Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

That is clearly not the case. I challenge anybody in this House to survive on less than €200 a week. In a situation where grocery inflation is nearly 5% and where there have been extraordinary increases in the cost of fuel, by up to 17%, it is exceptionally difficult for people to survive on €197.80 per week.

I welcome the provisions of this Bill in respect of the qualified adult rate for pensioners' spouses. I acknowledge this generous increase which takes us a long way on the road to the 100% target rate. When will the Minister make the same progress in respect of other qualified adult payments?

Pensioners had a legitimate expectation that the pre-election promise of increasing the State pension to €300 per week would be honoured in some kind of an even manner over the five-year term of Government. It is estimated that to do this, the Minister would need to increase the State pension by over €18 this year. He has not done so and the increase is €14. Effectively, pensioners will be over €4 short of the expected rise next year. Given the uncertain times ahead, why did the Minister not meet that target this year? It is disappointing and it does not augur well for reaching the €300 target in the five-year period.

It is particularly disappointing that for the 14th year in a row the Minister has failed to increase the living alone allowance. This was traditionally pitched at about 7% of the maximum State pension but because it has not been increased in 14 years, it is now only worth approximately 50% of what it should be worth. If it had kept pace with inflation it would be pitched at the €15.50 mark. It is most disappointing that it has been completely ignored. I do not understand the reason for this as there has been very little discussion about it and the Minister has made little reference to it. It appears to be an unspoken, hidden Government policy not to increase this allowance. Approximately 160,000 people are in receipt of the living alone allowance. By any yardstick, we know it is much more expensive for a person living alone in terms of keeping a house and heating and food bills. It costs more than half of what it cost two people to live. Most of the overheads are the same whether one person or two people are living in a house. Will the Minister outline his thinking on this matter? Either he has a strategy in respect of that or it is a particularly miserable oversight and it should not have happened.

The Government parties promised in their programme for Government to award the over-80s allowance to pensioner spouses. The Minister has missed an opportunity to do this. It is miserable that this promise has not been fulfilled as the cost would be negligible. The estimated total is that it would be €3 million. It is regrettable that the Minister has failed to deliver on this promise.

The number of women who were affected by the marriage bar in the Civil Service is declining. These women were forced out of the workforce through no fault of their own due to the policy that existed at the time. As they reach retirement age, many women who were thus affected find they have lost out and a special provision needs to be made for them. A woman who was forced out of work because of the marriage bar, whose husband is in receipt of a social welfare pension, may be catered for, but a woman whose husband is not in receipt of a State pension gets nothing. There is a need to recognise the situation in which some women find themselves.

The clear policy of recent years in respect of increasing the income of pensioners has paid off. I welcome the indication that consistent poverty among pensioners has declined significantly. This targeted approach has been successful. It is necessary for the Minister to take the same kind of targeted approach to other categories of people who are dependent on welfare. The primary group in need of attention is the 96,000 children who are living in consistent poverty. This approach would receive the support of all sides of the House. It brings shame on us all that the figures are so high. Incredibly, in spite of the economic success of the past decade, the numbers of children living in consistent poverty are on the increase and it is extraordinary that this Bill and the budget do nothing to reduce that number. It is quite shameful the Minister at some level decided the €22 a week qualified child allowance was inadequate, but in looking at it has decided that a €2 per week increase is somehow adequate. That increase brings the payment to €24 per week for the children who could be described as the poorest of the poor children and anybody who knows anything about rearing children will know that €3.43 per day is utterly inadequate. Is it any wonder there are still such large numbers of children in consistent poverty? This is an area that needs urgent attention and when looking at global figures it is not enough for the Minister to roll-in the child benefit payment and early childhood payment. The child benefit payment is available to every child, rich or poor. I refer to those children, numbering almost 100,000, who are living in poverty and who need additional support from the State. Such support, at present at a level of €24 per week, is completely inadequate and I ask the Minister to devote his attention to this category of person in the coming year because it is an area in which no progress is being made and which needs urgent attention.

It is important to bear in mind that the €6 increase in child benefit for each of the first two children is below the current rate of inflation. The budget has been particularly disappointing in its lack of focus on children.

Similarly, the back to school clothing and footwear allowance required serious reform, but this has not happened. The qualifying conditions should have been increased to the qualifying level for FIS and it is a missed opportunity not to do so.

For years there has been talk about creating a supplement to child benefit targeted at lower income families but this never materialised. Today we, in the Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs, listened to two groups, CORI and The Combat Poverty Agency. There is not agreement among the various groups working in this area on the most effective way of targeting child poverty, but something needs to be done. Whether the Minister introduces a supplement or increases the qualified child payment or, indeed, opts for the other proposal that has come out of the proposals for supporting lone parents, targeting child poverty must be the priority for next year in order to bring up the income levels of children living in the poorest circumstances.

The promise in the programme for Government to examine the possibility of introducing a parental benefit never materialised in this Bill either. That is regrettable, given that we are so far behind other European countries in respect of parental leave arrangements.

I welcome the €100 increase in the early child care payment, but it is important to state that this is no substitute whatsoever for putting in place the kind of investment that is required in services for children. There are two elements to supporting children, obviously improving their income levels but also improving the services that are available to them. When we are talking about lifting children out of poverty and breaking that cycle, the key matter, apart from them having enough money for food and clothing, is access to decent quality services. Regrettably, there has been no progress made in providing State-funded preschool services or State-funded child care services. Indeed, another glaring omission from the budget is the lack of improvement in the primary health care teams. Those three areas, preschool education, child care and access to health services, are key if children are to be lifted out of poverty. Not only is there lack of progress on income support, there is also a glaring lack of progress on putting in place those services which would allow children to live normal childhoods and to reach their potential.

