Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

The motion calls on the Government to reverse the unjust cuts directly affecting carers, the blind and the persons with disabilities.

The argument made here last week by Members on the Government side was that there was no alternative to the cuts to these vulnerable groups in our society. That is just not the case. For example, a constituent of mine, John, is a single parent and full-time carer of his 16 year old son, Seán, who is autistic and requires 24/7 supervision. If John turns his back on Seán, his son can pull down the kettle on top of himself; he must be managed on an ongoing basis. So difficult was Seán to manage that his mother, John's wife, just up and left. She could not cope with Seán's difficulties. John, whose application for the half-rate carer's allowance is being appealed, has seen his one-parent family payment cut by €8.30. Seán's disability allowance payment has been cut by a further €8.30 and Seán's child benefit has been cut by €3.70 a week. In total, this family has lost €1,000 or a 5% cut, even without the consideration of the Christmas bonus, which is another 2%. Those cuts are well in excess of inflation, which is currently running at 2.8%.

I read some of the media commentary last week after the budget and one article really got me thinking. It was an article in the Irish Independent on Ms Helen McGee and her son Martin who live in Clondalkin. Martin is Down's Syndrome and has severe cardiac problems. She is out of pocket, along with Martin, €16.80 a week in household income and on top of that, they will pay approximately €5 a month in additional prescription charges. The most damning indictment of the system that we have created in this country and the impact of the budget on real lives was her comment, "The only thing I can cut back on now is heating because I've cut back on everything else over the last while." Anyone who has any understanding of carers of persons with a disability, the work they do and the role they play in a home, will know the impact cutting back on heating will have on that individual. The decision of that parent to cut back on heating to save money does not do any of us here proud and is a damning indictment of the system we have created. Never mind the direct cuts, there are also stealth charges such as the increase in the cost of petrol and the prescription charges that I mentioned earlier.

It is not just about the financial impact, but about what this says of our society. The Taoiseach highlighted this quite recently when he stated that budgets are not simply about balancing books, as we all would agree, but about acknowledging what we all see as important in our society. Carers are important in our society. The average full-time carer in Ireland saves the State approximately €40,000 each year, but the budget ignored the value of carers. The Government's stated policy is to keep people in their own homes for as long as possible, but by cutting the carer's allowance and disability payments the Government is ignoring that policy. The National Carer's Strategy, which was to have been published two years ago, has been shelved.

In my constituency, home care package supports have been withdrawn because of the need to carry out the swine flu vaccination programme. In the "fair deal" scheme of nursing home packages where people are forced to go into nursing homes, the HSE is not processing those applications and is forcing many to remain in acute hospital settings at a cost of more than €1,000 a day. Some 64% of people with intellectual disabilities remain in their own homes being provided with full-time care by their relatives, which saves the State an estimated €70,000 per annum. The announcement in the budget does not acknowledge this.

In the Department of Health and Children, front-line services are being cut back. There is a €50 million cut in spending on disability services provided through the voluntary organisations. The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs earlier this year withdrew the community supports for older persons. In the Department of Education and Science, we see the fight to get basic services provided to children and the delays in processing applications through the system denying children with intellectual disabilities the supports they require within the education system. The cuts to the disability allowance and to the blind pension will have a devastating effect on persons with disabilities who already find it difficult to make ends meet on a daily basis. This sector already has much higher levels of poverty than other groups in our population. People with disabilities already have a higher cost of living, particular for heating, housing and transport.

We were told here last week that the Government has no choice but to proceed with the cutbacks outlined. The Labour Party put forward a set of proposals that the Government could have considered, Sinn Féin put forward a set of proposals the Government could have considered and Fine Gael put forward extremely detailed and costed proposals the Government could have implemented. The objective behind my party's proposals was to create jobs and to protect carers, persons with disabilities and the blind. The best way to make savings in the social welfare budget is to get people back to work. Instead, the Government is planning for an extra 75,000 job losses next year at a cost of an additional €676 million in the social welfare budget - six times the cost of reinstating the payments to those who cannot work and those who care for them. Jobs and the restoration of hope for our future should have been the focus of the Government's budget statement. If that were the case there would have been no need to penalise carers and persons with disabilities.

Fine Gael is the only party that has put forward a credible job stimulation package that will take people off social welfare and get them back into employment, further education and training. My party's policies, which were launched in the past year, would protect more than 250,000 jobs and training opportunities in the Irish economy and would have seen 50,000 people taken off the live register in 2010, but that could not be entertained by the Government because it would acknowledge the work done by the Opposition. Instead, the Government is cutting the supports to those who cannot help themselves.

