Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I wish to make this point regarding the Bill first, because while Fine Gael supports many of the Bill's points, it will not support that proposal. I wish to make that clear from the outset.

As for the Minister's opening remarks on the amount of payments that have been paid to people in recent years, the Minister, Deputy Shortall and I, as well as everyone else in the House, have a job to do. The national four year plan will be announced today at 2 p.m. and all Members must ensure that those who are in need of social welfare payments will have such payments maintained to the best possible ability of the State. Many who are in need of social welfare payments are under severe pressure and are feeling the pain at present. In addition, if the Minister gets an opportunity at today's press conference, he and his colleagues should do two things. First, they might reassure people that the Government cares, because people are frightened. I have never encountered so many people in my clinic who have been upset because of such fear. Moreover, the media should note that elderly people in particular come to my clinic to ask whether their social welfare payments or pensions will be cut, whether they will be obliged to pay property tax or whether their savings will be safe. The second point I wish the Minister to put on the record today concerns the elderly people in particular who have contacted me in my office over the past 24 hours. Some people have some small savings in the post office and they seek reassurance from the Government that this money is safe because I have never received as many calls as I have within the past 24 hours. The Minister for Social Protection has an obligation to make a strong statement today to clarify this matter.

On the Bill itself, I will raise a few matters before finishing up on FÁS. First, I refer to the Minister's proposed change regarding illness benefit. In his response to the House, the Minister should state how many people will be affected and whether people will be at a loss or a gain. The Minister might confirm to the House what is the position in his response to this debate. In addition, I consider the proposal regarding rent supplement to be a good idea. Why should the taxpayer pay someone who does not pay tax? I acknowledge there will be cases whereby some people who live outside the State have property here but one must make provisions in this regard. I support fully the idea that people who draw down money from the State must have a tax clearance certificate.

However, I wish to sound a note of warning with regard to existing participants. While I acknowledge the Minister has stated that it will not apply to such people, if he continues with this measure in order that everyone must provide such a certificate, the tenant must be protected. In particular, the Department of Social Protection should take note that if renegotiations must take place, tenants should not be told that they will be obliged to leave their tenancy in cases where they are unable to get a tax clearance certificate from whoever is providing the rented accommodation. People must be given time, assistance and support. The Minister should send out a strong message to community welfare officers that the tenant is not the person who must provide a tax clearance certificate. It must be the person who owns the property. This measure is good, welcome and needed because the black economy is starting again. This must be corrected because that takes money from everyone's pocket. We must avoid the re-establishment of a black economy. While that already is taking place, it must be corrected immediately.

A point I intend to raise on Committee Stage concerns carers who come from foreign destinations. What effect will the Minister's proposals have on such people? It has been the case that people who returned from America, England and other jurisdictions to look after their loved ones did not qualify for a carer's allowance because they could not produce evidence of their income. I hope the change in this regard will be positive because it is great to see family members returning from wherever to look after their loved ones. The Minister should be reasonable and decent about this because it is important.

I refer to the transfer of powers from FÁS to the Department of Social Protection. I welcome this and wish to put on the record of the Dáil that FÁS has been good, bad and indifferent. In its good parts, namely, at the bottom rung of the ladder, its staff did a good job in retraining people. They worked and helped and did not do too badly. Those in the middle ground, where decisions were not made by the management, did not do their job properly. However, the greatest scandal of all took place at the top rank of the agency. At a time when there was very little unemployment, the Government gave those people €1 billion in the budget of 2009. While everyone wondered why they needed this money everyone knows what they did with it when they went abroad on their holidays with their wives, families and everyone else. Although this inflicted further damage on both FÁS and Ireland, it should not detract from the overall purpose of FÁS or of retraining. While there are good people in FÁS, they are hurt. It is like politics in that there are both good and bad people in politics but one does not allow the bad to bring down the good and the same applies in respect of FÁS.

Ireland now faces an unemployment crisis and is in need of fresh thinking and new ideas but can FÁS deal with the crisis? The day has gone when someone who is unemployed is only brought in for an interview once every two years. Such people should be brought in on a regular basis every two to three weeks. Such people must be retrained, re-skilled and re-educated and work placements must be found for them. However, this is not what was happening. Instead, they were being brought in for interview. What really is needed is a one-stop shop, whereby an unemployed person can come into a social welfare office staffed by community welfare officers and FÁS staff who will train them and try to get them back into the workplace again. It is very important to do this and that as many people as possible are returned to the workplace.

At present, the drain game is on again. We are losing a generation of young people, which will have a negative effect on the economy over the next 20 years because those people will be gone. They will leave the country for America, Canada, Australia and all over the world and we will lose them. When, please God, Ireland returns to full employment and people are needed to fill vacancies, these people will have gone abroad. This brain drain must stop and we must try to create employment for them now, even in bad times. During previous bad times, new ideas and fresh thinking were developed and we need ways to try to retain, educate and procure work for people because unless that generation remains, who will look after the generation ahead of them? One must never forget this.

