Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I will share time with Deputies Arthur Morgan and Mary Upton. I commend Fine Gael on bringing this motion to the House. I agree with the majority of its proposals, and the Labour Party will support it in full in the vote tomorrow night.

Yet again, we find ourselves in here discussing long queues at social welfare offices. In recent days, the Department of Social and Family Affairs provided me with figures which showed an escalating problem with 27 welfare offices now having a waiting time of nine weeks or more for jobseeker allowance applicants. Bandon, with a waiting time of 14 weeks, has the worst record in the country. Drogheda and Edenderry are next with waiting times of 13 weeks while Boyle, Castlepollard and Loughrea have waiting times of 12 weeks.

Last week, the Secretary General of the Department told the Committee of Public Accounts that the target waiting time was five weeks. This is not good enough. We are not discussing a reservation for a posh restaurant, we are talking about someone's income. People need to know where they stand in order that they can adjust their household budgets accordingly. The actual position at present is that 63 welfare offices, more than half of the total, have average waiting times of more than five weeks. This is not acceptable.

I have examined these figures in detail. While the single biggest problem is the force of numbers turning up to sign on, there are also clear organisational difficulties. For instance, the rate of increase of numbers signing on is below average in Drogheda, yet this office has the second longest wait time in the country. By contrast, the number signing on at the Westport office has risen by 120% in a year, which is well above average, yet that office has a waiting time of just two weeks.

I am not convinced that the present system works at times of high demand or that there is enough flexibility generally within the public sector to deal with such problems. The problem was evident at least six months ago, yet even the staff which the Minister has been able to secure are not yet in place. I would implore the Minister to find the staff and to reduce the waiting times because people who have lost their jobs deserve nothing less.

I also want to speak about mortgages. I am particularly disappointed that the motion does not include a proposal on mortgage interest supplement because it is a very pressing issue. The boom-bust policies of Fianna Fáil did not just mess up our public finances, they have left a permanent hefty monthly bill for thousands of Irish homeowners. This has been largely overlooked by the media in recent months. It is fair to say that safeguards for mortgage holders have played second fiddle to safeguards for mortgage providers during the current financial crisis. It is long past time this imbalance was addressed.

The code of conduct on mortgage arrears is incredibly weak. The focus on delaying home repossessions instead of dealing with the debt issue itself is a major flaw. Very little protection remains for people struggling with their mortgages. At the Labour Party conference in Mullingar last weekend I called for several key commitments from the Government and the banks on mortgages.

There has to be a total overhaul of the mortgage interest supplement scheme. I am very concerned for the future of many families if the scheme is not changed soon. Most of the rules for this scheme were set down before the housing boom. They reflect a time when mortgages were much lower and were paid back with one wage rather than two. At present, if one of a couple works 30 or more hours a week, they do not qualify regardless of how high their mortgage is or how low their income may be. The figure of 30 hours seems to be arbitrary and it does not relate to the circumstances in which people find themselves. For many families, it means that where one partner has lost employment, the other must reduce his or her working hours or give up work altogether. Very often, this is the only way they can continue to meet the cost of their mortgage.

In recent weeks, I have had contact from dozens of newly unemployed people, such as painters, printers, plasterers, carpenters, builders and electricians each with high mortgages and young families. I had to tell each and every one of them that they are better off on the dole and their partners are too. If the rules are not changed quickly, it is only a matter of time before people will be giving up their marriages instead of giving up their jobs in order that the family is not made homeless. There must be a better way.

The Government is the first to tell those struggling with debt that the worst thing one can do is to ignore the problem, yet this is exactly what the Government is doing in respect of the mounting crisis of private mortgage debt. There are at least four areas where the Government could make a difference. The Government should scrap the 30-hour rule that penalises people because they work. It should revise the means test for the supplement to ensure it does not act as a disincentive to work as it does at present. It should examine ways in which the State could revise the shared ownership scheme to help struggling home-owners to qualify, thereby allowing the State to take equity in the home which could be paid back over a more manageable timeframe and at a more manageable rate. The Government should get the banks, which have just received €7 billion in welfare payments themselves, to postpone interest payments for struggling mortgage holders for two years. It is in no one's interest that family homes are repossessed, families are separated or workers are forced onto the live register. Yet these will be the consequences if the Government does not act quickly.

I also want to discuss those on fixed rate mortgages. For mortgage holders on a tracker mortgage, the cost of interest on their monthly payment has declined significantly, by approximately 26%, in the past 12 months. This has helped somewhat to offset the pay cuts, extra taxes and extra levies with which people have been faced. It has also helped them to meet higher costs on items such as groceries, insurance, child care and GP fees which continue to increase. However, not everyone has been so lucky. Mortgage holders on a fixed-rate mortgage also have had to bear all these extra costs, cuts and charges, yet their monthly mortgage bill has not reduced. For most, there is a very hefty penalty if they try to switch. One constituent told me his bank is charging him €14,000 to switch from his 12-year fixed rate mortgage. It is time the banks played their part. It should be possible for the banks to offer a once-off penalty-free switch to a variable rate mortgage to existing customers or at least to reduce the penalty significantly. The Government should have made this a condition of financial support.

The motion also refers to the role of MABS. MABS already has a role in mortgage renegotiation and debt settlement, although this could be improved with more resources. I am concerned about the growth of for-profit intermediaries for people experiencing debt. I received an e-mail from one such intermediary last week, as I am sure other Members did also. It talks of doing all the things that MABS does but for a price. There is a delicate balance to be struck between allowing people the free choice of paying someone to handle their affairs and at the same time ensuring their obvious vulnerability is not exploited when a free State-supported service already exists.

I would like the Minister to arrange for the publication of the waiting times at each MABS office. Debt problems, by their very nature, require immediate attention and it encourages recourse to money-lending if people are turned off by long waiting times. Statistics on this would be helpful in identifying where extra resources are most required. They would also, I expect, promote greater efficiency in the overall service.

I welcome this motion which covers a wide range of issues which face those who have lost their jobs in recent times. When people experience the trauma of losing their jobs they are in a very vulnerable position. The least they should expect is that when they turn to the State for assistance, such assistance is available in a timely, professional and caring manner. Regrettably, due to the inadequate resources that are allocated to the area, that is not the situation at the moment. This area needs to be tackled immediately.

The issue of growing personal debt, which is just below the radar at the moment, will be a major problem in the future. The Government needs to take action to deal with it. I commend Fine Gael on bringing this issue to the floor of the House, and I confirm that the motion will receive the full support of the Labour Party.

See this speech in context