Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I move amendment No. 12:

In page 6, between lines 7 and 8, to insert the following:

3.—The Minister shall as soon as may be after the passing of this Act prepare and lay before both Houses of the Oireachtas a report on providing that current welfare and pension recipients who are paid by payment book method shall retain that method of payment until they opt of their own volition for another method.

These amendments concern the Department's changeover from book to swipe or social welfare card payments. None of us would object to this change but social welfare recipients and staff working in post offices have raised several concerns associated with the new way of making payment. The first is what is a person to do who is not in a position to collect his or her payment? At present he or she can sign the back of the book and authorise somebody to collect the payment on his or her behalf. It is not clear what happens with the swipe card. Is it just a matter of handing over the swipe card to somebody? How does one guard against fraud, a family member for instance taking the swipe card to the post office and obtaining a payment on behalf of the person who should be getting it? There is some concern about that and as regards how the new system will operate.

Another impact from the changeover is the question of the validity period for payments. Currently most social welfare dockets are valid for three months, but this is to be reduced to 20 days under the proposed change, I understand. Again, this has implications for the manner in which people manage their money and budget, particularly as regards child benefit. Very often people allow that to build up in anticipation of expensive periods in the course of the year, when children go back to school in September or whatever. Sometimes social welfare payments are allowed to build up so there is sufficient money to pay for central heating oil, coal deliveries and so on. People have their own ways of managing their social welfare income which will be affected by these changes. It is very hard to understand why there should be change, in particular, as regards the validity period in which a payment applies. I would appreciate if the Minister addressed those two issues.

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