Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I commend the Labour Party on tabling this important motion. It is particularly timely in light of the unfortunate, if somewhat expected, increase in the live register figures in the past month. That the unemployment figure is likely to exceed 450,000, as the Taoiseach has acknowledged, is a matter of great concern to everyone.

I will speak principally to those aspects of the motion which are related to social and family affairs. We are all aware of the increasing number of unemployed. To date, no action has been taken to ensure a system is in place which will treat people who apply for social welfare entitlements fairly and with dignity. In some areas people must wait for only two weeks to have applications for social welfare payments processed while in others the waiting time is up to 16 weeks. Unemployment benefit applicants are worst affected by these delays which are having a massive knock-on effect on the community welfare system.

The longer I am a Member of the House, the more I realise how little joined-up government we have. The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Hanafin, has stated that community welfare officers are not her problem as they are the responsibility of the Department of Health and Children. The Minister must accept that she is responsible for recipients of social welfare benefits. I have been unable to secure a satisfactory answer to the following question. How can a community welfare officer obtain all the information he or she needs from a person to adjudicate on an interim supplementary payment application within five days or one week when the Department of Social and Family Affairs takes up to 16 weeks to arrive at a decision? Community welfare officers, in making supplementary welfare payments, must have a good idea that applicants will be ultimately adjudged to be eligible for the payment. They do not hand out money willy-nilly but make good assessments within a few days, without forcing people to wait for long periods, as the Department does.

While I appreciate that additional staff have been transferred to work in the social welfare system, the number is not sufficient. We must bear in mind the training requirements for those working in the Department. These are technical roles and one cannot expect people to be able to do the job immediately. Change is needed and more staff must be deployed to this area to enable applicants to access their entitlements. The problem with making people wait for a payment is that it causes them to delay paying off debts. Although mortgages are of greatest concern, people also have to pay ESB and gas bills and credit union and car loans. They ran up bills or took out loans at a time when they did not envisage becoming unemployed. Suddenly they find themselves in major difficulty and unable to pay their bills or repay their loans.

A major problem has arisen in the administration of the mortgage interest supplement, largely because community welfare officers are extremely busy. The Money Advice and Budgeting Service requires additional resources to enable it to employ people with expertise in the mortgage area who are able to negotiate with financial institutions on behalf of MABS clients. The moratorium on repossessions does not go far enough as it applies only to the main financial institutions. The problem persists among sub-prime lenders which are not subject to the moratorium. These institutions actively encouraged people to consolidate all their loans, including those for holidays and so forth, in their mortgages using their homes as security. People in this position now find that the mortgage interest supplement is only payable on the portion of their mortgage which relates to their home. While it may not have been a responsible decision to consolidate loans in mortgages, people took this decision in a different climate and are now finding it difficult to cope. Changes are needed in this area. MABS, for example, should be resourced to tackle the problem.

On the back to education allowance, we heard a great deal about education and training at the recent Fianna Fáil Party Ard-Fheis and the Government made an announcement in this area this evening. We must ensure people do not have to wait 12 months to become eligible for the back to education payment but are instead facilitated to attend a third level course. Under the current criteria, a person who loses his or her job in October must wait for 12 months before becoming eligible for the allowance. At that point, however, the college term for the following year will have commenced and the person will have to wait 23 months before being able to commence a third level course. Despite the 12-month eligibility condition many applicants must wait for much longer. Even as matters stand, 12 months is too long to wait.

While I accept exceptions have been made for employment action plan and redundancy areas, only a small number of people have managed to access courses through this stream. I ask the Minister to review the eligibility criteria for the back to education allowance. We need to ensure that rather than being a purely negative event, the loss of one's job will be regarded by some people at least as an opportunity to change career direction or up-skill. Quicker access to the allowance would mean that losing one's job would not be a major crisis for some individuals. The difference between the back to education allowance and jobseeker's allowance is €500 per annum. The implementation of the former lacks common sense and must be changed.

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