David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

A number of figures jump out at us from the Minister's speech. One in particular that is a cause of concern is that the revised live register figures showed an initial estimate last October of 290,000, a figure that has now been recalculated to 440,000. We now face extra costs of €1.97 billion for social welfare payments this year. This is horrendous. One thing that seems to be missing from the Government's strategy and thinking is the area of job creation and incentivisation. This should be our priority.

The changes in the back to work enterprise allowance are interesting. People who are self-employed are, obviously, people with initiative. The back to work enterprise allowance is designed to encourage such people to set up their own businesses, which is welcome. Other speakers have mentioned some of the issues in that regard, but I will not go into them now. However, I would like to draw attention to the plight of those people who were self-employed until recently, but who have now lost their work and businesses. I understand these people are not eligible for the jobseeker's benefit payment because of the rate of PRSI they paid. Neither are they eligible for the jobseeker's allowance because of their income in the previous years. They may have children in college, but because of their previous income these are not eligible for maintenance payments.

I have met some such people who now have absolutely no income. Their business is gone and they have no income. In many cases, this has happened through no fault of their own. These people worked hard all their lives, set up their businesses and toiled at them and paid their dues and taxes. They have paid their way, but are now left hanging out to dry. I see no provision in the Bill to assist these people. The least the Minister should consider should be to make the jobseeker's allowance available to them, which would mean a change in the legislation. At least they would then be able to claim that allowance. Currently, these people have no income and when any savings they have are gone, they are left with nothing. I appeal to the Minister to make provision for these people straight away.

The early education and care area is also of interest. We were told the early child care supplement was introduced to cover child care costs. Child care costs include early education and as studies have shown, the quality of early education is important and has a profound impact into the future. I suggest that even if early education costs are paid, high child care costs still remain. Many families have got used to the availability of the supplement and have budgeted for it. It might, therefore, have been a good idea to means test for it so that it could be continued for people on lower incomes. The Minister should consider that. When the supplement was introduced we were told it was being introduced to cover child care costs. I criticised the measure at the time because due to the fact it operated under European legislation, it was also paid in respect of children in other countries whose parents were working here. These were often in countries with highly developed child care and early education systems anyway. I understand this payment will probably not continue, but I suggest we should consider keeping a payment for people who need it. There were also issues raised in the House at the time about trying to ensure that stay at home parents were supported, as well as working parents. This was a significant issue and was one of the reasons the Government brought in the €1,000 per annum payment at the time.

With regard to changes in the back to education allowance, in her speech the Minister equated the payment third level students get from the State through grants with the payments received by the same age cohort of people who do not attend third level and said the payment for all of these should be the same. She also spoke about incentivising people to go to work and said that was the reason she was reducing the payment. She suggested if they received less money, they might be inclined to take up courses. I agree young people should be encouraged and helped to take up work. I would like to hear what additional resources the Government intends to put in place to help young people to avail of these courses or to take up work.

Often, a youngster who leaves school goes straight into work. That quite a number did so in recent years might have been a down side of the Celtic tiger. They are now out of work. If they are younger than 20 years of age, their payments will be halved. If the Government does not put FÁS courses, educational opportunities and the requisite guidance in place, I would worry. Many young people need to be guided, to have someone sit down with them to tell them what is available and how to get there, but this was not mentioned by the Minister. In some ways, the Minister was trying to say that we should try to turn the cutbacks into a positive. Social engineering is being brought in.

The rent supplement was introduced as a short-term payment. However, the Government's social housing policy has failed. According to the Minister, the number receiving rent supplement has increased by 40% in 18 months and 84,000 households are in receipt of it, although we do not know how many people are involved in respect of the latter. The payment was introduced in 2005 as a means for the State to provide long-term rental accommodation via the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, to households in receipt of rent supplement payments for 18 months or longer.

Despite a budget allocation of €114 million between 2005 and 2008, only €87.5 million has been spent. In January, I was advised that the €87.5 million has only secured private rental accommodation for approximately 9,400 households and has little impact on rent supplement costs. However, the Minister noted that the number of transfers to RAS will increase to 9,000, given her agreement with the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government on a further 1,000 transfers. Will she clarify the total number on RAS? When RAS was introduced, the initial target for 2005 was to move 5,000 households away from long-term rent supplement dependence into permanent rental accommodation. Five years later, not even twice that number have been moved.

Trying to control rents is useful. The State probably indirectly owns a great deal of housing that has been lying idle, given the nationalisation of one bank and our support for other banks. Could it be used for social housing? We need this type of imaginative movement.

Reverting to my initial point on job creation, the last thing that we need is for hundreds of thousands of people to be sitting at home, staring at the wall with nothing to do. This is bad for people's mental health. Some commentators have even cited an increase in burglaries, claiming that people with little money and nothing else to do might decide to turn to that business, which we would not like to see occurring. Unless we get to grips with this situation, I am concerned about social unrest. Let us see what we can do to create and incentivise jobs and to get people back into work or training, even if it involves some type of social employment scheme. This would be crucial.

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