Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With the agreement of the House, I will share my time with Deputy Robert Troy.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. Having contributed to the debate on the Social Welfare Bill, I will be repeating myself to an extent, but what I said is worth repeating.

The Technical Group has put down a comprehensive motion, which is worth reflecting on. It outlines and recognises the contribution carers make to society. It goes on to acknowledge their need for support from the State and calls on the Government to act on that in a meaningful way. State support is required in the form of carer's allowance and benefit, home care packages, special needs assistance and grants to adapt homes for people who are disabled to ensure they can live at home with dignity and independence.

The decision to cut the carer's respite grant was an amazing one. It now appears we are targeting people who have been made vulnerable by an intellectual or physical disability. I do not say this lightly. In the areas of health and social welfare, we have seen home help hours cut, the carer's respite grant has been cut and last September we witnessed the unseemly sight of people campaigning outside Government Buildings to retain special needs assistants. The Department of Health is now proposing to cut home care packages.

The Government, in trying to honour its commitments not to increase taxation or cut basic social welfare payments, is attacking vulnerable groups in a very malicious way. I do not use those words lightly, but this seems to be the case.

The respite care grant is a valuable contribution to people who are caring for someone at home, particularly to many people who do not qualify for the carer's or half carer's payment. It gives them some support and recognition of what they do on behalf of the State by caring for people who have physical or intellectual disabilities or are growing old and want to remain at home for as long as possible.

This cut was mean and nasty.

The Minister of State referred in her speech to the budget being difficult. We all knew it would be difficult. Every political party in the Dáil agreed about the broad parameters. Fianna Fáil signed up to the memorandum of understanding and put forward our case before the last general election. We outlined the severity of the budgetary situation. No one needed to be informed of that; the difficulties we had were obvious. In respect of the choices that have been made since then, however, the one choice I was amazed was not made was to increase the universal social charge by a minimum of 3% for those earning more than €100,000, which would have given a lot of headroom to address the difficulties faced by the vulnerable in our society because of the social welfare cuts.

The Minister of State referred to the deficit being 8.2% versus 8.6%. Even without increasing the USC for those earning in excess of €100,000, there was headroom built in because we were beyond our targets for meeting the critical 8.6% deficit target that is set out in the memorandum of understanding with the lenders of last resort. There was plenty of room to protect those in receipt of the respite care grant. For all the broad economic arguments being made about the lenders of last resort dictating terms, this was within our own resources, so it was available to us. The decisions that were made, however, were not made in accordance with the fundamental principle of fairness. Fairness is what is at issue. Can someone tell me how it is fairer not to increase taxes on a person earning more than €100,000 than it is to take €325 from those in receipt of the respite care grant? Most people in the Labour Party and most people in this House privately believe it is deeply unfair, to say the least.

The Minister for Communications and Natural Resources referred to pirouetting on the plinth and people saying they had strong concerns about the attack on the respite care grant and other areas of social welfare such as child benefit, but this was a red line issue for the Labour Party before the election. It is no longer a red line issue and possibly there might be a further rolling back on commitments made prior to the election. Even in the context of the programme for Government, this is clearly a social welfare payment. It is very important to families who are put to the pin of their collar.

The respite care grant, and the other mechanisms such as home help, special needs assistants and home care packages, serve to implement a policy to which all political parties and those in the health care industry subscribe, namely, moving people form acute hospitals into independent home care or at least a community care setting. This will achieve the opposite. It will force families to make a decision about continuing to care for a loved one in the home setting or putting that person into long-term care. That is contrary to all stated policy. The Carers Association reckons that carers save the State €4 billion per year. I am still at a loss as to how this proposal found its way into a budget that was supposed to be based on fairness, equality and the protection of the most vulnerable. Clearly, the Social Welfare Bill has stripped that away.

I said to the Minister for Social Protection on the Social Welfare Bill that she makes great play of her claim that she is trying to protect the most vulnerable and that the Social Welfare Bill had achieved that. Any critical analysis which compares the cuts to the respite care grant and child benefit with the measures affecting those who are earning most clearly shows those who are bent over from working hard and supporting a loved one at home who needs care and attention are being abandoned by the Government. Those on €100,000 have not had their basic income cut any more than anyone else in the country in terms of PRSI contributions and cuts in child benefit. If anyone tells me this budget taxed the rich to give to the poor, he is simply not very good at basic mathematics.

Let us be clear on the pronouncements of alea iacta est, the die is cast, but it is cast for carers by this Government that is clearly saying to those carers that they must cross the Rubicon on their own, they must paddle their own canoe because the Government is more interested in supporting the rich and those who can make it on their own. It gives them the breaks while making this mean, spiteful cut to the respite care grant. It is nothing other than a mean, spiteful cut and I know the Minister of State believes that, as does every Deputy in this House. For some reason of simple arithmetic, the Government looked at the figures and decided to take the €325 off the respite care grant and assumed everything else would be fine. There was an easier way and a fairer way to do this. Unfortunately on this occasion, Fine Gael got its way at Cabinet, the Labour Party surrendered and now the most vulnerable are paying. That is not good enough, and even at this late stage, this reprehensible cut should be reversed to ensure those who need it most get it.

See this speech in context