Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

As the Minister said, this Bill addresses various measures contained in the jobs initiative, the EU-IMF programme, the pensions area, as per the national pensions framework, and items pertaining and relating to civil partnership legislation. As the Bill covers predominately matters of a housekeeping nature, I support it, its contents and the measures within it to address those items. However, I would like to go further and speak about some of those items in respect of which we believe the Minister has not gone far enough and where more could have been done.

The Minister might take on board some of the proposals in the coming years to address various issues. For example, the jobs initiative does not go far enough. I do not believe it does exactly what it says on the tin. The restoration of the minimum wage in its own right is not vindication that the Government is championing the lower paid. The national internment scheme is a repeat of the scheme announced in the previous budget, only a slighter poorer relation of it. The other issue I wish to address is that of other social welfare rates, including child benefit, and I would like to get a response from the Minister on where she stands on these important issues in the context of statements that have been made both here and outside the House by other members of the Cabinet.

The jobs initiative was a far cry from the jobs budget promised by Fine Gael prior to the election. During that election campaign it promised to create 100,000 jobs by 2015. It has avoided setting targets and figures under the jobs initiative, putting meat on the bones of the proposals, but it was not afraid to tell the electorate about the huge aspirations it had in setting targets for job creation.

The jobs initiative is to be funded by a pension levy which is discriminatory, inequitable and proving to be socially divisive. The €1.9 billion attack on private pension funds will hit current and future pensioners very hard. Many of the other measures within the initiatives simply involve the reallocation of funding from within departmental budgets. In total, additional capital expenditure will amount to €135 million. However, €106 million of this will come from reallocating existing resources.

The Government and the Minister should have recognised the value of schemes like housing aid for the elderly and housing adaptation grants in addition to the retrofitting proposals. As a local authority member of almost 20 years, I am like many others in that I recognise the value of these schemes and the fact that many of those who benefit from them never intended to benefit, that is, when they first entered their houses many years ago, they never believed such changes would ever be necessary. Where these schemes are concerned, local councils have been the lead authorities. Not only do the schemes benefit applicants in dire need, they also benefit the employment and job creation situations.

When I stated that I would support the Bill, particularly in light of the issues it addresses by virtue of the jobs initiative, civil partnerships and the national pensions framework, I did not omit the reversal in the cut to the minimum wage. The Government is trying to portray itself as the champion of the lower paid. This cannot be the case. On the one hand, the Government boasts about restoring the minimum wage and, on the other, introduces proposals via the Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation that could have an impact on up to 250,000 low-paid people working in the hotel, restaurant, retail and other sectors. These are the very sectors the Government sought to protect by restoring the minimum wage. I agree and accept this desire. The people have spoken where this issue is concerned and I will not be found wanting in my support of it, but I cannot support the Minister's proposals of recent weeks in respect of the lower paid. I have serious concerns about them. The changes to overtime and Sunday rates seem to go so much further than the recommendations of the independent Duffy Walsh report. The Minister's proposed changes would have serious consequences for the living standards of low-paid workers. The Duffy Walsh report concluded that lowering the basic joint labour committee, JLC, rates was unlikely to have a substantial effect on employment. Therefore, it cannot be said that the Minister's proposals would lead to greater employment in this sector.

If the Government is serious about its commitment to transparency and honesty with the people, it needs to publish its proposals in full and let the same people adjudicate on the potential effects. The Dáil should also be consulted on the Duffy Walsh report, but it seems the proposals will be presented as a done deal after what will be seen to have been much procrastinating and grandstanding by Government backbenchers who, despite being in their so-called honeymoon period, are already unnerved by these murmurs.

