Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

Perhaps the Minister will allow me to continue. I did not interrupt him.

In the case of the promises that were made in the programme for Government to take action on the jobs front, the approach taken in respect of the relevant initiatives has been lacklustre. There has been no enthusiasm or energy regarding the initiatives to which I refer. For example, in the context of the Minister's area of responsibility, the PRSI incentive scheme was announced with great fanfare in last year's budget as an initiative that would encourage employers to take on new staff. The budget to which I refer was announced last December but the Minister sat on the scheme and took no action in respect of it until the middle of this year. It was only when he came under pressure in June that the Minister finally announced the scheme. As a result, there is no prospect of the targets that were set being met.

Funding was provided in the last budget in respect of this scheme to enable the Minister to provide support for a large number of jobs. However, he allowed time to slip by and waited until the middle of this year before taking concrete action. Even now, there is no enthusiasm in respect of promoting this scheme. As a result, by the end of the year we will fall far short of the targets for this scheme. Again, that is an indication of the lack of interest, enthusiasm and energy that is being displayed in respect of job creation.

We must also consider the huge damage that has been done to the SME sector, which is the backbone of job creation in this country. When the blanket guarantee for the banks was put in place, we were informed that the main justification for such a guarantee was to get credit flowing. That was the mantra every Minister uttered at the time. Two years have passed, however, and credit is still not flowing. The SME sector is being squeezed just as much now as was the case prior to September 2008. Again, consideration was not given to what this sector required to retain existing jobs and, ideally, to create new ones. The SME sector has been abandoned by the Government and the level of unemployment has soared as a result.

When the four year plan is announced today, people will be waiting to see whether the Minister, in the context of his area of responsibility, will protect the most vulnerable. Prior to the previous two budgets, members of the Government repeated another mantra in respect of this matter. However, that was a case of their saying one thing and doing another. Ministers and backbenchers were trotted out to say the Government's priority was to protect the weakest. They continued to state this but when it came to the budgets to which I refer, the Government took decisions which penalised the weakest and left great swathes of those who are either very or exceedingly wealthy untouched. How can anyone place any store in the undertakings the Minister is giving to protect the weakest when the Government's track record shows that while it says it will do this, it does the opposite.

Not only does the Minister have responsibility for the welfare system, he is also responsible for pension policy. We have discussed this matter on previous occasions but I am again obliged to state that the spotlight must be shone on what he has done in this area. When the four year plan is announced, I will examine it to see if any attempt will be made to rejig our tax and welfare systems in order to support and protect the weakest. The only way to do this is by ensuring those at the top end pay their share of tax.

Under the Minister's current policy, some €3 billion is being given to people by way of tax reliefs on pension contributions. We are aware that the bulk of this money goes to the top 20% of earners. If the Minister is serious about ensuring the system is fair and about protecting the weakest, I expect he will announce radical proposals to reform the pension tax relief system. He has an obligation - in the context of fairness and justice - to those who depend on him for protection to introduce the reforms to which I refer, to slash pension tax reliefs for the high rollers in this country and to take serious steps to introduce a measure of fairness into the policy areas for which he retains responsibility.

I will monitor the plan to identify the changes the Minister will make to the pension tax relief system to ensure fairness. We do not want the usual targets to be hit yet again. Neither do we want people who are struggling to survive on welfare payments to take the brunt of the cuts which the State must endure as a result of Fianna Fáil's mismanagement of the economy in recent years. There is an onus on the Minister to take a fair approach in respect of this matter and to defend those people who, in many ways, do not have a voice and who depend on him to protect them.

There is enough evidence available which shows that large numbers of people dependent on welfare payments are struggling to keep their heads above water. The most recent research carried out by the Vincentian Partnership in respect of minimum essential budgets refers to the difficulties for different categories of welfare recipients, particularly those who live in rural areas. The research to which I refer also shows that when one does the sums, it is evident that welfare payments are not sufficient to allow people to live with any kind of basic dignity. The case has been well made - particularly in the context of the Vincentian Partnership's research - that people who are dependent on welfare payments simply cannot afford to shoulder any more of a burden than that which the Government has already placed on their shoulders.

I hope the Minister will not support any further cuts in welfare payments for those who are on the lowest levels of income and who are dependent on him for their very survival. He has a number of options available to him in the context of making savings. There are opportunities to make savings in areas where persons are hoarding large amounts of non-productive capital. There are persons with multi-million euro pension pots that the Government has allowed to accumulate and I hope the Minister will dip into those pension pots. I hope the Government will slash the amount of tax relief millionaires are currently entitled to claim. If there is any fairness, if there is any justice in the approach to the current problems in this country, the Minister has no choice but to tackle those areas before he contemplates further cuts to welfare payments. We will watch closely and unless the Minister does that, he will have no credibility as Minister for Social Protection.

The principal purpose of this Bill is to transfer some functions of FÁS in the employment services area to the Department of Social Protection, and I welcome that decision. There have been serious problems with FÁS in recent years. As an organisation, by and large it has not been doing the kind of work it should have been doing. It has not, by any means, used the funding available to it to best effect and the focus of that organisation has not been always on the client, the unemployed person.

We saw how those at the top of the organisation - Mr. Roddy Molloy, but many others, some of whom are retired and some of whom remain------

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