Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

In addition to the privilege of being elected to this House, I have been afforded the honour and privilege of serving as Fianna Fáil's spokesperson on social protection. In the latter role and as an ordinary Deputy I have come face to face with the reality relating to the social welfare system on a daily basis. Irrespective of my specific responsibilities in this area, many of my colleagues and I have been inundated with representations from persons seeking to avail of social welfare benefits and entitlements, including domiciliary care allowance, invalidity pension and other allowances, and programmes and projects relating to areas such as career training, education, etc.

As everyone is aware, a huge cohort of people are dependent on and in need of assistance. The agenda for Government policy in the area of social protection was set not last February but on budget day in 2010. The Labour Party and Fine Gael voted against the budget introduced in December last year and also the subsequent Finance Act. They specifically stated they would reverse the 4% cut in social welfare rates and then fought an election on that premise and promise. The programme for Government specifically states, "We will divert staff from elsewhere in the public service to clear the social welfare appeals backlog, and introduce a consolidated appeals process". On entering Government, Fine Gael and the Labour Party restated their policy on social welfare rates and indicated that there would be no cuts. On the anniversary of the Government's first 100 days in power, this policy was again affirmed. To be fair, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, immediately recanted her previous utterings when she entered office. She has fudged direct questions on the maintenance of social welfare rates and failed to provide straight answers. This is a sure sign that the rates will be reduced.

I wish to explode two myths with immediate effect, the first of which is that the memorandums of understanding are not set in stone. When my party's spokesperson on finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, met representatives of the troika earlier in the year, he was informed that austerity must not affect the vulnerable. When representatives from Social Justice Ireland met officials from the IMF in July, Mr. Ajai Chopra echoed these words. The forthcoming budget will test the Government's mettle and oblige it to make decisions. It will be held accountable for these decisions and its actions will be weighed against the promises and commitments made earlier this year.

On its election to office, the Government stated it would renegotiate the four year plan and the interest rate relating to it. Eventually - by accident rather than design - the rate was reduced with great fanfare and, to use cycling parlance, Enda came home in the yellow jersey. However, the Taoiseach is no king of the mountains. Why could he not ring-fence the savings which will supposedly amount to almost €1 billion per year resulting from the interest rate cut and use them to safeguard social welfare rates, protect the poor, the needy and the unemployed and target detailed programmes at the skilled and unskilled in areas where there are employment opportunities such as the ICT sector? He sold dummies to many in Roscommon, Portlaoise and Loughlinstown.

The initiative of the Minister for Social Protection to tackle fraud is commendable, but it is not really new. Savings of €500 million were made in this area last year and the Minister hopes to save a further €625 million this year. It does not take a rocket scientist to identify the areas in which these savings are being made, namely, living alone allowance and lone-parent allowance and those who are working and claiming. There is no need to seek public support for major cuts by making statements on people's lifestyle choices in order to stigmatise them. This is all a smokescreen. The time people are obliged to wait for decisions on their appeals - be they in respect of claims for jobseeker's benefit or carer's allowance - is way too long. The amount of time it takes to lodge an application and then have one's appeal heard is astronomical.

The State has made provision for the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We put supports in place and established entitlements on the proviso that they would be accessible and available. The representations I have received indicate that this is not the case. The staff of the Department are inundated with work and their tempers have reached boiling point. This is a crisis and the Minister must deploy additional staff resources. She must take control and make decisions in order that the current difficulties might be alleviated and that people will gain confidence in the process.

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