Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the chance to speak on the Bill. "Miscellaneous provisions" in the title of a Bill is generally the parliamentary term for the kitchen sink, with everything thrown in on top. At the beginning of any social welfare Bill, however, it is appropriate to pay tribute to the staff of the Department of Social Protection who work throughout the country and deal every day with people who are under huge pressure. They deal with us, too, and the telephone inquiry lines of the Department are a model for other organisations of Government as to how to facilitate us. As I always do, I appeal to the Minister to try to deal with the backlog of social welfare appeals - to provide the extra staff required in that area. None of us are happy with a situation where social welfare appeals are running behind, in some areas, by 14 or 15 months. I know the Minister has put extra people in place and that a particular cadre is what is required, but we must address that issue.

There are some welcome elements of the Bill. I welcome in particular the extension of PRSI. In this country we have a difficulty with entrepreneurship and business. We still do not give appropriate - or enough - support to entrepreneurs and do not give them enough encouragement as they go about creating their business. In particular we do not support them when it does not work out. This is not political, it is cultural. We love to celebrate failure in this country and love to throw at a person that his or her business did not work out. If we are to move on as a country we have to support people. The current situation is that many people who were employers during the so-called boom times are now in a worse situation than those they used to employ because the system is not designed to help them. Deputy Spring referred to this. It is not good enough. The people who contributed substantial money in taxes and PRSI are now left out and cannot access a payment because, in many cases, they are not entitled to one. Even if they are so entitled, because of properties they have that are worthless at this stage, they cannot get the payment because there is a perceived income arising from the property. We need to look at that situation and encourage people. Schemes such as the back to work one are excellent and need more support and publicity.

I welcome the granting of the principle in this legislation that PRSI will be extended to those with an income for a trade or profession. It does not go far enough but at least it is we have opened the door.

I welcome the provision for part-time firefighters to receive jobseeker's allowance. Particularly during the spring emergency season for gorse fires, part-time firefighters play an important role. They are not especially well paid for the risks to which they expose themselves and I pay tribute to all who campaigned on this issue. The notion of them not being available for work because they are protecting public safety reminded me of Sir Humphrey and I am glad the matter has finally been addressed.

Although the Bill makes provisions for pension reform, we still are not facing up to the pensions time bomb. The Minister and her predecessor have commissioned a series of reports and conferences on the subject and every so often there is a splash on the six o'clock news but then we move on to the next story. We are facing a serious problem down the line as our population structure changes and the proportion of those in need of pensions begins to exceed those at work. Perhaps because we are so busy trying to get through our current difficulties we are not focusing our governmental, societal or personal attention on the pension challenge. The Bill goes some of the way to resolving this issue but in 15 or 20 years time people will retire in the expectation of a pension pot that is no longer available. They will then try to access the social protection system but at that stage it will be too late. The number of retirees will be so great that our system, which is already under pressure, will collapse unless we begin preparing now. It is no bad thing that the age of eligibility has been increased given that people are working longer but the question of how Ireland Inc. pays for pensions remains to be addressed. There is no sense in planning for our economic recovery if we ignore the elephant in the room because adequate pensions provisions are essential to ensuring our recovery is sustainable.

In the spirit of miscellaneous provisions, I would like to raise a number of issues relating to social protection. It was wrong to cut farm assist in December. The Minister of State, Deputy White, will not be familiar with farm assist.

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