Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

I am glad to have an opportunity to contribute on behalf of the Labour Party to the Second Stage debate on the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2007. I join Deputy Stanton in thanking the officials from the Department of Social and Family Affairs for giving us an insight into this Bill, which is possibly the most complex legislation to have come before us. However, the late manner in which Bills are provided to Members has to stop because we do not have the Minister's support in terms of time and advice. The Bill contains a number of positive developments which are welcomed by the Labour Party. It is time, for example, that antiquated and obsolete practices such as rules of behaviour are eliminated.

The waiting day requirement has caused anxiety among people in receipt of unemployment benefits and other payments. Several people from the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's county of Kilkenny raised that issue with me. It is absurd that people have to wait three days for payments when they have already qualified by making social insurance contributions. Any person unfortunate enough to be in that situation should be paid immediately. Given the investments made on upgrading the Department's computer systems, there should be no waiting days for any payments.

Concerns have been expressed with regard to people who do not receive their pensions on time despite applying for them several months in advance of retirement. They are entitled to their pensions once they have completed the forms and submitted birth certificates and other documentation, so it is a scandal that complaints arise in that regard. It does not say much for the new computer system if people have to wait. The Department should be able to project ahead so that, like the travel pass, pensions are paid automatically from the date on which they are due to commence. We should recognise people's contributions by paying them in a timely manner rather than make them feel as if they are begging for their entitlements. It is time to end that charade.

Deputy Stanton noted that people have to be in care on the first Friday in June in order to qualify for respite care grants. I am aware the grant is annual and that facilities have been introduced for people who are hospitalised but what happens if a person enters care after that date and dies at the end of the following May? The system should not be so rigid that it cannot react to events on the ground. We should be capable of adjusting to sometimes harsh realities.

I have championed the cause of carers at every available opportunity and will continue to do so. It is Labour Party policy that we will abolish the means test if we come to power because we recognise carers and the work they do 24 hours per day. They save the State billions of euro, so a payment worth €140 million is the least that can be made to support them. I acknowledge that the respite care grant has alleviated some areas of distress and thank the Minister on behalf of carers for the €300 payments he is now making. However, the payment is mere crumbs from a rich man's table because, without carers, many more people would have to be put into State care. We would not even have sufficient accommodation for such an increase because the public sector, which accounted for 80% of accommodation in the 1960s, now comprises only 48% of total places. Privatisation is being introduced by stealth and that is not for the better.

Deputy Stanton has championed the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. The September deadline is too rigid because people often miss it. If the sole aim of the Minister's policies is to help people who face poverty, flexibility is vital to ensure they receive the support they need. Applicants would already have qualified through rigid means testing procedures. Carer's allowance should not be assessed as income for the back-to-school allowance. I am aware of a person from Robinstown in Mullingar who was disgracefully deprived of the back-to-school allowance for that reason.

This is the most means tested country in Europe. I would love to know how much the Department is spending annually on means testing. There would be significant savings from abolishing the means test for the carer's allowance in terms of no longer having to measure small and irrelevant matters. From that perspective, the allowance would not even cost €140 million.

The social welfare system is in need of modernisation to meet changing needs. The current system is rooted in outmoded concepts, relegating women in particular to subservient roles within a system of eligibility and assessment in the social welfare codes. Progress has been made with regard to what was formerly known as the qualified adult dependant, although I do not believe in changing names for the sake of modernity when the underlying circumstances have not changed. Nobody is made better off simply by changing a name. We have seen before cases where money which could have been given to the people who need it was spent on changing names, thereby being consumed by a bureaucratic monolith.

In the interest of equality and equity, the Labour Party wishes to see an end to outmoded concepts and we wholeheartedly promote and support economic independence for women. To achieve that end, we must abolish the limitation rule for all payments and increase the rate of all qualified adult payments towards 100% of the personal payments, as well as making them directly payable. However, people should not be fooled because the fact that the qualified adult allowance will be paid directly from September does not mean they will be better off. Women, who comprise 95% of the people eligible for this payment, will merely receive the money formerly paid to their husbands. There will be no economic benefit to many households if both adults receive individual payments. Paying benefits solely to husbands restricts wives' economic independence and excludes them from receiving payments in their own right. The only way to address that issue is by paying the qualified adult payment directly, which the Minister has done. Abolition of the limitation rule is important in the context of economic independence for women.

This is essential because no economic benefit would accrue to the household if both adults were to receive an individual payment as, in the case of the majority of qualified adults, their payments would go directly to their husbands. This is very important and Members must state that while the first step is being taken, the second appears to be a long way down the road. As I noted, 95% of qualified adults are women, many of whom were excluded from the labour market because of their caring and parental work. I note that under Sustaining Progress, the Government has committed itself to increasing the qualified adult payment to 100% of the full personal payment by 2007. This will not be honoured and the timescale for the achievement of this worthy objective has been long-fingered again.