As for FÁS itself, new thinking and ideas are needed. New ways to do things are required but this has not happened over the past ten years. FÁS is coming under the aegis of the Department of Social Protection and the Minister now has a duty and an obligation to make sure that what happened over the past ten years will never happen again. He must ensure that every penny of taxpayers' money is spent wisely and that it is spent in an attempt to educate those who need to enter the workplace.

I refer to the staff who are being moved over to the Department. How many staff are coming from FÁS to the Department of Social Protection? Will their employment rights be protected in this regard? I note the Minister stated in his contribution that the buildings also would be transferred. In his response over the next 24 hours, the Minister might indicate to Members what is the value of the aforementioned property. I acknowledge it all is State property that will remain in the hands of the State but that will be transferred to the Department of Social Protection.

When young people have been trained, there must be a follow-on. There must be the capacity to monitor people who were registered as being unemployed and who went to the community welfare office and were trained by FÁS. Some placement work should be secured for such people as we must be job active. There are many good ideas in circulation and many people wish to employ people. However, over the past 13 years, two things have happened. Even though the Government forgot about the small employer, that is, the person who employed one, two or three people, we must return to them.

We will never again see multinational companies coming into the country and employing two and three thousand people. Those days are over. We must start thinking small and then work to get bigger. We need to train people. People with good ideas come to see me every day and write to the Minister and to the Government. What we need now is a stimulus package to help these young people. The banks are not supporting them and neither are the Government or the IDA. They are simply concerned with getting investment from Australia and America because they think our own cannot do it. Our own can do it, if they get some backup, support and training.

FÁS needs new ideas, new thinking and new training. We need to deal with the problems we have today. Change may be required. We do not want people in the FÁS office or a community welfare officer saying, "This is not in the legislation". If it is not in the legislation and it is right, we should do it anyway. We should come back to the House and change the legislation on any occasion that is needed. We need new ideas, new thinking and a new way of doing things.

What has happened in the last number of years cannot go on. FÁS did a good job training people. There were occasions when certification was not properly done and that must be dealt with in the courts. If people were being paid and were falsifying any kind of qualification they should be dealt with. The same is true of the banks. People are angry because they feel no one has paid for this situation. No one has borne the brunt of responsibility for it. The people who will bear the brunt in the budget are the people on low incomes and on social welfare. These people did not cause the problem but they are the ones who will have to correct it and pay for it. We want action taken against the people who did cause it.

FÁS schemes, such as the rural social scheme, worked very well for long-term unemployed people. We should look at ways to get more people trained and working to provide for the State. I hope that will happen. I hope the Minister will bring new ideas to the House to get people trained and working. The Minister referred to the workplace programme. He talked about it but we want action on it. We have had enough talk and media spin. What we want is action and to get people trained and into the workplace doing valuable work for the community. There are people who want to do that. We do not want people to be degraded. We do not want to use our present difficulties as an excuse to take people off the social welfare system. We want people to be retrained and actively looking for work and the State helping them to get that work. People must be trained and ready to take up work when it becomes available. We need to do that quickly.

I welcome some aspects of the Bill. I know the Minister will introduce amendments on Committee Stage regarding same sex couples. Legislation in that regard will be introduced on 1 January and Fine Gael will play our part in getting that legislation over the bar before the election. We are anxious to have the election and to get into government, protect the people who need protection and get new ideas and thinking for the country. That is what is wanted.

On Committee Stage, we will go through many aspects of the Bill, particularly those relating to FÁS. There is concern about FÁS and the way it has been run for the last number of years. I hope the Minister has this issue in his grasp and that what went on for the last ten years will never happen again. It was a national scandal and it must be dealt with. People used money intended for the unemployed and for people who needed to be retrained and re-educated. People blew that money abroad and blew FÁS. I hope the Minister will put his mark on the retraining brief. It is now more important than at any time since the foundation of the State. We will go through the Bill and examine amendments on Committee Stage.

We need every protection possible against the people who are defrauding the State and taking badly needed money out of our pockets. We must encourage and help people. Yesterday, during Question Time, we talked about rent allowance. We should not discourage people in the social welfare system from going to work. They should be encouraged to seek work.

I believe the Minister has reassured people on community employment schemes that they will not suffer cutbacks in terms of double payments. I welcome that. FÁS schemes and CE schemes have done great good for communities when the HSE, the education system or local authorities were not able to provide badly needed services. People on CE schemes have visited people in their homes and organised meals-on-wheels. Many voluntary groups, particularly in rural and isolated areas, need FÁS schemes. These schemes should be retained and maintained.

We want to get people back into full employment. That is the most important aspect of the Bill. The more people are employed the more taxation will be collected and the fewer people will be drawing off State welfare. To protect the welfare state we need more people working.

We must have a one-stop shop for unemployed people. We must not have seven or eight different groups dealing with the unemployed. They must be dealt with in one building rather than going from Jack to Joe and from Mary to Kate. That is frustrating. The necessary management and team must be available in a single building.

Change for the better is what we want. We need positive change to help people in their hour of need. Many people who have worked all their lives have lost their jobs and want to work. We must stop the emigration drain. If we do not do that we will have made the biggest single mistake ever.

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