Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill. I realise the time for the debate is short and it will be concluded tomorrow. I will run through some of the headlines in the Bill. Then we will ask ourselves why we are doing this and perhaps discuss some of the specifics in more detail.

What we are doing today is increasing the number of waiting days for which people will be eligible for illness benefit to save €22 million. We want to cut €30 million from women on maternity benefit and people getting adoptive benefit. We want to take €17 million from people by eliminating the bereavement grant. We want to take €32 million off young people by cutting the jobseeker's allowance. We want to take €42 million from people through abolishing the telephone allowance. We want to take €5 million from people through the reduction in the supplementary welfare allowances for persons between 22 and 25 years. We want to save the €12 million by abolishing the mortgage interest supplement for all new applicants and by winding down the scheme for those who are in receipt of it already. We want to cut €5 million from those in receipt of the invalidity pension at age 65 years. We want to claim €21 million from people in respect of compensation awards. All of this adds up to a great deal of money. The question we should be asking ourselves is why we are doing that.

We all know there is a financial difficulty in the country although I hope we are successfully working our way out of it at this stage. However, there is a reason we have this level of cuts, including €290 million in the Department of Social Protection. I am disappointed the Minister is not in the House to hear me say this because, to some extent, I have sympathy personally for her. The Minister has been let down by her senior party colleagues in government. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, and the Minister's party leader have let down the Minister for Social Protection by forcing this level of cuts. They came in and threatened her with €400 million of cuts and then they settled on €290 million and the Minister thinks she has achieved something but, in truth, she knows in her heart the reality is otherwise. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, forced her to cut €290 million off people in receipt of social welfare payments. These are probably the 20% of households in Ireland with the lowest level of income. The simple question that I imagine the Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, would be asking is how much are we taking off the 20% of households in the country with the highest income in this budget. The answer is: not a tosser. Those on the highest incomes in the country, the best off 20% who could pay a little more, are not being asked to contribute anything in this budget, while those among the 20% with the lowest income are being asked to contribute €290 million by way of cuts to their payments. When I consider the overall shape of the budget, this is where the situation has gone awry.

Last week, the Minister, Deputy Howlin, announced his expenditure adjustments would be €1.6 billion but the taxation measures would only amount to €0.9 billion. Consequently, two thirds of the €2.5 billion adjustments being made in this budget are falling on those who rely on State services. Moreover, out of that €1.6 billion, cuts of €1 billion will be taken from health and social protection. In other words, the cuts are affecting the lowest-paid people, as well as those who rely on the health services, while simultaneously not increasing taxes. The majority of the additional €0.9 billion is a result of extra money coming from the property tax. However, everyone who will experience cuts in social welfare payments arising from today's measures, including the elderly and those in receipt of disability allowance or invalidity pension or the figures I have just mentioned, will also be obliged to pay double the amount of property tax next year, as they will be paying for the entire year. While this is also the case for the better off, this will affect those who are experiencing cuts on foot of the legislation under discussion today. Not only are they experiencing cuts but will be obliged to paying property tax for the full year, which constitutes a further cut on them.

The Minister of State opposite will smile at this but it raises the basic question as to what the Labour Party is doing in government when year in and year out, its members come into this Chamber only to implement a Fine Gael agenda. More power to Fine Gael, as it has its mandate to be the largest party, but the Government is implementing a Fine Gael agenda. The Labour Party members of the Economic Management Council, namely, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Gilmore, and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, concede year in and year out that two thirds of the adjustments should take place on the expenditure side, which fall proportionately-----

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