Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

My amendment No. 4 is of limited use in the area of regeneration. The Minister has not given an adequate explanation as to why there is a need for this measure. As somebody said to me, it will be a case of somebody who is a rent supplement recipient being replaced by somebody who is a non-rent supplement recipient. That is all the Minister is doing. The difficulty I have in this regard is that it would be setting a precedent which can be utilised in other areas. Deputy Catherine Murphy also referred to this point.

I was the only one who referred to community welfare officers, CMOs, during my Second Stage speech. I spent about ten minutes on the subject. This system was introduced for a specific reason by the late Frank Cluskey, a former leader of the Labour Party. He did not want a system that could be hamstrung within a Department. It is no use telling me the current situation would be possible within a Department. The Minister has admitted no change will take place but he will have institutionalised the elimination of discretion. It is as simple as that.

In spite of the perception, community welfare officers are not money dispensing machines, as such, they are socio-economists. They have a role to play in regard to the health strategy. They know who is suffering various infirmities or health difficulties and who has been involved with drugs and of others who need help for their addictions. Community welfare officers have a comprehensive knowledge that has been built up by cultivating a strong relationship with the recipients of the payments. Therefore, it is of critical importance this type of interaction between community welfare officers and applicants for supplementary welfare allowances such as rent supplements is continued.

As I said on Second Stage and as Deputy Catherine Murphy pointed out, community welfare officers can be secured at weekends or late at night by a phone call from a Member to deal with an emergency. They always respond. Will CWOs operate solely on a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. basis and who will be available at 10 p.m when some emergency arises when these people are changed to a departmental structure? Why break something that works well?

Somebody in the Department appears to be set on making this change. One gets a sense of these things when one asks questions here and there. I cannot understand why this is the case. As recently as June 2006 I brought the CWOs and their union representatives, which included IMPACT, SIPTU etc. before the committee. The genesis of this proposed change began a few years ago. At the time, nobody passed much remark on it. Professor Brennan's report brought the issue to a head. I have often seen reports gathering dust and creating litter. Many departmental reports were never seen again, yet this is one area in which somebody had a profound interest who kept coming back and encouraging another report.

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