Many women were forced from employment by implementation of the marriage bar. Effectively, women were discriminated against because of their gender and the application of the bar which, on reflection, was an incredible act of discrimination. How was its application ever contemplated, let alone implemented? It is mindboggling that it ever escaped detailed scrutiny. Consequently, such women are now being denied a host of financial benefits to which they would have been duly entitled. Up to 45% of women are at risk of poverty and much of this has its origins in implementation of the marriage bar. It drove people from work who would qualify for a payment. Effectively, Members have described as non-persons those who find themselves in this position. They are not entitled to the State pension through no fault of their own. As they do not qualify for the various schemes, effectively, they are being discriminated against. Members should describe this as State discrimination. It is high time that they grabbed the bull by the horns and admitted a gross error was made at the time which constituted a gross level of State discrimination. They should try to deal with this very serious problem.

Child poverty is a major issue. While one can point to the universality of the payment of child benefit, the End Child Poverty Coalition made a presentation to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs recently. It is clear that bodies such as the European Anti-Poverty Network, Barnardos and OPEN still consider child poverty to be one of the great scourges of Irish society. It is an indictment on this society to state children are still at risk of poverty in 2007. This issue has not been tackled. Although child dependant allowance was increased by a few euro, a supplementary child benefit payment to supplement the universal child benefit payment was not introduced. Such a payment would be aimed at those on lower incomes and would be directly targeted. It would certainly be the most effective way to tackle and root out child poverty, a scourge and a blight on this society. Moreover, without the work of individuals such as Fr. Peter McVerry and others who are engaged in non-governmental organisations and as community volunteers nationwide, an even greater level of poverty would be eating away at society. The amalgamation of family income supplement, child dependant allowance and other measures should be considered in an effort to tackle this subject. This is a matter on which much work remains to be done and I urge the Minister to continue to try to do it.

I refer to better pre-application information and the relaxation of full-time care and attention rules for carer's allowance and the carer's respite grant. Approximately 15% of carers are refused carer's allowance on the basis that they do not provide full-time care and attention. In my experience, this is usually due to their distance from the person for whom they are caring or because the care recipient wishes to retain some independence such as continuing to dress or to cook for himself or herself. While there is no specific guidance on the requisite distance or time to qualify for carer's allowance, there is a general list of tasks that each carer is expected to carry out. Many carers go through the long application form which contains 69 questions only to be turned down at the final stage. While I accept that each case is different, there should be clear criteria on the full-time care and attention rule in order that applicants know where they stand before they reply. The Minister should also relax the criteria to allow carers qualify in cases in which they save the State a nursing home place or significant costs. The essential question the deciding officer should ask is whether the care recipient would require nursing home care or significant professional assistance were he or she not receiving assistance from the applicant. This is an important point.

A person who goes from being a housewife to caring for an elderly relative is not awarded credits if she did not pay credits for the two years before making her claim. This deprives carers of credits, which mainly affects them in the calculation of their pension. This brings Members back to the issue noted by Deputy Stanton to the effect that averages are the scourge of many in respect of their pension qualification. This is unfair, particularly to carers. The Minister should ensure all such carers will be awarded credits and that all previous cases will be awarded with backdated credits. He will state he hopes to deal with this in a forthcoming Green Paper on pensions. However, it will not be published until March 2008 and one can only guess how long it will be before any concrete action is taken in this regard.

Another point has been brought to my attention in the past few days concerning the manner in which many employers are taking on people on short-term employment contracts. By so doing, they pay no PRSI contributions and the employees lose the benefit of PRSI contributions already paid in terms of dental health, etc. This constitutes a major disadvantage for young employees who continue not to be covered. Such employers have no payroll costs and make no tax returns for the employees concerned. As the latter may choose not to declare their earnings, there is a potential loss of revenue and employment rights. A contract leaves employees without any employment rights, including holiday, sick or bank holiday pay. As temporary employees pay no PRSI, they build up no unemployment, redundancy or other benefits. This is being used by employers to get themselves off the hook. However, those who suffer ultimately are the employees, particularly young people. This constitutes rolling backing the years and must be investigated and examined in order that people do not get away with avoiding the payment of PRSI.

I wish to address the emasculation of the community welfare service. While I know whose idea it was, I will not bother to reveal the name. Now that the old health boards and, more recently, the HSE are off the pitch, where will the buffer be? This transfer has been effected by stealth. How will discretion and flexibility be protected when the referee owns the football?

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