I was asked at the weekend by a carer why he must pay €8.30 a week to get the Government out of the mess that it created when the bank manager down the road on more than €250,000 has not been asked to contribute €1? How can the Government justify cuts to the blind, carers and people with disabilities when bankers are getting away scot-free? How is this fair? In the Fine Gael budget proposals we wanted the top earners to pay more. By capping the tax relief on pensions for top earners - the issue was within the Minister's competency but it was not looked at - as well as shutting down tax shelters we could have saved €170 million, far in excess of the moneys needed to protect the most vulnerable in our communities.

As I stated here last week, the Minister could have made significant savings in the rent supplement scheme. She projects savings of €20 million next year. Rent supplement is supposed to be a short-term support but people are on it for years instead of being moved to the rental accommodation scheme, which is a good deal more cost effective and better for tenants. Savings could have been made to reflect the market rate for the price of accommodation. Further savings could be made by transferring people to the rental accommodation scheme. A further €7 million could be saved through reform of the rent supplement and the deposit retention scheme. If we had scrapped the long-term leasing arrangements of the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Finneran, we could have saved an additional €20 million. The difficulty is the lack of joined-up thinking between Departments which is costly and causes considerable waste across several Departments.

Fine Gael has outlined where it can cut back on some of the bureaucracy in respect of FÁS, the HSE and CIE and through the elimination of up to 150 Government quangos, by cutting back on third party procurement costs and by programme reductions as outlined in the McCarthy report. Instead, the Government is soft on bankers and the Minister, Deputy Mary Hanafin, is soft on fraud. On 8 April in this House, the Minister stated that her first priority was to save as much as possible by reducing the incidence of social welfare fraud. The Minister set out a target in respect of social welfare fraud but how much has she saved? Not one cent has been saved in respect of the April fraud targets. As a result carers, people with disabilities and the blind are left to pay the price.

The tragic irony is that if the Government had met its own social welfare fraud target, it would have saved more than the money needed to protect payments to the most vulnerable, carers, people with disabilities and the visually impaired. Any fair minded individual who witnessed the exposure of fraud to the tune of €2 billion from the Department of Social and Family Affairs would be incensed to find out that because of the Minister, Deputy Hanafin's failure to deliver on her commitment in the April budget, money must now be raised by cutting payments to the most vulnerable in our society, including people who cannot work and those who care for such people seven days a week, 365 days per year. In April, the Minister announced additional controls to combat fraud with planned savings of €82 million in 2009 and €125 million in 2010. These savings were to come from the areas of jobseekers' payments and child benefit. Not one cent of that target has been achieved and, as a result, an additional €108 million must be raised by cutting payments to 48,000 people in receipt of carers' payments and those with a disability.

The scale of social welfare fraud revealed by "Prime Time Investigates" programme beggars belief. In the past two years, the Government set a target of €1 billion in fraud savings and the €2 billion referred to in the "Prime Time Investigates" programme may be short of the mark. With fraud running at an estimated €4,000 per minute, surely this was the area on which the focus should have been for the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Minister.

The Comptroller and Auditor General has suggested that in four out of five cases of fraud the information was already available to the Department. The issue is the lack of staff and inspections to carry out fraud detection. The "Prime Time Investigates" report highlighted the fact that people can be in receipt of a jobseekers' payment while at the same time pay PRSI to the Department of Social Welfare as a result of work. Surely such a situation should not arise. It would make much more sense to bring staff surplus to requirements in other Departments into the Department of Social and Family Affairs to deal with the matter. In the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, there is one official for every 30 farmers, but in the Department of Social and Family Affairs there is only one official for every 350 claimants. In recent days, some media have reported on a vet and two officials from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government running after a stag in County Meath twice a week. It would make more sense for these officials to be involved in fraud detection than running after a stag.

Fianna Fáil and Green Party Deputies have deluded themselves by claiming there is no alternative to cutting social welfare for the blind, carers and people with disabilities by 6%. That is a complete untruth. Despite the outburst of Deputy Gogarty last Friday, he can now prove himself and prove that he has the courage of his convictions by backing the Fine Gael motion to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Fine Gael has already set out concrete alternative proposals to save money without hurting those who need support most from the State.

The Minister and the Government had a choice. They could have punished fraud, tackled inefficiency and thereby protected the vulnerable. The Minister, Deputy Hanafin, has proved that she is soft on fraud but tough on carers and people with disabilities. She chose not to do this and punish the weak instead. I commend the motion to the House.

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