Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Maybe I will be able to speak in slower English. I am delighted to have the chance to say a couple of words on this Bill. Having listened to a couple of speakers from Fianna Fáil, I do not know what planet they are on.

I listened to Deputy Ó Cuív saying how tough the budget is and how the Minister, Deputy Burton, has done nothing but cut since she came into office. Does he realise what he handed over to us? First, let us go through his budget in 2010. The main points were: a 4% cut in social welfare payments, excluding the State's old age pension. He cut the basic rates. Child benefit decreased by €16 a month, although it remained unchanged in welfare dependent families, I will say that much for him. Fianna Fáil reduced the jobseeker's allowance for 20 or 21 year olds to €100 per week. They talk today as if the reduction in jobseeker's allowance for young people is something new. Fianna Fáil brought it in for the wrong reason.

It brought it in just to save money.

It did not bring it in with a real commitment to young people, a youth guarantee and youth activation measures. It never heard of the youth guarantee despite the fact that it was used all over Europe at the time. That is what we had under Deputy Ó Cuív. He tried to pick on the Minister today as though she is in here just to cut for fun. Do people think this Government really wants to be unpopular? Do they think we enjoy making cuts? We do not. That is not what we came in here to do. We came in here to turn the country around - to take a dysfunctional country, fix it and get it working again. That is happening but it is not by luck, chance or anything else. It is through good governance and management by two political parties and in fairness, some good Opposition in some cases. I will admit that but we had years of mismanagement before that which put us in that place. It is crazy for Deputy Ó Cuív of all people to sit there and act as if he is amazed that there must be any cuts at all.

The previous Government handed over a basket case of a country. I listened to Deputy Ó Cuív recently defending Brian Cowen, other leaders and Deputy Martin for their role in managing the economy. They claimed they did great things when they were here. Yes, it was great that the pension went up to €230 but the foundations were not there to keep it. It is amazing how this Minister has been able to keep it because the public finances were not put in place to keep all the nice things Fianna Fáil claimed it gave us over the years. All the commitments the previous Government made in each Department since 2001 and 2002 were built on foundations of sand because it put all the eggs of this country into one basket - construction. When construction declined, so did our tax base to fund all these nice things that everybody wanted. The previous Government did not put in place a proper economy to pay for the services that the young, old and middle-aged need. We are trying to turn that around and build an economy based on enterprise and exports - not selling houses to each other. That does not make a country rich in the long term. That is what the previous Government did.

To understand why we are here, Fianna Fáil in Government let the budget of the Department of Health go from €3 billion to €15 billion in ten years yet we did not get a health service that was five times better. We got a dysfunctional health service that did not spend money in the right places and did not deliver the health service everyone needed. The people concerned wanted to do it and to try their best but the systems were never put in place to spend that money correctly. Likewise, the spend in many Departments went up and up based on taxes from housing and yet no real reforms took place. We now have Ministers like the Minister for Social Protection and the Minister for Health who are bringing in reforms to make things sustainable in the long run.

It is a pity that we must have social welfare Bills that do involve some cuts and changes that will inflict pain on certain people. It is minimised as much as possible but reducing anything for anybody will cause them a small amount of pain. It will affect some more than others. What we are trying to do in this Bill is to protect the most vulnerable. I have listened to mainly Fianna Fáil spokespersons and probably Sinn Féin Deputies call this budget an attack on the vulnerable. I did not get the chance to listen to all the speeches. It is not. It is an attempt to pick out the areas where one can make some changes without inflicting too much pain on anybody. One does one's best to protect the vulnerable, the elderly and the young but with each budget, it gets a bit harder to protect everybody and keep all those areas. We gave a commitment to protect the basic rates and, amazingly, we have protected them given the public finances handed over to us by the previous Government. That is a commitment.

We also said that we do not believe in constantly taxing jobs because this country is short of jobs. I have no problem with higher taxes at the right time but it is not the right time because we need to win and create new jobs so one cannot keep taxing jobs one does not have. A total of 80% of increases and charges in the first four austerity budgets were on jobs. They were on income tax so one cannot keep doing that. It is not as easy as using the magic pen that Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin now have and simply putting more taxes on people. That is not the solution because we did that for years. We want to win new jobs. If one raises taxes too much, one will not win those jobs.