The Minister for Social Protection needs to clarify her stance on these proposals. Recently, she spoke on RTE about the need for reform. She stated that, if one reduced the incentive to work, more people would lean on social welfare. She refused to say whether there would be pay cuts despite the fact that the proposals set out by the Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, clearly suggest wage adjustments. She spoke about doing an assessment of the proposals' impact. Is such an assessment by her Department's officials necessary? I am sure she is in touch with her constituents and reality. When I returned to my constituency last week and the previous week, I met people from these sectors at advice clinics and so forth or was contacted by them through all forms of communication. They know only too well the proposals' consequences. I take the Minister's word that she will ask her officials to carry out the assessment. When will she respond to the assessment in the House on the public's behalf? Will she make the findings available to the public or will she discuss them in the Red Rose Cafe with her Labour colleagues while those in the Blue Lagoon Restaurant await her deliberations, after which we might see a whole-of-Government decision that none of us on the Opposition benches will be allowed to discuss?

The national internship scheme is similar to the one proposed in the last budget, albeit potentially with less favourable terms. In response to a parliamentary question submitted by Deputy Brendan Smith, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, admitted that the internship programme announced in the jobs initiative would replace the skills development and internship programme announced last December. These are not 5,000 additional places. They are just replacing the 5,000 already announced and budgeted for in December.

To make matters worse, the new scheme offers less than the original. Last December's scheme was significantly more generous in offering participants an up-skilling bonus of €100 alongside their social welfare entitlements compared with the €50 top-up now on offer. That the employer would pay half while the Government stuck to its commitment on the €50 top-up could have been proposed. As the Minister, Deputy Burton, stated, the people in question are greatly skilled and have much to add to the economy and to those who take them on under these schemes. In light of their value to employers, surely the latter could match the €50 that the State is proposing.

Now that the Bill is before the House, I have a question regarding what was described as a dark red line issue, that of child benefit. Is it even possible to have a red line issue anymore? In The Irish Times yesterday, Deputy Buttimer, the Minister's colleague, stated: "It is important that people calm down and recognise that we have a job to do in the national interest." That is the responsibility with which the Government has been charged by the electorate and it should be privileged to exercise that responsibility. The final sentence of Deputy Buttimer's quotation states: "There can be no red line issues." While in this regard he was speaking about JLCs, this could apply to any issue.

I wonder where we are with regard to child benefit. The Taoiseach and Minister previously stated €250 million in savings could be achieved without touching child benefit. The Minister has since said she will refer the matter to the Commission on Taxation and Social Welfare for deliberation. She has also said that social welfare and child benefit rates are matters that can only be discussed in the context of the forthcoming or following budget, which is a far cry from her saying prior to entering Government that these payments were hurting the poor and the weak and were red line issues for the Labour Party. Are they no longer red line issues now that the Labour Party is in Government?

It is time now to belt up, move on and make the tough decisions. It is time to stand up and be counted and to be honest with the public. If the Labour Party now wishes to tell the public it is in a different place to where it was prior to the election so be it, let it be straight and lay it on the line for the public. Let us not continue the charade that has been evident in the past number of weeks. The Government and Cabinet should be concise, clear and definite in terms of where it is going. If that flies in the face of the Government parties' stated position some months ago, so be it. The Government will have to suffer the consequences and move on. I do not wish to engage too much now on those issues as I will be able to ascertain from the Government, by way of parliamentary question, etc., where it stands and proposes to go.

I acknowledge that this Bill is as a result of the jobs initiative and the measures contained therein in regard to PRSI, the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010 and so on, which are to be welcomed. I acknowledge also that the Government is in this Bill honouring its commitment in regard to pensions. Fianna Fáil will not be opposing the Bill despite, as I stated earlier, our we having great difficulty with the background to its implementation, the manner in which certain decisions were arrived at and the portrayal of the jobs initiative as something we do not believe it to be. However, it is up to the Opposition to be constructive and to offer the public a different side of the coin. Members of the Government will know much about that, having been in opposition for 14 years.

It would be helpful to me, Fianna Fáil, other Members of the Opposition and the public if the Government could, in so far as it can, take note of some of what I have said and respond accordingly. If it does so it will be doing its job. We will then take it from there.

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