Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)

I am glad to be here to welcome the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill. When one considers the figure of €17 billion involved in social welfare, it amounts to approximately €50 million per day including Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays. By any standards, that is a significant redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have nots. That is to be welcomed and I call on everybody here to welcome the progress that has been made in social welfare as one part of the process of removing people from poverty. While we all have difficulties with aspects of the social welfare code which we would make clear to the Minister either here or at the Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs of which both I and Deputy Mattie McGrath are members, we must praise and acknowledge the significant scale by any standards of what this Government is doing for social welfare.

I am glad to hear the Minister, Deputy Cullen, refer to the Government's discussion paper, Proposals for Supporting Lone Parents, and I will speak generally about the issues arising. It is not just a question of handouts to remove people from poverty. Social welfare is provided to allow people live at a certain standard so that they do not fall behind, go without food or be without shelter. It is to give them what they need to survive and what their children need for school, and to give them an acceptable standard of living.

Eliminating poverty is about much more than that. It really has a great deal to do with education, training, the Government's economic development programme and the national infrastructure programme. All of these issues must be tied in together to eliminate poverty and to remove people from the poverty net.

The Minister specifically mentioned lone parents. In my experience it is lone parents, particularly those with more than one child, who are bearing the brunt of poverty. I pay tribute to the lone parents I meet. They do a fantastic job. Many of them are in substantially straitened circumstances. They have complaints and they need more, and we try to get them as much as they are entitled to, but they still manage to get by and give their children the best opportunities. Such children almost have a greater sense of responsibility to society in many cases because of the difficulties they face and the challenges their parents face. I pay tribute to them and I admire them because they face a tough road.

We acknowledge it is not only about money. We hear complaints here about the carer's allowance. The commitment to carer's allowance over the past ten years has been one of the hallmarks of this Government. It was a fantastic innovation and I am glad to see progress being made on that. Of course we would like to see more progress being made on that and on the fuel allowance, but we must acknowledge that people, particularly pensioners, are being looked after.

The programme for Government contains a commitment to increase the pension to €300 by the end of its term and I am convinced the Government will exceed its target, as did the previous Government. Many pensioners almost expect that at this stage, but they know we have delivered on it previously and they are happy that will happen again. Approaching the election they were happy to trust that we could deliver on that commitment as we had delivered on the previous one.

In general terms on social exclusion, there will be investment of €50 billion over the term of the new national development plan. The national development plan is obviously a lengthy document which contains many programmes and plans. I suppose the ordinary person's perception is that it is about roads, trains and transport infrastructure, but it contains much more and social inclusion is a significant aspect of it. It is good to see the Government's commitment in that regard.

I welcome the increases in child benefit. We all would like to see a much greater increase. We always would. There is never enough. As a father of four months, we recently obtained it for the first time. It is a fantastic benefit. It is not means tested, it is available to everybody and it is paid directly to the mother as well — it has not come into my hands.

One aspect of the social welfare code which has caused me concern, and on which the Government has taken action, is the position of qualified adults of pension age who really were confused and upset that they seem to be treated much differently because of circumstances which in many cases were beyond their control or were the cause of society in that women in general could not go out to work and could not raise the stamps necessary. There are changes being made to bring the qualified adult allowance up to the level of the non-contributory pension and further progress has been made this year.

Drogheda, part of which is in my constituency of Meath East, is where the Department of Social and Family Affairs proposes to decentralise. I take the opportunity afforded by this debate to welcome that and encourage the Department to move as quickly as possible, and to let the Minister know that the people I represent in County Meath and the people I know in County Louth are much looking forward to it. The communities on both sides of the county divide are making best preparations to welcome the Department and whoever the Minister will be at that time.

We also welcome what has happened in the budget. We welcome continuing progress. I particularly welcome the Minister's commitment to a broad strategy — education, training and getting people into the workforce as best we can. That is not always easy, particularly for lone parents.

At the same time, we must have the toughest possible sanctions for people who abuse the social welfare system and should not have any sympathy for them. On occasion we all meet people at our clinics who for whatever reason have claimed benefits to which they were not entitled. I suppose it is not our role to give out to them — that is for somebody else. We must be conscious that benefits are for those who are entitled to them. We should not give succour to those abusing that entitlement and we should tell them the full letter of the law will be applied to them. It is an important system involving a considerable amount of money. As I stated, it amounts to almost €50 million every day which the taxpayers redistribute to those less well off. By any standards, it is a fantastic achievement. I welcome the Bill and look forward to continued progress over the next few years.

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