Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am irreconcilably opposed to this Bill. Not only am I opposed to the unseemly haste with which it is being rammed through this House by the use of the guillotine, I am also fundamentally opposed to its provisions because they form the centrepiece of this Government's third regressive budget in a row.

In the budgetary context, when an adjustment is needed and money is taken out of the economy, a progressive budget would be one which takes more from the rich than from the poor. The three budgets introduced by this Government does precisely the opposite; they have taken more from the poor than from the rich. In this budget there is no pretence whatsoever of progressivity. The comfortable are left comfortable and the afflicted are further afflicted. In other words, the burden falls mainly on those who can least afford it.

We had a well-rehearsed script which was played out in some of the papers last Sunday. The script is familiar to us all now at this stage. I refer particularly to last Sunday's The Sunday Times in which we were told by unnamed Labour sources that it could have been much worse. We learned from The Sunday Times, wherever it got the information, that apparently Fine Gael had proposed a list of cuts to social welfare which, in the words of one Labour source, "would have been awful". Another source with perhaps a better command of the language described the Fine Gael proposals as a nightmare list. That was scene 1. Fine Gael was coming along, as usual, to crush the poor in this country. The scene ended, the curtain came down or whatever and everybody was extremely worried but in scene 2, St. Joan of Arc rode in on her white steed and rescued the poor at the last possible moment. It is a script we are fairly used to but it loses nothing in the retelling. It is running now as long as the "Forsyte Saga". We will be forced to conclude very soon that all those broken promises which got the Labour Party so many votes were almost worth it because they put the Labour Party into power as part of the Government and prevented the wicked, dastardly Blueshirts having their wicked way with the poor in this country.

If the Minister for Social Protection thinks that this Social Welfare and Pensions Bill represents some sort of vindication of her efforts or that she deserves praise for her efforts as a result of producing this Bill, she is sadly deluded. The changes to social welfare payments for those under the age of 26 means that the casual debasement of young people by this Government continues apace. The entire process is being presented as some sort of character-building measure in that if these people's social welfare is cut sufficiently and they are squeezed sufficiently they will be forced out into training, education or employment. It is not a question of lack of jobs or lack of education or training places; it is a lack of ambition. The snide inference is that the young people of Ireland are too lazy or too shiftless to seek out opportunities. They have to be forced out. In fact, it is no longer an inference. Some of the Minister's backbenchers have painted a picture of people lolling on couches watching flat screen television seven nights a week. The clear implication is that those people have to be forced out.

Let us look at the situation in reality in respect of places for training and education. All the experts tell us that 21,000 people under the age of 26 will be affected by these budgetary measures. The number of extra places being provided for those people is just over 3,000. I put a simple question to the Minister. If, for the best reason in the world, someone cannot get a place in training or education, how will more employment be created here by slashing their social welfare? It seems to have entirely escaped the Government's attention that many people who are languishing on social welfare have more than adequate training and education. Some of them are honours graduates with an MA or a PhD, and others are people with professional qualifications. What they lack is opportunities to get employment; they do not need training places. I ask the Minister again, in respect of those people, what is to be gained for the economy of the country or how will it create more employment if the already meagre social welfare payment for those in that category is slashed?

As regards employment opportunities, again, it seems to have escaped the Government's attention that there are 32 applicants for every vacancy. In fact, from my experience in my city I believe that is somewhat understated. As the demographics show, the unemployment problem in this country, particularly among young people, has been outsourced to the four corners of the world.

The thinking behind these provisions in this budget is not that it will help people into education or into a non-existent employment but that it will encourage people to emigrate. It is a fact that emigration is now a fundamental tool of this Government's policy to bring down unemployment figures. The youth cohort as a percentage of the Irish population has decreased from 16% to 12% over recent years. Where are they? They are in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the four corners of the globe, and every measure taken by this Government regarding young people has only one objective, that is, to speed them on their way to the nearest airport.

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed states that the way to prevent young people drifting into long-term unemployment is not to cut their income supports but to have imaginative activation measures that work. We are a very long way from that.

We are not just talking about welfare cuts here. It beggars belief that the Government is now proposing that FÁS apprentices will be asked, for the first time, to pay a pro rata student contribution for the time they spend in institutes of technology. I thought the philosophy behind the Government's proposal was to give people more to encourage them to come out of unemployment. We are talking here about people who have done that, yet the Government is saying it will force them to pay up for the first time. How does one explain, in the context of the Government's philosophy, the decision to remove the €20 per week bonus from long-term unemployed people who decide to get out from in front of the flat screen TV and participate in FÁS, VTOS or Youthreach programmes? Surely this is a disincentive. The Minister is making them worse off for coming out even though her philosophy is to encourage them to come out by making them better off.

The princely sum of €14 million has been ring-fenced for the youth guarantee scheme. All the experts tell me that to have a proper youth guarantee scheme, which will cost approximately €6,500 to €7,000 per head for the unemployed youth, would cost approximately €300 million. I estimate that €14 million would cover about 2,000 places, which I suppose is to be welcomed, but if we look at it in the larger context, with 1,600 people per week emigrating, it will handle emigration for nine or ten days. To add injury to the insult already heaped on this demographic cohort, there is a cut of €1 million for youth work services which are stretched to the limit.

We had a debate on the elderly in this House during the week and I said then much of what I wanted to say on that. Suffice to say that the relentless, continuous, pitiless assault by this Government on the elderly for the past two and a half years is something to behold. I outlined in that debate 17 measures aimed directly at reducing the living standards of the elderly, and that list was not exhaustive. It has now culminated in the slashing of the fuel allowance by a Government that committed in its programme for Government to ending fuel poverty. We have had the removal of the free telephone rental allowance, with all the associated problems of security and isolation that will cause, the slashing of the respite care grant, the continuing slashing of the budget for supplementary welfare allowance and - the final insult - the removal of the bereavement grant. The Minister for Education and Skills thinks there is not enough competition among funeral undertakers. I presume he envisages a situation now whereby somebody who becomes a widow or a widower will engage in some sort of tendering process and invite undertakers to make competitive bids. It is simply a cut, another blow, and source of worry to the elderly in this country.

Maternity benefit has been cut again. The House will recall that last year the Minister for Finance decided that for the first time in the history of the State maternity benefit was to be taxed at the marginal rate.

This year, in addition to that imposition, the basic rate of maternity benefit for 92% of people who receive it is to be reduced by a further €32 per week. That means that in less than 12 months, this Government has taken a total of €3,500 from expectant mothers. The supreme irony is that less than a week before the budget, the expert advisory group on an early years strategy recommended that the period for maternity benefit be extended from six to 12 months. The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Fitzgerald, said she accepted that and would fight for its implementation. Excuse me if I am not brimming with confidence and optimism about the possibility of the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, succeeding in doubling the period of time for maternity benefit seeing as she has presided over such devastating cuts for the period of time for which expectant mothers are paid already. Did pregnant woman cause the crisis in our economy? If not, why does the Government persist in demeaning and devaluing them?

There are many so-called "minor" measures, or at least the Government must consider them minor because one finds them in the footnotes and the accompanying documentation rather than in the main budget announcements. The Minister elaborated a little in her speech on the provision for recovery of illness or injury benefit paid to people who are compensated through the courts or through a settlement for injury suffered. She mentioned the fact this is happening in every other country but in most other countries to which one can point, one has a civil law jurisdiction and a completely different scenario in assessing damages for injury. I warn the Minister that this could have the most profound consequences for people who had to have recourse to social welfare and who are subsequently awarded a sum by way of damages. From what I can gather and from the attitude of the Tánaiste this morning, we will not have time tomorrow to debate it properly.

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