship. It would be simple to establish such a register, but it has not happened.

I was pleased to see changes to carers' payments, such as increases in the respite care grant and the inclusion of education and training opportunities to the carers' benefit scheme. That is essential for carers who wish to return to work once their caring duties are over.

I was pleased to see provision for the partial payment of carer's allowance to social welfare recipients. I proposed a half-rate payment, particularly to pensioner carers, in Fine Gael's carers policy and believe strongly that carers should be given improved financial and social supports in recognition of the importance of their role to members of their families, for whom they care, and society as a whole. Deputy Penrose has done a lot of work in this regard in his role as Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs.

I was very disappointed to see no supports for young carers included in the Bill. I have raised the plight of up to 3,000 young carers aged between 15 and 18 years with the Minister on a number of occasions and would like to see better social supports available to them. They have great responsibilities by comparison with their peers. In the absence of financial supports, other forms of assistance such as home help, counselling and support networks would ease the burden of caring on them. Delivery in this regard has been postponed until 2016, or some such year, and no provisions are being made in the Bill before the House.

Combating fraud, particularly in regard to PPS numbers, is another concern of mine. Section 31 of the Bill outlines measures for the penalties to be imposed once fraud has been established and more security measures to combat fraud, in particular, the issuing of public service cards that include one's name, PPS number, photograph and signature. Does the Minister intend to issue the cards on a nationwide basis? If so, when and how? Will they afford the holder access to other services? Large sums of money are being lost each year through PPS fraud, the failure of companies to pay social insurance contributions for employees and problems with overpayments by way of the electronic fund transfer system. I have tabled many parliamentary questions on the issue and I am awaiting the most recent figures regarding overpayments and the Department's recovery of these moneys.

I am pleased that direct payments to all pension-qualifying adults will come into effect in September. I am disappointed that the payment does not extend to all qualifying adults regardless of payment type. Direct payment should be offered to all adult dependants, particularly women, to help them achieve economic independence from their partners. The National Women's Council has raised concerns about the limitation rule which limits payments to households to 1.7 times the adult payment rate, even if two adults therein qualify for payment in their own right.

There are other concerns regarding the marriage bar and pension entitlements, as raised by me and other Deputies on a number of occasions. I note the Government has committed to giving all women of pensionable age an individual entitlement to a pension in their own right in the next three years. The marriage bar issue is still a problem. The averaging rule is a major concern. Therefore, we should examine it. A woman I met recently said she was one of a diminishing number of affected women. Women who worked, took time off to care for their families and worked for a little period thereafter are denied a pension in their own right. If they had not worked at all at the tail end of their working lives, they probably would have received a full pension, or at least some pension or recognition. The averaging rule, therefore, needs to be addressed.

Consider the transfer of the community welfare service from the HSE to the Department, a matter to which I have given some thought. Deputy Penrose feels very strongly about it and I await his considered deliberations thereon. Responsibility for rent supplement is being transferred to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government from the HSE and Department of Social and Family Affairs. Community welfare officers provide a very personal service that is unique and has developed over time. Perhaps some of their functions can be transferred such as those concerning rented accommodation. They feel very strongly that they have not been consulted on the transfer. The Minister said he was including the relevant provision in the legislation and would consult them afterwards. This may be putting the cart before the horse; he should have consulted them beforehand to learn from their experience. There was no meeting or consultation but perhaps there has been recently.

The transfer will affect approximately 1,000 people working in the health sector. There are 100,000 recipients of supplementary welfare allowance payments. Those using the services provided directly by the HSE, including domiciliary care allowance recipients, are affected. The Government's justification for transferring the functions involves an organisational arrangement allowing the HSE to focus on core responsibilities. Very often those who are or should be helped by community welfare officers are under considerable pressure and the assistance they receive is a safety net.

I am amazed at the relationship community welfare officers build with recipients. It is crucial to acknowledge that it is not just a question of money. The officers offer personal support, very often by listening. I have met and asked them about their training in counselling because very often they fulfil the role of counsellors. They link in with other services in the health sector such as psychiatric and psychological services and public health nurses' services. It is feared that this link could be broken if responsibility is transferred from the HSE to the Department and that the officers would become mere financial administrators. Their role is much greater than this.

I understand the transfer is included in the legislation but that it will probably not be implemented this side of the general election. We will be debating the issue on Committee Stage. Community welfare officers believe the proposal to transfer responsibility for the service is based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of their role requirements and the purpose, operation and function of the service and that this would inevitably result in the separation of health and personal social services over time. The first time they were given an opportunity to express a formal view was during the committee proceedings last June. They believe the transfer would have a profound, adverse effect on the service, ultimately undermining the quality and range of services they provide, to the detriment of some of the most vulnerable citizens. There has been no public debate on the issue.

Community welfare officers believe the description of their role as pertaining more to welfare supports than personal social services disregards the key information and advocacy role they perform in addition to making referrals to statutory health and personal social services. It is, therefore, more than a question of money. The officers are afraid the Department will not continue to devote resources to functions for which it is not ultimately responsible. They believe their ability to make discretionary payments will be undermined. We should be enhancing their power to make such payments. We have all come across cases where this is useful. Very many Deputies must now ring the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to obtain help for constituents because there is no other body which can help. Community welfare officers should be fulfilling this role.

There is a detailed section in the Bill concerning pensions. Less than 50% of the workforce have personal pension coverage; coverage among working women is even lower. Many women in part-time work and job-share arrangements are excluded even from State occupational pension schemes. The Pensions Ombudsman is concerned about this. We are still awaiting the Green Paper on pensions. It is due in March and will be considered by the next Dáil.

The Minister referred to mandatory pensions, about which we have been hearing and the looming pensions crisis for the past two years. I suppose the Green Paper will make progress in this regard. The trade union Amicus has advocated an SSIA-style saving model for pensions, especially for those in the lower tax bracket. Pensions comprise a very big issue.

The Bill has many provisions but, unfortunately, we did not have very much time to consider them in great detail or obtain advice thereon. I understand Committee Stage will be taken in a few weeks and we might have time to consider it in more detail between now and then.

This is probably one of the last Bills the Minister will introduce during the term of this Dáil and I hope it is successful. It has many good, welcome and necessary provisions but we must still focus on certain issues, child poverty in particular. I agree with the Minister that eliminating child poverty should be our aim. We must focus all the resources and expertise of the State on the problem to lift those affected out of poverty and allow them the life chances they need and deserve in order to live fulfilling lives. If we do not do so, the affected children may end up in trouble with the police, be put in jail and get into bother which would ultimately cost more than the cost of addressing the problem now.

See this speech in context