Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

Five minutes is a short time in which to say anything illuminating about the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill. I thank the Minister and the Department of Social and Family Affairs for the excellent service they provide to me and I am sure to my colleague TDs when we raise queries on behalf of our constituents. When I entered the Dáil in the early 1980s it was a Department which occupied most of our time because it was very difficult to get information about claimants. I compliment the then Minister, Deputy Michael Woods, who brought in the reforms and put in place the unit which responds so readily and quickly to TDs.

I want to raise three issues and I ask the Minister of State to bring them to the attention of the Minister, Deputy Cullen, when he is preparing amendments for Committee Stage of the Bill. The first concerns the companion pass for persons with free travel. The regulation states that if someone qualifies for a free travel pass and they are married or cohabiting, and cohabiting is defined as living with a man or woman as husband and wife, they get a free travel pass that allows their spouse or partner to join them for free when travelling. There are other regulations which allow people with medical conditions or incapacitation of various degrees get companion passes also but single people are discriminated against. I cannot understand the reason a single woman or man receiving an old age pension cannot get their friend to travel with them if they want to travel from Limerick to Dublin by train to spend a day shopping in Grafton Street whereas their neighbour can take their spouse who is under the pension age. If the neighbour has moved in with the neighbour next door and they are living as man and wife they can travel as a couple also because as they are cohabiting the companion pass applies. I do not know whether it has been tested but I do not understand how that regulation would stand up in any equality legislation.

The measure I propose would not be a major burden on the Exchequer. I am aware a settlement was paid to Iarnród Éireann, formerly CIE, for persons who travel but I ask the Minister to examine that aspect to determine if a companion pass can be awarded to a single person on the same basis as the travel pass is awarded to a married person to allow a single person travel with a companion.

Married couples often use the travel pass to go to see their grandchildren. That does not arise in the case of the single person. The single person in good health uses it to take a jaunt. They travel to another city to visit friends, go shopping or to a match but who goes anywhere on their own to enjoy themselves? This is discrimination. If it were tested in the courts it would not stand up and it is something that should be examined. The Minister of State, Deputy Hoctor, knows exactly what I am talking about and I ask that an appropriate amendment be drafted or the regulations governing it altered to ensure single persons can be entitled to a companion pass.

The other two issues I want to raise arise from some of the constituency work I do. A gentleman came to see me recently about invalidity pension. He got the exemption from the Department to allow him work for 20 hours and was employed by a security firm. He was disqualified by the medical referee in Sligo on the grounds that the 20 hours had no rehabilitative effect. It cost the Department nothing. He is still getting his full rate invalidity pension. He is getting the dependant's allowance on it but he is no longer getting the 20 hours' work. He is back at home after spending five years recuperating. He will never work fulltime again. He is a stroke victim. He wanted to get out of the house and earn a few shillings. He was getting cabin fever at home, and anyone with a long-term illness will know what I am talking about, yet he is not allowed do the 20 hours work on the grounds it was not rehabilitative to work with a security firm in a pharmacy. He does not get paid for the 20 hours but he still receives the full invalidity pension.

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