Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

In the few minutes available I want to talk about what are, basically, cutbacks in the area of social and family affairs. The Minister concerned, in effect, pre-empted Government announcements last week as regards these cutbacks or savings, when she said there would be no cuts in frontline services in the Department of Social and Family Affairs. Patently, that is not the case. When one examines the details that have started to trickle out, and the Minister's contribution last night, one can see that cutbacks are taking place within the Department of Social and Family Affairs and these are affecting frontline services, contrary to what the Minister had given us to understand.

For example, five new family resource centres will not now be approved this year, in spite of the fact that they had been promised for some time. There will be no expansion of staff in the existing centres, as promised under the national development plan. The personal advocacy service for people with disabilities has been postponed indefinitely. If these are not the most vulnerable and weakest people, I do not know who are.

There is an increasing problem as regards family breakdown and problems associated with children in general. Most communities are crying out for greater supports for family support services and more funding to be provided so early intervention can take place and problems are not left to become almost insurmountable before any State agency gets involved. There is a crying need across the country for improved investment in these services, yet they are to be cut back, in line with yesterday's announcement. People with disabilities have been campaigning and fighting for a personal advocacy service for many years. They thought they were going to get it eventually this year. Indeed, just last week on Question Time, the Minister told me funding had been secured and that the service was going ahead. Apart from the extreme disappointment at the Government's failure to put the service in place as promised, I am interested to know what will happen as regards the director of this service, recently recruited. That person was to have staff provided over the coming months, but this is not going to happen. So what will the director be doing? The person, I know, has been recruited. Has he or she been appointed yet and what is his or her role?

We see cutbacks in other areas, without doubt. There has been an extraordinary delay in the proposed expansion of services to lone parents, for example, which are desperately needed to facilitate them in moving from welfare to work. They need help in identifying what their education and training needs are to enable them to apply for employment. This seems to have fallen victim to the Government's cuts because so much was promised as regards the document it launched some time ago, entitled Supports for Lone Parents. However, there is no funding for it this year it seems, and people will have to wait yet again before they have an opportunity to move into employment.

The focus of the Government should be on trying to ensure there is growth in employment, not cutting public service jobs. The latest unemployment figures show astonishing increases right across the country, with 54,000 extra people signing on since June last year and 67,000 since May last year. The most recent live register figures show an increase in all local social welfare offices since May 2007, indicating major problems right across the country, particularly in those commuter areas surrounding Dublin and in some Border counties.

We must ensure the people who become unemployed today are not among the long-term unemployed next year and in future years. That is why it is so important to ensure those services required to provide retraining for people are put in place before they get deeper into debt. We know that people attending MABS have been presenting with higher levels of debt over the last couple of years. Those people are most vulnerable, for example, if one partner in a couple loses a job and they are already overstretched as regards their mortgage. Very quickly they can get into a very difficult debt situation. That is the focus on which the Government should be concentrating.

See this speech in context