Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Tá áthas orm deis a bheith agam labhairt ar an ábhar tábhachtach seo. Níl a fhios agam céard atá á dhéanamh ag comhghleacaithe an Aire Stáit sa Rialtas nach féidir leo córas riaracháin a rith. Tógann sé bliain ar an Aire Coimirce Sóisialaí, an Teachta Burton, carer's allowance a cheadú agus ní féidir leis an Aire Oideachais agus Scileanna, an Teachta Ruairí Quinn, córas a chur i bhfeidhm leis na deontais a cheadú le haghaidh mic léinn triú leibhéal.

Tá rud i mo chloigeann ag rá go bhfuil ceann de dhá rud i gceist, iomlán mí-éifeacht agus daoine i mbun chúraim riaracháin nach bhfuil in ann an jab a dhéanamh. Nó b'fhéidir go bhfuil siad níos glice ná sin. B'fhéidir gur é an rud atá i gceist acu ná an caiteachas a bhí le titim i mbliana a chur siar go dtí an chéad bhliain eile. Mar a deir siad i mBéarla, táthar ag ciceáil an canna síos an bóthar. Is ceann den dá rud sin atá i gceist, agus tá sé in am a rá linn cé acu - mionrachas nó mí-éifeacht. Is náire é seo do dhaoine a gcaithfidh fanacht ar a gcearta. Nuair a bhí na hAirí atá anois mar Airí sa bhFreasúra, b'iad ba thúisce a bhí ar a gcosa ar an taobh seo den Teach ag fiafraí cén fáth nach raibh rudaí níos fearr.

It seems that the Minister of State's Labour colleagues are either completely inefficient or perhaps they are very clever. It could be that with these manufactured delays in process is pushing the money down into next year in order to keep the budgets right. It takes a year to get a carer's allowance and people are stacked in a queue. The officials in the Department of Social Protection used to remind me that relatively speaking, very few people get supplementary welfare allowance while they are waiting in the queue. By pushing people into a long queue, the pay date is put off. It will inevitably catch up on the Government unless it keeps making the queue longer. However, this policy buys a bit of time. Either they are completely inefficient and are unable to run a Department or they might be a bit clever by trying to hide the fact that they do not have money. They may be trying to push the money onwards because the State works on a cash paid basis, not on an accrual basis. They are trying to keep the Estimates right for the troika and put the expenditure into the following year. One way or the other, it will catch up with them. The people waiting for the Labour Minister for Social Protection or for the Labour Minister for Education and Skills, those who badly need money and who need to know so they can tell the colleges that they are eligible for a grant and should not be charged a registration fee, need answers.

The situation with regard to SUSI is ludicrous. The amount of information sought for the most obvious of questions is ridiculous. I cite the case of a farmer with a seven hectare farm - a small Connemara farm. It was known from the beginning that SUSI would require farm accounts.

The individual had made a profit of €132. I accept the authorities must ensure one is not making a profit by writing off depreciation on tractors, for example, because this does not comprise an eligible expense. We sent the authorities a little profit and loss account that showed that the total income on the farm in question was €3,000, that the individuals concerned were in receipt of means-tested social welfare, and that all the expenses related to the purchase of materials such as fertiliser and fencing wire, which comprise the normal day-to-day purchases on a farm. Despite this, the authorities wrote back looking for a balance sheet. It was obvious that the farmer could not have been presenting depreciation as an expense in the accounts. The authorities wanted a profit and loss account for a second time and a lot of other information on the farm although it was clear that the farmer did not have any farm machinery and that the only asset was the land itself. This is mindless bureaucracy. The same applies in the case of medical cards. Mindless bureaucracy is totally ridiculous when the answers to the questions asked are obvious.

In fairness to the local authorities and VECs, when they were handling applications they did not ask for an additional heap of paper when the answer to a question was obvious. In most cases, they asked for information only when one rang them to ask why a grant was not sanctioned. What I have described is an utter administrative mess. It is vital that people have their grants sanctioned immediately and that the Minister scrap the absolutely ridiculous mechanism for doing the job. He should not be dealing with people who have not a clue about the realities of life and return to a system in which applications are processed near to applicants' locations. Thus, the staff would have some idea about the realities of people's lives.

The Government promised so much. Unless my more malign theory is correct, the Government is totally inefficient. The theory is that the Government is delaying everything on purpose so the balance at the end of the year will come right. The Minister needs to tell us what he will do next year to ensure grants are sanctioned quickly.

The Minister has many highfalutin ideas. One of the great ones was to stop the support for people proceeding to fourth level education. In a country in which we have said time and again that we need workers with the highest qualifications, the Minister has imposed an income limit of €27,000 in respect of fourth level education support. Thus, students whose parents earn gross salaries of €32,000 or €33,000 will receive no support in fourth level education. Many working families can no longer afford to give their children the opportunity to obtain Masters degrees and doctorates, which are so important in the high-tech economy we are trying to build.

I do not have to stress what the Minister is doing for rural areas. He is closing the small schools which are getting fantastic results and in which 70% of children proceed to third level education. In addition to taking people's incomes, the Minister proposes to count the value of their assets when determining eligibility for the third level grant. Most people who inherit farms and small businesses never regard them as tradeable assets. They regard the assets as assets to be held in trust for the next generation but it seems the Minister wants people to have to sell land to send their children to college.

If the Minister believes this measure will not affect considerable numbers of people in urban areas, he is incorrect. It will affect them because large numbers of people in urban areas own second properties whose values are lower than the mortgage values. If the Minister starts to assess asset values, he will find out that many working families will not be eligible for a third level grant.

The Minister signed a pledge to reverse the increase in the registration charge. He will not apologise even though it was he who was exaggerating, before the election, the scale of the challenges we face. On the other hand, he was promising what could not be delivered.

Is náireach an mhaise don Rialtas é. Tá sé in am ag an Rialtas a bhfuil ag dul go dhaoine óga na tíre, agus dá dtuismitheoirí, a íoc amach. Muna bhfuil siad in ann an córas riaracháin a stiúrú agus muna bhfuil na hAirí as Páirtí an Lucht Oibre in ann a gcuid Ranna Stáit a stiúrú agus córas éifeachtach riaracháin a chur ar bun iontu tá sé in am acu éirí as na postanna sin agus ligint do dhaoine eile dul isteach, daoine as a bpáirtithe a bhéadh in ann córas riaracháin a riarú.

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