Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

There is an urgent need for the Minister for Social Protection and the Minister for Health and Children to take immediate action to ensure the delivery of the back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme which faces further severe delays this year, causing hardship to low income families with school-going children. I have raised this matter on the Adjournment to try to instil a sense of urgency on the part of the Government. If action is not taken soon, we will face a worse situation than we saw last year, when applicants encountered long delays and payments were not received until well after the start of the school year. In my own constituency and across the State, people who have sought application forms for the scheme have been told they are not yet available. The back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme helps families on social welfare and HSE payments to meet the cost of uniforms and footwear for children who attend school. Many families depend on the scheme to ensure their children can avail of education. As unemployment increases, the number of people qualifying for the scheme is growing.

The scheme is supposed to operate from 1 June to 31 September each year. I am sure the Minister of State is wondering why I am raising this issue when we have not yet reached the turn of the month. Last year, forms were not available until the middle of June and many people did not receive payments until well into September. I understand that even worse delays are likely to take place this year. There are inadequate staffing levels to cope with the number of applicants. These delays cause real hardship. In many cases, school uniforms come into the shops in June. Parents need to budget to pay for uniforms, school books and other onerous school expenses. They wish to spread their spending over the summer months. Delays to this scheme will lead to delays in the making of payments to which people are entitled, perhaps until late September or beyond.

I have mentioned the Ministers for Social Protection and Health and Children because this payment is part of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is funded by the Department of Social Protection and administered by the HSE. The two Departments and the HSE need to get their act together now. We do not want a repeat of 2009. By August of that year, more than 50,000 parents who had applied under the scheme had experienced delays in the processing of claims. The HSE admitted that a backlog resulted in less than one third of applications being processed at that stage. At least another 130,000 applications were expected before September. The HSE had received almost 80,000 applications by the middle of July of last year, but it had processed just 25,332 of them by 10 July. This must not be repeated. That is why I am raising the issue now.

The already overworked community welfare officers need additional assistance. The recruitment embargo should be lifted, extra staff should be hired even on a temporary basis and staff should be redeployed where appropriate. The bottom line is that people should not be forced to suffer further delays and hardship. The Government has already reduced social welfare payments. It has abolished the Christmas bonus completely. It has cut educational supports. Low-income families with children, which are already finding it difficult to make ends meet on a daily basis, must not be targeted again. I strongly urge that the lessons of last year and other years be learned. We should not see a repetition in 2010 of what happened in those years.

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