Tom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael)

I welcome the chance to speak on the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2012. The major issues to be dealt with are the one-parent family payment and the phased reduction of the age limit of the youngest child from 14 to seven for the purposes of the entitlement. The Bill also extends the list of bodies authorised to use the personal public service numbers. The rest of the Bill provides for amendments to the Pensions Act 1990. The changes require defined benefit pension schemes to hold a risk reserve, which is only sensible, to meet funding requirements in future.

The rule on the lone parent allowance scheme is quite clear: the applicant must not be living with a spouse, a civil partner or cohabiting. This is where it all breaks down. The cohabiting element of this has been forgotten. This part of the scheme is being abused left, right and centre. Unfortunately it has become difficult to tease out who is genuine and who is not. Once a person gets the entitlement, a suite of allowances with a financial value are also provided. Apart from the €188 per week and €29.80 per qualifying child, there is the fuel allowance, rent supplement, medical card, family income supplement, back to education allowance and a half a dozen more.

Essentially, however, the burden of proof needs to be moved. I have spoken with social welfare officers and they are very frustrated by this. They know people are not adhering to the rules of the scheme but they cannot prove it because it is very difficult to prove. They need more people to tackle this situation and I am glad the Bill will give them more powers.

I do not believe the report that stated fraud levels were between 2% and 4% as I believe they are much higher than that.

That is not to take away from the genuine claimant who needs social welfare and for whom it is designed, but to identify these people. The people who are not complying with the rules of the scheme are not only disenfranchising the taxpayer but also the people who actually need this money. Disincentives to fraud will also help to reduce the long waiting lists. The people who need to get onto social welfare schemes are being hindered by the amount of incorrect applications.

Social welfare is not meant to be a disincentive to work. It is meant to tide people over until they get into the workforce again. The problem, however, is that there has not been an exit strategy for them. We know all about getting onto social welfare but I do not see a great deal being written about getting off it. It is desperate, because when people get into the routine of taking these payments they become entitlements. Their mindset is that they are entitled to the payment. However, we are also entitled to get up and work. This country needs people to work at present so we need to work our way out of this system. One thing is certain - we will not get out of this economic mess by sitting down. The entire system needs to change and people must comply with the schemes as they were originally drafted.

The jobseeker's benefit, as I have seen in my work, does not help people who want to get off it fast for periodical work. If there is a job available for somebody for four weeks and if it takes eight weeks to get back on the benefit, it will not be worthwhile for the person to leave the social welfare system. That is not the fault of the recipient. We need to introduce measures whereby people can sign on and sign off quickly. In this age of computers and information technology, it should be quite simple. It is an absolute disgrace that this is not allowed because people want to get back to work. The rules of the scheme state that one must be available and genuinely, actively looking for work. Some people are not genuinely seeking work and they should be removed from the system. As with the housing system, if one is offered work a certain number of times and one refuses it, one should be told one's payments will reduce. I find myself doing all sorts of work in my job and that is fine. One just adapts to it.

What really got me thinking about this was an e-mail I received from a constituent. It struck home. Her husband is working and getting a reasonably good wage. They have quite a large mortgage and as they cannot afford a child-minder she is at home minding her children, and is delighted to do it. She says in the e-mail that they did all the right and sensible things: "We got married, bought a house, had beautiful children, and thank God for that, but we are being punished." She concludes by saying: "We were standing outside our house the other day and there is a family in the house across the road. They are on social welfare and the Government is paying for them to live in the same house as we have. Their medical expenses are paid and they have all the other benefits. We thought that if we got separated and I got a house with the children, how much better off would we be? How sad is that?" The system is also hurting people who genuinely wish to comply, be good citizens, to work hard and stick with it, because they see it as a two tier society.

Our taxes are funding the social welfare scheme, and it is fundamental that our taxes be spent properly. Most people would agree with that. With regard to the mortgage problems I mentioned, it is worth noting that the Keane report has done considerable work on mortgages. I have spent quite an amount of time on this with our pillar banks and solutions will be forthcoming, possibly as early as this summer, for people in arrears or on interest-only payments or in pre-arrears. Pre-arrears was a new word for me. It means they are struggling to meet the payments and are barely hanging on. Hopefully, there will be some interesting developments in this area in the next few months which will help many people.

I smiled when I heard Deputy Catherine Byrne refer to the new buggies being distributed and so forth. My children range in age from 12 to three years, which is a number of years, but we have had the same buggy for all of them. In fact, the tyres on it are worn. The last boy is three years old so he will no longer need it. I doubt that many people on social welfare would have buggy tyres as worn as ours. It is because we do not like waste; I cannot stand waste and have never put up with it. However, when something is given and no value is put on it, waste is a consequence.

On the issue of sharing PPS numbers, this is absolutely correct and should always have been the case. I would go further and suggest that we should consider the use of biometric data. If one has nothing to hide, one should have no worries about this. Biometric authentication techniques such as retinal scanning is used by many employers on their employees. It would ensure that people claiming social welfare are the people who should be claiming it. It is a way of verifying their identity.

When I first canvassed for election to the council a number of years ago, I did not know a great deal about the social welfare system. It was late at night when we reached a house for our last call. We were met by a lovely girl who had two children. She told me she wanted the house across the road. When I asked her what she meant, she told me that she had met somebody and wanted to increase the size of her family but the house was not big enough. "I want that one across the road", she said. She went on to tell me that the plumber had not called to fix the shower even though it had been damaged for quite some time. The conversation went on for quite some time. The girl who was canvassing with me had bought a house in the same estate and was listening attentively. However, it turned out that the person we were talking to was getting married, which was fair enough, but they were off to Las Vegas for it. I have never been to America. Social welfare schemes are not meant to pay for flights to Las Vegas.

In conclusion, this Government is doing much good work in this area. The Pathways to Work document is a fine piece of work while the Action Plan for Jobs 2012 is a seminal document. In time, as it works its way through each year, people will realise that this Government is really putting jobs at the centre of everything. If we can create enough jobs and work towards growth, we will be able to tackle many of the problems in social welfare along the way. We should not forget the entrepreneurs whose businesses fail. They have nothing when they fail; there is no handout for them. They are broke. We must address this issue. If we wish to encourage new business and entrepreneurial spirit, we must ensure there is a safety net for those people. They are good citizens as well.

I support the Bill. It opens up a very sensitive area in our society but one that must be discussed thoroughly and fairly.

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