Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Ta sé tráthúil go bhfuilimid ag déileáil leis an mBille Leasa Shóisialsigh agus Pinsean 2012 ach ar bhealach eile is trua go bhfuilimid á dhéanamh toisc an stuif atá ins an mBille. Ba chóir go mbeimís i gcónaí ag díriú orthu siúd atá ag brath ar an Stát ó thaobh pinsin agus leasa shóisialta de, ach is í an fhadhb atá agam ná nach bhfuilimid ag cuidiú leo siúd atá ag brath ar an Stát i gcomhthéacs an Bhille seo, ach a mhalairt.

Sinn Féin will be opposing this Bill, regrettably. There are two parts to this Bill. One deals with pensions and in the main is welcome. However, the fact these provisions are tied to odious changes in this Bill, in particular to the one-parent family payment, means that my party must oppose it.

I will set the context, which is very interesting. Hopefully, the Minister will listen to what her party colleague said in regard to similar moves in the past by a Fianna Fáil Government. Less than two years ago, the Fianna Fáil Government dropped the cut-off age for lone parent payments to 14 years. Alongside Sinn Féin, the Labour Party objected to this move on the grounds that the necessary supports and services were not in place. That reality has not changed but now the Labour Party and the Minister are dropping the cut-off age further to seven years. Where do they think seven year olds will go after school, given that, out of school hours, child care provision is practically non-existent, which the Minister accepted earlier?

We are emerging from a decade of revelations about child protection scandals but the Government parties seem to have learned nothing, given they have put such proposals on the agenda today. The Government clearly believes a child does not need parental care and supervision beyond the age of seven. If it did, this would not be in front of us. When it comes to children, this Government is worse than the last. As I said, the last Government reduced the cut-off age by four years whereas this Government is intent on cutting it by seven years. Let us not forget that this Bill follows in the wake of budget 2012, which was a targeted attack on lone parents. The Minister made cuts to their earnings disregards, to payments while on CE and to qualified child payments. Coupled with the cuts to back to school allowance, rent supplement and fuel allowance, the Minister is guilty of a disproportionate attack on lone parents and their children.

Likewise, we are resolutely opposed to the cuts proposed to jobseeker payments. The affected jobseekers have had their hours reduced as a consequence of the recession but the Minister is punishing them for being in this predicament. She has claimed they are nervous about entering the world of full-time work, despite economists of all hues unanimously agreeing that any growth in full-time job opportunities is a long way off in this economy. Tá an Bille Leasa Shóisialaigh agus Pinsean 2012 ag teacht anuas ar na hionsaithe ar thuismitheoirí aonair i mbuiséad 2012. Tá seacht mbliana ró-óg. Tá sé sin le léiriú ins na scéalta ar fad atá curtha chun cinn ag tuismitheoirí atá sa stad sin agus nach bhfuil ábalta brath ar thacaíocht ina gceantair féin nó ó thuismitheoirí eile nó ó cháirde. Níl an córas ann chun aire a thabhairt do pháisti tar éis na scoile nó le linn laethanta saoire scoile, do pháistí idir seacht mbliana agus ceithre bliana déag ach go háirithe, ach do pháistí faoi aois a seacht chomh maith. Níl aon loighic sa mhéid a dúirt an t-Aire níos luaithe, is é sin nach mbéadh aon athrú ar ráta an leasa go dtí go ndéanfar cinnte de go mbeidh na tacaíochtaí sin ar fáil. Ní cóir go dtiocfadh an t-athru seo os comhair an Oireachtais go dtí go bhfuil na tacaíochtaí sin ar fáil sa chéad dul síos. Sin mar is cóir an t-athrú seo a dhéanamh. Nuair a chuirfidh mé leasú chun cinn chun an chuid seo den mBille a scrios, tá súil agam go seasfaidh an t-Aire liom, mar ní chóir go gcuirfear an beart seo chun cinn. Speaking as Labour Party spokesperson on social protection when the Fianna Fáil Government introduced the legislation lowering the cut-off age to 14, the then Deputy Róisín Shortall, now Minister of State, outlined her party's position, which was the position it took to the polls last year. The Labour Party's assessment of the Fianna Fáil Bill at that stage is even more relevant to the Labour Party's own hypocritical offerings which we are debating today. In some ways, I am sorry to have to quote so much from Deputy Shortall but I find myself in agreement with most of what she had to say on the occasion of the introduction of the legislation by the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government. She stated:

The problem is that the Bill is not about activation; it is about cut-backs and the optics of doing something about long-term welfare recipients. How can one call it activation when in the first instance there are so few jobs of any description available? That is the big issue; the jobs are not there.

