Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I will focus mainly on the difficulties being experienced by those in receipt of social welfare or attempting to access social welfare benefits. Before doing so, I wish to make clear my abhorrence that we are effectively speaking in a vacuum in this debate. The Dáil is the seat of democracy in this State, or it is supposed to be, but it is being treated like a debating society where we can only speak in generalities about what is happening in the real world. Despite the absence of any concrete proposals from the Government, other than what we obtained courtesy of the The Irish Times today, I wish to be constructive in my contribution to the debate.

However, it must be emphasised that it is time the Government stopped trying to have it both ways. Last week, we had less than half a day to debate the situation in regard to Anglo Irish Bank. It is clear the Government wants this House to write it a blank cheque for whatever it wants to do, without offering any engagement with Members. Given that the Government must have known this information would be leaked, it could at least have pretended to have some respect for the Dáil by leaving the documentation in our pigeon-holes this morning. It is clear where the Government stands in this regard.

Nobody underestimates the scale of the difficulties we face. We on this side of the House certainly do not. My colleague, Deputy Bruton, has warned time and again of the challenges ahead and offered various solutions to those difficulties. Fine Gael has made many constructive suggestions on what should be done in particular areas but, unfortunately, the Government has not heeded our advice.

I listened with interest to the points made by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Hanafin, in a radio interview this morning. I am relieved that she and her Government finally admit there is a significant problem in terms of the scale of job losses and that she is no longer accusing Members on this side of the House of being alarmist in making this point. However, I am unconvinced that she is delivering sufficient staff to deal with the crisis. Members of the Government have taken to using the phrase, "We are where we are." In other words, let us not examine how we have come to be in this situation.

The reality is that if the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, does not begin to act far more quickly than she has done to date, we will be in a much worse position. I asked her last October to assign additional staff to social welfare offices throughout the State, describing in detail to her the difficulties faced by both claimants and staff, all of whom are working extremely hard. Eventually, in December, the provision of an additional 115 staff was announced. Today, on 29 January, the Minister tells us these 115 persons are "coming in". In other words, they have not yet been appointed. Moreover, many of them still require to be trained. The Minister has indicated that she will seek to make an additional 100 appointments, on top of these 115. However, this will be insufficient to meet demand if 120,000 people join the live register this year.

If social welfare offices cannot deal with demand, every politician will advise constituents that the next port of call should be the community welfare officer. Social welfare offices are all dealing with separate schemes but community welfare officers are processing almost everything in the interim, including applications for rent supplement, mortgage interest supplement and exceptional needs payments, assessments for medical cards and exceptional needs payments for electricity, gas and so on. They handle dozens of claims every day. Each officer is supposed to deliver three clinics per week on average, but these are currently running way over time because of the numbers of applicants. Community welfare officers are unable to deal with the scale of demand. This is something the Minister must address.

One of the greatest fears people have at the moment — I am glad it is reflected in this document — is the fear of losing one's home. The Taoiseach said yesterday that the Government is acting to support mortgage holders who get into arrears in their mortgage repayments. I want to let him and every other Member know that the Minister for Social and Family Affairs does not collate the information on the number of people who have applied for the mortgage interest supplement. She does not know that figure. MABS has stated its concern that the increase in the number of applications is resulting in an increase in the number of refusals, which more or less correspond with each other. The regulatory provisions are being interpreted in an overly restrictive and punitive manner.

The Government is telling us in the framework document that it will assist those people. How will it do so? We raised this matter again with the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, many months ago and the Government did nothing about it. She said on radio this morning that the Government will deal with the issue of apprentices who have lost their jobs. Last June Fine Gael outlined how those in the IT sector could be brought in to assist in dealing with apprentices who have lost their jobs. The Tánaiste, Deputy Coughlan, announced at Christmas a plan to deal with this issue. Thousands of apprentices have lost their jobs. To date, the Government has assisted the grand total 97 people.

The Government needs to accept the scale of this problem and to act, and not only talk about how it will deal with it. It needs to listen to what is being said on this side of the House because constructive measures have been offered. The problem is that the Government waits until the issue develops into a political situation. It does not want to be seen to almost give in to the Opposition. It is not listening to what is being said and the solutions that have been put forward.

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