Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

I welcome the increases in social welfare payments contained in the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2008. Deputy Moynihan raised the issue of pro rata pensions. When Deputy Jim O'Keeffe and I applied pressure on the Government on this issue, we secured an agreement that the matter would be addressed. The then Minister of State with responsibility for the issue, the current Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Noel Ahern, led us to believe that those who had paid contributions for five years would receive, at minimum, half pension plus a pro rata pension calculated on the basis of additional years of paid contributions. When the Bill was published, however, it provided for a half pension only, regardless of whether five years or ten years of contributions had been made.

I beg the Minister of State to reconsider the provision as a matter of urgency because individuals who paid contributions for ten years are receiving only a half pension. In one case of which I am aware, a person fell one day short of qualifying for a full pension. The Minister or State should be able to determine how many people would be affected by a change and how much it would cost.

The increase in child income support rates, one of the first issues to which the Minister referred, is welcome. However, it contains a number of anomalies. It goes to children not living in this country, but whose parent or parents work here. However, somebody who lived abroad for a couple of years and who is forced to come home to care for a parent or any person who is sick cannot obtain child income support or children's allowance and, apart from exceptional circumstances, they cannot receive carer's allowance. This has to do with the habitual residency condition introduced for entirely different reasons and it must be examined.

I welcome the increase in the upper limits for qualification of the one-parent family payment to €425. However, this benefit will not be sufficient in many cases unless proper care is available for children in crèches. The changes made by the Minister to crèche support must be re-examined as they are not sufficient in rural areas.

Carers play a crucial and much valued role in ensuring older people and people with disabilities can remain in their own homes for as long as possible. However, serious anomalies exist in this structure. I am aware of a young woman who lost her husband and who must now care for her father. She is solely on a contributory pension and rejoiced with me in the great news that a half-rate carer's allowance was available from September 2007. However, the value of the family residence she inherited was taken into account for means testing rather than the €100 per week she receives in rent from a friend. This regulation in the means test is at complete odds with the special deals the Department of Finance made with big builders and others for tax breaks in the building sector. I urge the Minister for Social and Family Affairs to re-examine this situation.

I provided the Department with the full facts of this case. If the matter is not rectified, the lady has made it clear she will have no choice but to return to work and let her father be cared for at full cost to the State in a nursing home, which neither of them wants. In general, I welcome the half-rate carer's allowance. As the departmental officials present today will verify, I spent ten years lobbying in the Dáil for it and I obtained 100% support for the proposal from the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs. However, the then Minister stated such a proposal was illegal. This decision was changed in the budget in 2006, I suppose for election purposes, and the rest is history.

I must highlight another anomaly within a means test structure. A PAYE worker on a non-contributory pension can earn €200 per week or €10,400 and still receive the full old-age pension. However, self-employed people such as plumbers, electricians, shopkeepers and farmers, having reached retirement age, can only earn €30 per week or approximately €1,500 per year. This is unacceptable and must be rectified.

Will the possibility of ending the means test system for the small number of people who do not have PRSI contributions be examined? Many people are in this situation because they were too late in life to make all the necessary payments after the scheme was first introduced in 1988. The Government, with the support of all parties, saw fit to provide medical cards to those over 70. I urge the Government to provide all of those aged over 70 with pensions. Elderly people living alone are in fear of revision requests being sent to them and this must be addressed.

The living alone allowance is €7.50 and as such is useless. A couple, both on pensions, living together in a rural area can hardly afford to have a car. When or if one of them dies or goes to a home, the remaining person on a pension will then receive this major boost of €7.50. What will €7.50 do in this day and age to help pay insurance, tax or run a car? This must be examined.

I pay tribute to staff in social welfare offices and in Sligo and Longford.

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