Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and I congratulate the Minister on increasing the Department's budget. That she has a budget of more than €21.1 billion to spend in 2010 to support 2.1 million people was referred to earlier. I accept that more people are in need of social welfare as unemployment has increased. It has stabilised and I hope it will remain so for next year.

The Minister has spoken much about fraud and I am glad the Bill provides for new anti-fraud measures such as exchanging information with other countries on people in receipt of social welfare payments; increasing the powers of social welfare inspectors and customs officers; and obtaining more information from financial institutions about individuals suspected of involvement in welfare fraud. This is all very welcome.

There has not been much debate about one particular payment that I would like to discuss and that is farm assist. It has been raised at many IFA meetings I attended. We know farmers have had a very difficult year. I attended nine IFA meetings with my colleagues in east Galway over the past month and many of the contributors at the meetings spoke about extra farmers applying for farm assist. Perhaps the Minister will provide us with figures on this when she replies. A question of funding is raised for people making these applications.

On top of all the difficulties in farming, in my home county of Galway there was serious flooding which affected north, south, east and west Galway, particularly the town of Ballinasloe in south Galway where it is still a huge issue. Many people have spoken about a single authority to maintain and manage rivers and drainage districts. I call for a single authority to provide funding for people affected by flooding, whether householders or farmers. No matter where the money comes from we must have a co-ordinator, one person or body, to deal with that funding. The Department of Social and Family Affairs has been very involved in the humanitarian side of the funding. I wish it well and I hope it continues to do so. A figure of €70 million was mentioned in the budget for structural funds. A total of €10 million was mentioned earlier which I do not think is enough but I hope it will be increased. A figure of €2 million was mentioned with regard to fodder for livestock. Let us hope the Department of Social and Family Affairs will continue to provide assistance.

I was very glad to hear the Minister state that the 107 family resource centres will be protected. I recall a meeting held a month ago in Ballygar in County Galway to which all of the family resource centres in County Galway were invited and where we had an excellent debate on the work done by the resource centres. The work was explained, particularly that with the less well off and disadvantaged. It is very important that those resource centres are supported. I welcome the extra payments in the qualified child allowance and the increase in the thresholds for the family income supplement.

A total of €7 million has been allocated for the roll-out of the new public service card. This card will contain a photograph and signature which will help to combat fraud. The Government has an important role in giving priority to job creation and the Department of Social and Family Affairs can play a great role in this. The Minister spoke about a scheme whereby an employer takes on an extra employee with an exemption from paying PRSI for the first year of employment. That is very welcome.

I hope the €6.4 billion for labour intensive projects in 2010 will be successful and school buildings and maintenance, energy efficiency measures and investing in tourism and tourism infrastructure will be important in this regard. An extra €50 million will be provided for retrofitting programmes and will create up to 5,000 jobs in 2010.

I welcome the fact that the State pension was not decreased. The elderly have made a great contribution to society. They do not have the option of going back to work to supplement their incomes and having worked all their lives they should not have to rely on their children to live in dignity. That is very welcome. No change has been made in the threshold for medical card holders. Those aged over 66 years of age, amounting to 474,000 people, are fully protected in the budget and I welcome this. I also welcome the fact that as well as receiving the State pension, older people will continue to receive free travel, a free television licence, electricity and gas allowances and that other allowances such as the living alone allowance, the over 80 age allowance and fuel allowances will not change.

There are very good proposals in the Bill and in the budget for 2010. It is difficult when payments are not being increased. All Governments in the past stated that they would make announcements. One change is that the cost of living has decreased. We see this in tenders for school buildings, to which reference was made earlier. The Minister for Education and Science told us of the reduced tender prices he obtained for schools. One's euro goes a little further and that is welcome. As I stated, initially the Department of Social and Family Affairs received more money for all of its schemes at a very difficult time. Now, we must try to support the extra people who need help. The extra €660 million which the Minister managed to put into the social welfare budget is very welcome.

The concept of a one-stop shop has been mentioned on many occasions and it could be introduced in conjunction with the new card being introduced. Once one has a card with one's photograph and signature on it, which I hope will deal with fraud, one would also have an opportunity to consider work. A controversial aspect of the Bill is the question of young people losing funding. A central place where they could go and make their case for job opportunities would be very welcome.

I am not convinced that many opportunities exist in rural Ireland, particularly for FÁS courses, because FÁS schemes are filled in most places. There is a rural social scheme for those who draw farm assist and that is very welcome. Sometimes that has more opportunities because there is not the same time limits on the amount of years one spends on a scheme. It would be great for people to avail of opportunities and incentives to work through FÁS, where we need more places, or through the rural social scheme, which could cover a larger area. If courses are held in larger towns we will have a problem.

I commend the Bill. This is a start. The Minister has the extra money and I hope that in the years to come, particularly when we have more people back in employment, we will be able to use some of the extra funding to help those in long-term unemployment, whether people with disabilities, pensioners or people who do not return to work. We face a big challenge to find jobs for those unemployed and for those seeking employment.

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