Lone parents continue to be the group in society most affected by consistent poverty. The most recent statistics show that 33% of lone parent families are on a low income and experiencing basic deprivation. As with children, the rate for consistent poverty among lone parents is on the increase. The principal reasons for this are the lack of public services available to lone parents to allow them access employment allied to the continuing poverty traps, such as rent supplement, faced by lone parents.

I note in the Minister's speech on the budget last week that 30 more facilitators are to be recruited to redevelop activation measures by the Department, but that is just one side of the coin. Where are the child care and training services to go along with this? The €6.5 million mentioned in the budget speech, and again today, will just not do it. There has been a significant underestimation of the level of service required to help lone parents get off welfare and into the workforce, and this spans a range of public services from child care services to preschool services, mentoring services, access to education and training and supports for returning to the workforce. There is a panoply of support services required if we are serious about getting lone parents off welfare and into the workforce, and €6 million really will not make any appreciable impression on the need in that area.

In a country where public services are so sparse, parents, even poor ones, are forced to purchase everything. The Government is not providing poor parents with the income support to purchase such services, and neither is it providing the services. The Government is finding out the hard way that the policy of generous tax shelters, badly skewed tax-relief schemes and once-off tax cuts, rather than long-term investment in public services during the boom years, was a flawed policy. Now the boom is gone and we still do not have basic public services on which poor people, in particular, can rely.

Only 34,000 carers receive a weekly payment. According to the last census, there were 161,000 carers in the State. Therefore, only 21% of carers receive a weekly payment. The census figures also revealed the large number of carers who were working long hours at home and in the workplace. Some 67,500 carers spent 15 hours or more per week caring for somebody else. Over half of all carers, some 90,544, indicated their principal economic status was at work. This suggests that none of these would be entitled to a weekly payment under current rules. Welfare policy clearly is not working if so many people are forced to burn the candles at both ends.

The Government has already reneged on a clear commitment in the programme for Government to publish a national carer's strategy by the end of 2007. It is only getting around to that now. Due to this delay, budget 2008 changed very little for carers.

Public policy on carers needs to be brought into the 21st century. I strongly believe the qualifying medical criteria for carer's allowance need to be relaxed. In particular, the current dependency test is far too rigid and does not act in the best interests of the person requiring care. The test should not be a question of whether someone requires constant care and attention. Instead it should be a question of whether the care and attention provided is of such significance that it allows the person cared for to stay at home, to enjoy even a limited amount of independence, to stay out of institutional care or to place less demand on public services. Instead it should concern whether the care and attention provided is of such significance that it allows the person cared for to stay at home, enjoy even a limited amount of independence, stay out of institutional care or place less demand on pubic services.

Most carers will make the point that they are saving the State a fortune by their actions. This is true. It is long past time that argument was listened to and acted upon. Many people in the State are in a situation where they provide care and attention to elderly relatives. Perhaps they call in the morning to get them up and set aside food for their day. They call again to them in the evening to get them ready for bed, give them their medication and settle them for the night. They are not caring for them on a full-time basis and many of them hold a 40-hour a week job. However, the care and attention they provide is critical to those cared for and to enabling them stay out of institutional care. There must be recognition for this.

Many other issues related to carers should also be addressed. The application form for carer's allowance is far too long and complicated. It is a great burden on those applying and a significant factor in discouraging claims. Also, the outcome of applications is far from certain, particularly with regard to medical criteria. Carers caring for more than one person lose out. There is no reason they should not receive a double carer's allowance. Why should they not get an allowance for both people for whom they care?

Carers with children may not qualify for the back to school clothing and footwear allowance, because their income from carer's allowance counts in the means test for that allowance, which is ridiculous. It is an anomaly with which the Minister must deal. Carers taking up carer's allowance from a position where they were neither paying nor receiving credits should receive credits from the date they are awarded carer's allowance so they can improve their pension qualification for retirement. This provision should be back-dated to carers who have lost out.

On the issue of people of working age, the points I made with regard to lone parents also apply to school leavers. It is wrong that school leavers should be able to move directly from school to jobseeker's allowance. This does young people a serious disservice. Often, these are the same people who have been failed by the education system. They leave school early at 17 or 18 years of age and sign on straight away. They should not be allowed to do that. We should have a sufficiently resourced system in place that picks up on those who leave school early or with little or no qualifications. We should have a system whereby these young people will be mentored and directed into training and education facilities or supported employment. The State, having washed its hands of some early leavers through the failure to meet their educational needs, again washes its hands in terms of the employment prospects of this cohort of young people. This should not happen. Our employment services should be challenged to provide the necessary supports to these young people. We must intervene at an earlier stage so young people do not get into the bad habit of signing on and being dependent on welfare. We must ensure it is not possible for young people to go directly from school onto the dole.

Many claimants of social welfare payments lose out the first three days of their claim. I cannot understand the reason for this, which is a sore point for claimants. Why is it that people who must leave the workforce and fall back on welfare payments are not entitled to claim for the first three days? There seems to be no justification for this other than this has always been the case. Will the Minister look at this issue and give a satisfactory response?

With regard to those in direct provision, it is scandalous that we expect anybody to live on €19 odd. This is the only welfare payment that has not been increased in years. I urge the Minister to give immediate attention to that issue.

As this Bill involves costs to the Exchequer, we will be under the usual restrictions which make it difficult for us to raise amendments which might involve charges. I urge the Minister to show some consideration tomorrow when we take the other Stages of the Bill in areas where we raise genuine issues of concern. He should be generous in allowing some of our requests for reports etc.

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