I will turn to some of the facts in the Bill. I listened to Deputy Dooley telling me that this is an attack on young people. He also forgets that Fianna Fáil brought in the first reduction in rates for young people. That was its choice. This time, it has been done as part of a strategy because it makes sense to do one's best to encourage young people with carrot, and with stick if necessary, to get into education, training or work where possible. We know that a job does not exist for everybody. We wish there was. Our aim is to get there eventually but one will not do it overnight. One will not do it in six months or even one year but we will get there over a number of years. In the meantime, while one is trying to create a job for everybody, one must keep them as close to the workforce as possible. That is why we have documents like Pathways to Work and why we have the youth guarantee for whose implementation and funding the Minister for Social Protection fought hard in Europe. This is funding upon which we will draw to spend in this country to guarantee young people a future. Yes, they might have a little bit less in social welfare for a few years but they have a future because we will make sure of this through the money being spent on labour activation, of which over €1 billion is for youth activation measures. The budget provides about €15 million for the youth guarantee drawing on some of the European money. That is targeted at young people to get them back to work and into education and training.

I hear people saying that this is not fair, that it will drive young people to emigrate and that young people do not stay at home. That is not the case. Most young people want to get out there, get a job and go to college but there is a percentage that is not engaging. People have used the term NEETs - not in education, employment or training. It is a very common term all over Europe. I believe 20% of young people in this country are in that category. They are not in education, employment or training. They are the ones we are trying to tackle because that is not good for them. Never mind the fact that it is not good for the economy, it is not good for them. It does not secure their future. The percentage of people in that category all over Europe is between 12% and 13%. The last set of CSO figures tells us that there are a number of young people who are not engaged in any system. That cannot continue, which is why we have a policy that stipulates that if a person does not take up a training place, a place in college or a job, the rate of their social welfare payment will be cut. If they take up any of these offers, it will not be cut. The person will be €60 better off if they get involved in their future. That is a wise thing to do. If one wants to grab the headlines, it might not look like a nice thing to do but when one reads the details, it makes sense. That is what we are trying to do as a Government even in bad times. We are trying to do things that make sense. Naturally, we would like to give everybody plenty of money but it is not possible because the money is not there. We are only kidding ourselves about what we have and do not have.

I know the medical card is not part of this Bill but all these people are speaking as if we are taking the medical card off everybody. We are not. Yes, some will lose it and I wish they did not lose it, as do all of us because we all know that a medical card gives great security to a person or family. However, we got a commitment from the Taoiseach yesterday that those who need it will get it. We are not stupid. We deal with medical cards in our offices every day of the week. Some people slip through the net. People who need it do not get it and we must fix that. Individually, we all work hard to make sure they get it back and this happens in most cases. However, there was no announcement that everybody's card would be taken back. That is not what was said. If one works it out, the majority of those over 70 will keep it. Yes, about 3% or 4% might eventually lose it but they would be regarded as having sufficient means. One tries to stretch it to make sure that those who do need it get it because all of us here know people who need a medical card but do not have one because they are just over the guidelines, missed out or did not know how to beat the system. That is why we must help rearrange the finances to make sure those who need it most get it. Yes, it does mean that sometimes a certain percentage of people over 70 might lose it but that is what one is trying to do with competing resources. One cannot do everything one might like to do. We must be honest with ourselves here. We would like to do more but we cannot always do that so we try to maximise resources as best we can and spend the money in the right place.

I heard complaints about maternity benefit. Yes, it is a shame that it will be reduced for some people. It is still there and the six months are there but it is a short-term payment. Any young mother with whom I have spoken would rather have kept that money but understands that her family is much better off having free GP care for under fives.

That was introduced for primary health reasons rather than as an economic measure but it also has economic benefits. Families are much better off because the GP card is preferable to a payment that lasts only six months.

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