The reality has not changed; in fact, it has got worse. The jobs are still not there and that remains the big issue. The live register stands at 434,300, the standardised unemployment rate stands at 14.3% and 185,000 people have been on the live register for more than a year. We currently have more people who are job-ready than there are jobs. The European Vacancy Monitor published in January by the DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion of the European Commission demonstrates there is currently one vacancy for every 50 jobseekers here. While Germany, the Netherlands and Austria enjoy record low unemployment levels, Ireland has 300,000 jobseekers actively seeking just 6,000 vacancies, which is 50 jobseekers for every one vacancy, well above the EU average of nine jobseekers for one vacancy. We can see where our money is going, namely, to create jobs in Germany.

Deputy Shortall continued:

There is no provision for extra training or for extra after-school care for the children of lone parents. There is not even a commitment from the Minister on ring-fencing any money that might be saved for helping welfare claimants into work or training.

For lone parents, the costs of engagement in activation, training and work are higher because the associated parenting responsibility and costs cannot be shared. A 2011 report published by the UCD School of Social Justice demonstrates that even during the so-called boom years, after-school provision remained sparse. It states that between 2002 and 2007 the proportion of households using non-parental child care for pre-school children increased from 42% to 48% whereas the comparable proportion in regard to primary school children remained unchanged at 25%. If anything, as the recession deepens the availability and affordability of these services is getting worse, not better.

Deputy Shortall reminded the Dáil:

Lowering the qualifying age was meant to go hand-in-hand with better child care and training services, the introduction of a parental allowance to replace the one-parent family payment and the ending of the ban on cohabitation. Where are these reforms? There is no sign of them in this Bill.

Nor is there any sign of them in this latest Social Welfare and Pensions Bill. So strongly did she feel on the issue that she accused the then Minister Deputy Eamon Ó Cuív of doing "the dirty work of the former Minister, Deputy Hanafin". Given what is in front of us today, the Minister, Deputy Burton, is continuing that dirty work.

Deputy Shortall went on to say:

The likelihood is that all that will happen is that an extra 12,000 lone parents will transfer to jobseeker payments over the next six years. This will inflate the live register figures by another 12,000 as people on one-parent family payment are not counted at the current time. It is hard to know what the point of all that will be.

This Bill will add thousands more.

The national employment and entitlements service, NEES, and Pathways to Work cannot cope with the current numbers on the live register, and this Bill will compound the situation. The NEES, which is currently being established, does not have the capacity or the infrastructure to meet the needs of those currently on jobseeker's allowance or benefit. Adding even greater numbers to this system will only overburden and further stretch an already struggling system which is in the process of reform.

Sensitive profiling, strong case management and professional development and learning is vital for service providers as is cognisance of and responsiveness to the needs of those on the live register. These needs include mental health, educational attainment, literacy, numeracy, parental responsibility and accessibility and mobility needs. Understanding motivation and coaching and mentoring will be pivotal to the mutual success of the service for users and providers. The service is resource-intensive and requires significant upskilling and training of existing staff. Additional staff will be required as well. There is an acknowledgement of this and this is why the national employment and entitlements service, NEES, will not be in place immediately. It also requires a cultural shift throughout the Department that will take time. All of these changes will require additional resources and staff. To date I have seen no commitment from the Government for additional staff over and above what existed in the various component parts which have been squeezed together to make up the NEES. None of this addresses the fact that the Government will now add to the numbers on the live register of those who will be obliged to engage the services of the NEES.

Previously, Deputy Shortall stated that the single greatest effect of these changes would be to deprive lone parents of the opportunity to take up part-time work. She was correct. This was before the 2012 budget put the boot in and ensured that it would be more difficult, if not impossible, for many lone parents to avail of part-time opportunities or some of the training schemes. The particular rules of the one-parent family scheme, including the earnings disregard and the transitional payments, have enabled a significant proportion of lone parents to engage in work around their parental responsibilities in the past. The Government has eroded or eliminated many of these rules. It appears there is a move to merge the one-parent family payment with the jobseeker's allowance or the single working age payment, a regrettable step.

The Bill before House represents an attempt to do this. The jobseeker's allowance scheme uses a measure of several days work to determine the eligibility for payment. This does not accommodate lone parents who may be able to work for several hours each day while their child is in school and who benefit from such work. This must be changed and a change to the number of hours worked rather than the number of days worked should have been included in the Bill. The Minister has announced several amendments including one to reduce the number of days calculable from six to five. This will represent a significant cut for many of those on part-time or reduced working hours. Such people are under-employed in our society.

