Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank the Deputy for the amendment. However, for reasons I will explain, the definition being proposed is not required in the Bill and, therefore, I do not propose to accept it.

While previous Social Welfare Acts have contained a definition of "the Minister" for the purposes of those Acts, it has not been considered necessary by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to include such a definition in this Bill, as the term "the Minister" is used only once in the text of the Bill. That reference is contained in section 1(3), which enables particular provisions of the Bill to come into operation by way of commencement order, and the Minister for Social Protection is referred to in full in that subsection.

The other references to the term "the Minister" in the Bill all relate to provisions that are being directly inserted into various enactments, all of which already contain definitions of "the Minister" for the purposes of these Acts. For example, the term is used in a number of places in Part 2 of this Bill; however, all these references are contained in provisions that are being inserted into the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005. As this Act already contains a definition of "the Minister" for the purposes of that Act, there is no need to define this term again in this Bill for the purpose of any provision that is being inserted into that Act. Similarly, Part 4 of this Bill also contains the term "the Minister" in a number of places. All of these references are being inserted into the Pensions Act 1990, which already contains a definition of "the Minister" for the purposes of that Act. As a result, there is no need to define the term again in this Bill.

I thank the Deputy for his courteous remarks about the officials of my Department. The period in which we can work on this Bill is short because it arises from the jobs initiative and other financial measures which were brought before the Dáil by my colleague, the Minister for Finance. As the Deputy said with regard to the explanatory memorandum, the Bill has a number of quite important provisions which are not purely related to social welfare. I and the Government were particularly anxious that the restoration of the national minimum wage would come into effect on 1 July. It is important for low-paid people that the national minimum wage is restored. It was a mistake by the previous Government to cut €1 off the minimum wage, as acknowledged by a number of Deputies from Fianna Fáil in their contributions on Second Stage. I was anxious to see this change introduced as early as possible.

The Bill also provides that the changes to the social welfare code with regard to reductions in employers' PRSI will commence at the same time. There are other changes, some of which arise as a result of commitments entered into by the previous Government in the IMF-EU troika programme. As Deputy Ó Snodaigh said, there are changes with regard to appointments to the board of the Citizens' Information Board. The later part of the Bill also contains provisions implementing European Directive 2003/41/EC on the Activities and Supervision of Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision, the IORPS directive. I agree with Deputy Ó Snodaigh that it is quite a wide-ranging social welfare Bill, and the officials have worked hard to get this broad and complex Bill ready to meet the 1 July date for the restoration of the national minimum wage.

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