Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputies for contributing to this Social Welfare Bill, which takes into account not only provisions that need to be implemented regarding social welfare but also other provisions, particularly from the Department of Health and Children. The Department of Finance must also be considered in this regard because of the timely nature of this Bill. As I indicated last night, a number of legislative changes are still necessary but were not ready in time for this Bill. In the interest of clarity and so Members will be prepared, I will indicate the amendments I intend to introduce on Committee Stage, one of which I have not mentioned yet.

I am conscious of the impact the current global recession is having on the value of Irish pension funds. It is estimated that in excess of 90% of defined benefit schemes are in deficit. This is presenting trustees of pension schemes with significant challenges in their efforts to optimise the benefits for pension scheme members. Deputies will be aware that we put a number of measures in place last December to ease the funding pressures of these schemes. While these were helpful in the shorter term, I must indicate my intention to introduce further measures that will support the job of the trustees of the schemes in meeting the challenges that confront them and provide greater flexibility and regulatory support to improve the affordability and viability of defined benefit pension schemes. With regard to a separate but related issue, I will also be amending the National Treasury Management Agency Act.

I propose to introduce amendments to protect 18 and 19 year olds leaving the care of the HSE to ensure their additional needs can be met. I will be making a technical amendment to section 7 dealing with the supplementary welfare allowance. I will be making some technical amendments to section 12 of the Bill. I will deal with amendments to the Health Contributions Act and provide a saver provision to ensure that health contribution deductions made on redundancy payments received on or before 30 April 2009 will be made at the old, lower rates.

As Deputies will be aware, the Bill provides that the rates at which health contributions are to be made are to be increased from 1 May. As these changes are being made in the middle of the contribution year, provision must be made to average the new rates over the year. This is provided for in the new section 4A(1). However, one of the consequences of the provision would be that an individual who received a redundancy payment prior to 1 May and who paid health contributions at the rates in place until then would be caught for the extra payment due in accordance with section 4A(1). It is proposed to address this by providing a saver provision that will ensure the health contributions deduction made on any such payments made on or before 30 April would be made at the old saver rates.

I will be introducing an amendment to the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act 2009 to provide for the changes announced in the supplementary budget regarding the public service pension levy. The Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, indicated that as the Bill, as initiated, provides for the termination of the early child care supplement from 1 January 2010, it will be necessary to make a technical amendment to the Bill to amend that date to 1 December 2009. This will not affect the payment in December because the payments are made a month in arrears. People will continue to get the payment in December. This clarifies the Committee Stage amendments I intend to make next week. I am sure Deputies will have amendments also.

A number of different issues arise in the Bill. Quite rightly, Deputies have focused on the desire of all Members in the House to have people return to work and to support those who have lost their jobs. The size of the social welfare budget, €21.3 billion, is such that our focus must be and is on having people return to employment. Doing so not only supports the unemployed and respects their contribution to society, it also helps to reduce the social welfare budget. At a time when €6 of every €10 entering the Exchequer is spent on social welfare, we would much rather have the burden reduced so as to be able to target resources at the most needy.

We should not lose sight of the fact that there are still 1.8 million people working in Ireland and they continue to make a considerable contribution. Our aim is to help those who do not have the correct skills and training or who need to be upskilled to return to work. This was the principle behind the initiative regarding 18 and 19 year olds. In fairness, many Deputies who spoke appreciate the importance of ensuring that an 18 or 19 year old does not become dependent on welfare. We all know of cases where the 18 year old is trotted into the social welfare office by the family almost on his or her birthday and told "Sign here, I have done it and your grandfather has done it". There is this intergenerational dependency on welfare. Unfortunately, those young people, because they are the most likely to have dropped out of school and not to have training or education, are those who are destined to remain on welfare for the rest of their lives, and none of us wants to see that happen. As I indicated, however, unless there is some financial incentive for them, our evidence is that the cohort of people to which I refer, in particular, will not participate off their own bat.

There are thousands of places available for these young people, probably 5,000 on a weekly basis, and maybe rising to 9,000 next year. Already in the budget we indicated additional places that are being provided between the training initiative strategy where 12,000 places are to be provided on short-term and on long-term courses, transition courses, certificate courses, full-time third level places and additional ones being provided.

Many Deputies asked whether there will be enough places. As an indication, the VTOS schemes provide 5,000 places and a number of these would suit that. The post-leaving certificate courses, if these young people have their leaving certificate, provide 31,688 places. There are plenty of places around the country.

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