Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

I acknowledge yesterday's announcement by Hewlett-Packard to provide 500 new jobs in County Kildare with the possible extension of that figure over time. It gives a boost to Kildare in these current economic difficulties and it would be remiss of us if that were not acknowledged.

Redundancy places much pressure and concerns on families. Every Member has referred to the problems faced by those who have to attend social welfare and community welfare offices for unemployment payments. As the numbers rise quickly, many people are forced to queue in the streets in all sorts of weather, despite the best efforts of social welfare staff. Recently, I spoke about this to the manager in the Kildare town social welfare office and as a result five extra staff were appointed.

Due to the backlog in processing claims and the delay in payments, many people have had to go to their community welfare officers. The officers have been inundated with calls from people seeking assistance payments with mortgage relief and, in many cases, for just putting food on the table.

I asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs to provide back-up staff for community welfare officers to deal with the increasing numbers of claimants to be informed that Professor Brendan Drumm, chief executive of the Health Service Executive, would provide them. Everyone knows from this evening's headlines that the Health Service Executive is cutting back nearly all its services. There is no hope of community welfare officers getting any back-up staff. Will the Minister address this staffing issue comprehensively to ensure people are assisted? If we are waiting for Brendan Drumm to do it, it simply will not happen.

I have raised with the Minister on a previous occasion the matter of apprentices in SR Technics. Last week I met the apprentices with other Labour Party Members. It is a pity that such highly trained personnel are not able to complete their apprenticeships. I hope the Government will address this matter.

Deputy White referred to the national building insulation programme, an initiative that will hopefully gain momentum. There is, however, a problem with the grants being set too low. For example, the grant for the insulation of a roof comes to €250. The minimum costing I have got in my area from contractors is €700. That leaves a substantial cash shortfall for the home owner which would be particularly difficult for senior citizens. If this is allowed to remain, we will be wondering this time next year why the grants were not drawn down.

No local authority has received funding for care of the elderly grants. I put down several parliamentary questions on this matter to the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, with responsibility for housing, Deputy Michael Finneran. He claimed he was, against the tide, providing an extra 8% in grants yet no decision has been made in regard to providing the funding.

Deputy Stagg and I recently attended a meeting of Kildare County Council which has committed grants of €2 million and uncommitted grants of €5 million, a total of €7 million. The injection of that amount of money by a local authority would have an immediate positive effect on the building trade. More importantly, the senior citizen would benefit accordingly. Every local authority has lists of elderly people who need their houses repaired with, for example, downstairs showers installed. It would be a wonderful initiative if the Government provided that funding in tandem with the national insulation programme.

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