Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)

This latest Social Welfare Bill will hit hardest the former poster children of the Celtic tiger. Young families with large mortgages and young children will be most affected by these proposals. It will also hit those who did not benefit from the Celtic tiger by reducing rent allowance and halving the jobseeker's allowance in certain cases. The Bill is the latest from a Government which is out of touch. Irish people want to see those who did the best during the boom times paying their share but this is simply not happening and this Bill is doing nothing to move in that direction.

The decision to reduce mortgage interest supplement to seven years is a serious decision which will have negative consequences for thousands of families across the State. One of the legacies of the Ahern-Cowen era of Government will be the reckless way in which they allowed the housing market to be inflated. Massive tax incentives were offered to landlords. The media is also culpable, given its relentless promotion of the property ladder.

The net result was that many people bought houses for huge sums, often a long distance from their work or families. They were encouraged to do this and offered mortgages beyond their wildest dreams. They were given access to funds when anyone looking at the conditions and the prospects of repayment would have suggested there were sure to be tears at the end of the rainbow, not a pot of gold. However, young families needed a home and bought into the dream.

The mortgage interest supplement is now to be reduced to seven years. People are struggling to pay their mortgages as the banks, which the Government guaranteed on behalf of this country, continue to charge sizeable interest despite the historically low interest rates. Surely, it would not have been too much to ask that these banks do some service to the State and to the suffering families by offering a penalty-free switching window for those on fixed rate mortgages. Instead of trying to relieve hard-pressed householders by driving a hard bargain on their behalf, the Government has cut costs and brought serious misery to people across this country who bought into their vision of the board game "Monopoly".

The Labour Party fully supports the policy of the provision of one year of free early child care to all children in the State and it is one we have backed for a long time, although not as a back door to cutting the early child care supplement. As Deputy Shortall pointed out, this may have been a sweetener when it was introduced but the reality now is that families have come to depend on it and it has become part of their standard budget. Cutting it will cause serious hardship for them. The new scheme is not established and the question is whether it will it be ready when the early child care supplement is abolished. Cutting the early child care supplement between now and the end of the year, as is due to happen, will only drive up costs for young families when crèche fees are increasing.

For those who have fallen on hard times the Bill is no saviour. The decision to cut rent allowance has been addressed by Deputy Shortall but a number of issues arise. The minimum contribution is being increased by 33% and the rent allowance is being reduced by 8% for existing claimants, with maximum claims for future tenants being reduced by between 6% and 10%. The decision to reduce payments by 8% is based on the assumption that landlords will have no choice but to reduce the rent charged by this amount but this is by no means certain.

In Dublin city, there are thousands of people on the housing list who are in receipt of rent allowance. They will not necessarily be able to take advantage of the cheap rents available in other parts of the country, nor will many of them be in a position to drive a bargain with a greedy landlord. They will be left at risk and vulnerable. Those who will be most affected by this decision will be those who need a large house and who may be relying on only one rent allowance to house a family of four, for example. The nightmare scenario is that these people could end up homeless. Instead of an arbitrary reduction in rent allowance we should have had reform and a move towards a system of support based on dependence. Instead the heavy hand of the Government has merely come down with a harsh and probably counterproductive decision, most likely to hurt those who can least afford it.

Another issue which my party will be raising in Private Members' time is the decision to cut the Christmas bonus to all social welfare recipients. I intend speaking on the motion, but suffice to say that while I know it does not need legislation and is not contained in the Bill, this is a sneaky and underhand move which will cause misery for many people at the most expensive time of year.

The decision to cut the jobseeker's allowance for under 20s to €100 is another poor decision. The Government's pedigree of such sweeping decisions is not good. No one wants people to graduate from school onto the dole. However, there must be opportunities for everyone and they must know those opportunities are available and the places exist. We have yet to be presented with a concrete plan to show that anyone under 20 who wants to continue in education or training will be able to do so. As the number of courses in the PLC colleges is capped, where are the places likely to arise? There is no certainty that everyone who wants to will have access to an appropriate course or training programme. I have already received e-mails on the capping on the number of places on PLCs which, of course, have been in place for a long time. It means that people who want to get onto those courses now will not be able to do so. I hope more concrete plans are in place in that regard.

The Social Welfare Bill offers nothing to protect the most vulnerable and does nothing to help people who have lost their jobs. Instead it seeks to reduce access to entitlements such as mortgage interest supplement or to scrap others such as the Christmas bonus and the early child care supplement. At the same time, those who profited most are being bailed out by NAMA.

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