Dáil debates

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Second Stage (Resumed)

 

4:00 pm

Photo of Tony McLoughlinTony McLoughlin (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I welcome this Bill and a number of its initiatives. I wish to highlight a number of the worthwhile decisions by the Government contained in these measures which, in my view, will benefit a number of areas including employment growth, the counteracting of fraud within the system and the streamlining of the system. As a previous speaker noted, the decision by the Government to halve the lower rate of employers' PRSI from 8.5% to 4.25% will ensure that the environment will be more fertile for employers considering expanding their business. The actual cost to the employer has been reduced and this is to be welcomed.

I welcome in particular the provision related to the use of public service cards by providing for the cancellation and surrender of these cards where evidence becomes available that they are being used illegally. It will be an offence to fail to return a public service card without a reasonable excuse when requested to do so. This will enable civil servants to develop a resource in the bid to fight fraud in the system. Information can be scanned or swiped and this will prove beneficial in cases of double claiming or where claimants have crossed the Border to claim benefits. The proposal originally introduced by the former Minister, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív, was a welcome initiative and this Bill ensures that it can be developed further. I wish to acknowledge the work of the previous Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív.

I commend the Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, for the provisions to facilitate the transfer of the administration of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme from the HSE to the Department of Social Protection. This will stop duplication where two separate organisations of State are gathering information. In our efforts to combine resources, this ongoing move by the Government to bring community welfare officers under the umbrella of the Department of Social Protection will result in significant progress in streamlining the public service. Slowly but surely, we are heading for a one-stop shop in which unfortunate people who have to claim benefits will not have to make their case to several organs of the State. This is a recurring complaint, that people are forced to go from one place to another and must be interviewed many times. Shared information is a better use of resources. In many cases, people are means tested by the local social protection office only to answer the same questions from the community welfare officer. I am pleased with the proposal in the Bill to extend the Minister's existing powers to make regulations specifying information to be provided by claimants for social welfare benefits that would be useful in determining entitlements to that benefit or in assessing the training or other educational or development needs. This extension will allow such information to be provided also by existing recipients.

The current level of unemployment at 441,000 is extremely worrying and is especially of concern when one considers the ongoing progress of our exports in the pharmaceutical, computer software and the food and drinks industries. Further measures to facilitate training in growth sectors such as the pharmaceutical sector should be provided by State agencies as any existing training in this sector is only available in-house in the various companies. Training and retraining of the unemployed must go hand in hand with the social payments system whereby claimants must be assessed on their educational and training needs.

The proposal for a national internship scheme is most welcome. This scheme will provide 5,000 work experience opportunities for jobseekers in the private, public or community and voluntary sectors. During this time, participants will receive an allowance consisting of a top-up payment of €50 per week on their existing social welfare entitlements. The period following the building boom has left this country with people who have to be reskilled and this is particularly the case for the age group of under 40 years because, otherwise, the prospects of long-term unemployment for such people is imminent. This proposal will be a start in the quest for tackling the plague of long-term unemployment because the system ignores those people, offering nothing only the weekly payment and no prospects of retraining.

The measures contained in this Bill are vital at this time as we start on the road to tackling the scourge of long-term unemployment. They support the continued streamlining of government and the necessary changes to State pensions in line with the national pensions framework.

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