Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The same concept has been used in Brussels by women's organisations. They are all under the one roof and that has significantly reduced the administrative costs for those organisations, but, more important, co-operation and synergies have developed between them. Bringing all the organisations under one roof to work together and develop synergies would benefit service users and reduce bureaucracy and administration. Services would not be duplicated because organisations could see what each of them does and decide which provides the most effective service - for example, in the area of home help for children with disabilities. They could dovetail their services.

Families are frustrated when the see large corporate buildings being used by disability groups for administration, yet no money is available to provide an additional hour of home help for a child with a disability. Holles Street Hospital will become surplus to requirements in a few years and the building is not designated for any purpose in the short term. Disability organisations could be given temporary accommodation in existing premises that the State is leasing and then be relocated when the hospital becomes vacant.

I have raised on a number of occasions the need to overhaul the administration of the child benefit system. Based on figures supplied by the Department of Social Protection, the State could save between €100 million and €135 million a year while continuing to make an equivalent payment to every family if child benefit for school-going children were abolished and replaced with a school attendance payment. This would immediately eradicate fraud, which costs between €10.5 million and €26 million per year.

We would save approximately €5 million per year on overpayments and €13 million that is being issued to children who are not resident in Ireland. Significantly, we would save between €75 million and €85 million on what the Department calls control savings. The Department of Social Protection issues 600,000 letters per year to families asking them to verify that their son or daughter is still in this country and attending school.

By law a child is not supposed to receive child benefit unless the child is in the education system, yet significant numbers of children - up to one in six - of school-going age are missing from school more than 20 days. If we suspended that payment pending those children's return to school it would act as an incentive to some families to get the child into school on a regular basis. I am not talking about removing that payment because the savings can be made without doing that. It would help to address truancy problems. On top of that it would make a significant saving on a major element of fraud and deception in the existing social welfare child benefit system.

The UK Government has developed a very successful interest-free carbon loan incentive scheme north of the Border and in Wales. If one can show that one can reduce one's carbon consumption, one is given an interest-free loan against that. The calculation is that one receives £1,000 for every one and a half tonnes of carbon saved annually. One can use that money to buy equipment that can reduce one's carbon footprint. A company in my constituency could increase its workforce by 16% if a similar loan scheme were available in this jurisdiction, as in the North. It is a no-brainer because the Irish Government will have to buy carbon credits because we are not meeting our targets set by the EU. Here is a mechanism by which we can reduce that and incentivise employment for high energy users and sustain and, hopefully, develop existing employment. I asked the Minister to investigate the feasibility of introducing such a loan scheme on this side of the Border in line with what is happening in Northern Ireland and Wales. This would level the playing field in the interest of creating additional jobs here.

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