The entire jobseeker's allowance scheme and the "genuinely seeking work" condition should be reformed as recommended by the all-party Oireachtas committee last month. The committee recognised that full-time, secure employment is no longer the norm for the majority of those of working age in modern Ireland. Many contracts are based on hours rather than full-time employment or a full day of work. Counting two hours in a given day as if a person worked a full day is no longer appropriate. I hope the Minister will bring forward amendments to this Bill or changes in the next social welfare Bill to reflect the changes in working practices in Ireland. The all-party committee concluded that the jobseeker's allowance rule should be changed to take account of hours rather than days. I understand a further committee report is being prepared by another Deputy which deals with part-time work and under-employment situations. It is intended that this report is will be discussed and passed at the committee meeting next week. Perhaps the Minister will take the time to read it. That report is not authored by myself, unlike the other one. A Government Deputy is responsible for this work and the draft findings I have read are in line with what I have said to date and what many organisations have highlighted in recent years.

The all-party committee also concluded that the 2006 discussion paper proposals for supporting lone parents included an important point of relevance to lone parents and all those of working age. The paper acknowledged that a full-time working week no longer reflects the atypical working patterns of many in Ireland today, especially women. This is increasingly the case. Accordingly, it recommended that to meet the "genuinely seeking work" condition, work amounting to 19 or more hours should be sufficient. Members from all parties in the Oireachtas committee endorsed my recommendation that the "genuinely seeking work" rule be reformed to make it flexible enough to allow all parents to take up whatever work is available and that could be balanced with parental duties. This is especially the case for those parenting alone. The Bill ignores the considered findings of the Oireachtas committee.

Out of disgust at the Fianna Fáil proposal to lower the cut-off age, Deputy Shortall asked whether it was Government policy for 13 year olds to have no parental supervision and to be left to their own devices during the three months of their summer holidays. That was Fianna Fáil policy at the time. However, it turns out that the policy of Deputy Shortall's Government is for eight year olds to have no parental supervision and to be left to their own devices if the parent is in full-time work. The Minister of State, Deputy Shortall, complained at the time that there was no allowance made for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, challenging behavioural patterns or physical or mental health difficulties. Deputy Shortall noted that the parents of these children simply could not be in two place at once. I am putting the question she put to the then Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív. If the parent of a child in those circumstances is required to be at work, what arrangement will the Government put in place to ensure adequate care and protection is provided for young people at risk?

It is not good enough for the Minister to state that she will not proceed with this provision if she does not get a credible and bankable commitment from the Government on the delivery of such a service. I have seen no such system. I have seen no sunset clause in the Bill because it does not exist. There is nothing to suggest the Minister will not proceed with these changes. Nothing is indicated in the list of amendments, which we have not seen although the Bill is due on Committee Stage next Tuesday. There is no reference to any such amendment. The Minister has not guaranteed that any savings will be ring-fenced. There is nothing here. This is a fig leaf for the Minister to hide behind for several weeks, just as she has done with the community employment, CE, review which was to be held and finalised in March. It is the same fig leaf that the Minister has used in respect of the disability allowance. It is the same fig leaf the Minister for Education and Skills used for the DEIS programme cuts. It serves only to take some of the heat out of the Opposition for a few months.

If the Minister believes the logic of her statement today then she would agree with my proposal to delete these provisions from the Bill in their entirety on Committee Stage and wait until the services are in place before proceeding with the changes. There is no point in putting this in place and suggesting that at some stage in future the Minister for Education and Skills will put in place an after-school programme. Such programmes have been promised by every Government under the sun. They have promised to look after the needs and provide the supports required for children but it has not happened. Unless the Minister can guarantee that such supports are in place - it is not sufficient to give a commitment in writing - then she should not proceed with the relevant provisions in any shape or form in this legislation.

Another highly objectionable trait shared by the Fianna Fáil Bill is that they are both steeped in archaic judgmentalism and prejudice. In a scathing critique that is equally applicable to the current Bill , the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Róisín Shortall, as a then Opposition Deputy, stated in reference to the previous Bill:

Allowances are made for lone parents who have suffered a recent bereavement, but why do they stop there? Why are other reasons for lone parenthood, such as abandonment or separation treated any differently? Do people in such circumstances not also need what the Minister describes as time to come to terms with their new status? There would seem to be some element of discrimination ... Do people who have been suddenly abandoned not need the same consideration as people who find themselves suddenly widowed?

Summing up her assessment of a Bill that was only half as bad as the current one, she said of the proposal to lower the cut-off age in respect of lone parent payment:

It reveals the crude recklessness and devil-may-care attitude of the Government regarding the poor in our society. Some of the underlying motivation which concerns me in this Bill is that it would seem that it is not about the welfare or protection of vulnerable people, rather, it is about the welfare and protection of the Government. It is designed to appeal to the prejudices of those sections of the public who believe all lone parents and all jobseekers are sponging off the State. I do not think the Minister should feed that view.

See this speech in context