Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

In the recent budget, the Government had three main priorities, namely, to restore order and stability in the public finances, to increase productivity and competitiveness and to protect the most vulnerable in our country. Social welfare was prioritised in the budget. Next year, total funding for the Department of Social and Family Affairs will be €19.6 billion. This represents an increase of €2.6 billion or 15.5% on the Estimates allocation for 2008. More than 1.7 million people and their dependants will benefit from this expenditure, including 440,000 pensioners, 345,000 ill and disabled people, more than 80,000 carers, 30,000 low income working families availing of the family income supplement and more than 580,000 families in receipt of child benefit payments.

Provision has been made for €515 million worth of improvements in social welfare rates and qualifying conditions. These include €7 extra per week for State pensioners, an extra €2 per week in the fuel allowance, with payment also being made for an additional two weeks, €6.50 extra per week for welfare recipients of working age, such as those on job seekers and illness payments, and increases in the qualified adult allowance, which maintain the value of that payment as a proportion of the personal rate. The budget also provides for an increase of €2 per week, or 8.3%, in the qualified child increase, bringing it to €26 per child per week.

The qualifying threshold for the family income supplement, FIS, is also being increased by €10 per child to benefit low income working families with children. This change will result in an average increase of approximately €6 per child and will ensure that approximately 2,000 additional families will become eligible for the payment next year. Some 18,000 more families will benefit from the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance next year.

All weekly income maintenance payments increased by amounts varying from 3% to 3.8% in the budget, thereby fully protecting people from inflation, which is predicted to average 2.5% next year. The increases are also ahead of the projected growth in gross average industrial earnings next year and are in line with the wage increases agreed by the social partners in the second phase of the national pay agreement.

In its poverty impact assessment using the ESRI's SWITCH model, the Department established that the social welfare budget proposals would lead to a reduction in the risk of poverty. At a time when it is essential that public expenditure be strictly controlled in the national interest, this increased provision for social welfare is an unambiguous statement of the Government's intention to protect the vulnerable and less well-off in society.

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