Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

I am sorry the Minister for Social and Family Affairs has left the Chamber because I wanted to raise an issue with regard to the measures she proposes to reduce the processing time for dealing with the applications for assistance from those who have been unfortunate enough to lose their jobs and who are currently on waiting lists. Newbridge, which is the area office for Athy and Baltinglass, currently has a waiting list of 2,000 with a delay of eight weeks for processing. While I welcome the Minister's statement, I hope she will take a look at the situation in that area. It is unacceptable that with the current state of our economy and the problems people have with mortgage payments etc. that people have to wait for that period of time. Some people have lost their jobs and some, such as the Tegral workers in Athy, are on short time, but they all need to have their applications for assistance processed. I hope the Minister applies what she said in her statement to the Newbridge office to ensure the waiting time is reduced.

Yesterday we acknowledged the wonderful political contribution of Séamus Brennan to this House and to politics in general. I remember one occasion he was in the House dealing with one of the major cutbacks introduced by a former Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Mary Coughlan, when she extended the time period to qualify for the back to education allowance to 15 months. After debate on the issue the late Mr. Brennan reduced the period to 12 months. It is now time to review the situation again and ensure we return to the right position. This allowance is acknowledged as a major contribution for those who want to get back to education and who have the will to do so, despite having to wait nine months to get an allowance. We should look now and in our debate on the coming budget at the possibility of reducing the waiting period to nine months.

I believe that if we are to make progress in these difficult times, we must depend on the small and the great rather than expect major industrial development from overseas. In that regard, it is a major disappointment that our local authorities are being deprived of grants to assist in works to help senior citizens, for example, bathrooms. When we consider this in respect of the recession in the building trade, we can see a ready made opportunity for the Government to provide employment to many of those who have lost jobs in the construction industry. The Government should examine all the applications for home improvement works for senior citizens in this regard. My colleague, Deputy Ciarán Lynch, had a list today of all the local authorities that had made applications for further funding in that area, almost every local authority in the country. If the Government was willing to take action in this regard and provide funding, we would instantly see an increase in employment throughout the country and at the same time address one of our major problems, namely, the loss of jobs in the construction industry.

My colleague also raised the issue of county enterprise boards. It is amazing that every county enterprise board ran out of funding after five months. With regard to enterprise and industry, it is the county enterprise boards that will be the backbone of any improvement in our situation, yet there is no funding available for them. We have been told the boards have funding for training, but there is no seed funding to generate jobs for the people they train. It is mind-boggling that funds are available to train people, but once trained they must wait until next year for funding to help any new business get off the ground.

I have heard another colleague, Senator Alan Kelly, comment on numerous occasions that no Department has a programme to follow up in this area or help move small and medium enterprises on to the next phase. I hope the Minister will look at the positive aspects of putting funding in place for county enterprise boards and of ensuring grant aid is provided for the next stage of development for medium and small enterprises.

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