Margaret Conlon (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

The Bill is necessary to implement the changes announced in budget 2009. Spending on social welfare will increase by almost €2.6 billion to more than €19.5 billion in 2009. The Minister for Social and Family Affairs has ensured €515 million worth of improvements in social welfare rates will be introduced in the upcoming year. Ireland is experiencing grave economic times compared to previous budgets. The Government has made difficult and unpopular decisions to secure our economic future but it was necessary to do so to help us out of these difficult times. If we wanted to be popular and populist, we would not have taken the course we did but it is the responsibility of government to govern.

Increases in rates of payment set out in the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill are broadly in line with inflation and thus, hopefully, will maintain the real value of social welfare payments. More than 1.7 million men, women and children will be recipients of these welfare payments — 440,000 pensioners, 345,000 ill and disabled persons, over 80,000 carers, 30,000 low-income working families availing of the family income supplement and over 580,000 families who receive child benefit payments. That is a significant number of people who have been taken into consideration by the Government.

The Minister, Deputy Hanafin, stated that this coming year will see an increase of €7 per week for all State pensioners, contributory and non-contributory, along with carers aged 66 and over. Increases for qualified adults ranges from €4.30 to €6.30 per week for those aged over 66. These changes will mean that a pensioner couple will have a weekly increase of €13.30 per week. We, in Government, have always been committed to ensuring that our pensioners are looked after. I welcome the Minister's announcement last night that she aims to announce a framework for future pensions policy by the end of the year.

Over €260 million extra is targeted to support people of working age who are claiming jobseeker's benefit or allowance, which increases by €6.50 per week to €204.30 per week from January 2009. Overall, some 733,000 people are in receipt of working age payments — jobseekers, one-parent families, those claiming illness benefit and disability allowance, as well as carers — will all benefit from increases in weekly personal rates in the coming year.

The earning threshold for family income supplement is to increase by €10 per child, which gives an increase of up to €6 per week per child. For those in receipt of social welfare payments with children, the qualified child increase rises from €24 to €26 per week from January. There is also an extension in the numbers eligible to claim the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. That is most welcome as the period before school commences is a financially difficult time for many parents.

The Minister also announced a number of changes in qualifying criteria for jobseekers benefit entitlement, which is being reduced from 15 to 12 months for recipients with 260 or more contributions and duration of less than six months. Where a person has less than 260 paid contributions, the benefit will now only be available for nine months instead of 12 months. A new change coming in January 2009 is the increase in the number of paid contributions required to qualify for jobseekers benefit, illness benefit and health and safety benefit, from 52 to 104.

A €13 to €18 per week increase is being initiated as the minimum contribution for people on rent supplement or in receipt of mortgage interest supplement. This will bring the personal contribution more into line with the level of rents paid by tenants in local authority accommodation on similar income levels.

In total, the new expenditure control measures contained in the social welfare budget will amount to net savings of €124.9 million when compensatory measures are taken into account, and this is to be welcomed. An issue that a number of my constituents have brought up is the entitlement of foreign nationals to welfare payments. Migrants or young workers who have only worked here for a total of one year are entitled to claim jobseeker payments for 12 months without having to satisfy a means test. However, appropriately, with these changed economic times, this will change from next January, when the number of required paid contributions will be doubled to 104 for new claimants. We cannot discriminate against foreign nationals in our country. They are entitled to claim legitimately in our country as we are in theirs.

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