Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree there has been a range of cuts. However, given the day that is in it, it is worth reminding people that the Minister could reverse the cut to the respite care grant which was estimated at the time as €26 million or €27 million. Everyone on all sides of this House would urge the Minister to consider reversing the cut. It could have been contained in this Bill. She could have looked again at the cut in the fuel allowance which, at a cost to those families who were dependent on it, amounts to €24 million.

I will deal with some of the range of other issues. We are half way through 2014 and already the PRSI yield is €100 million greater than the anticipated €138 million.

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This is a substantial and welcome boost to the coffers of the Department, which flags that the Minister has scope to reduce the effect of the cuts she has implemented in the past three years. Rather than passing on these savings to another Department or the Exchequer, it should be used to alleviate the hardship facing those who depend on social welfare payments. One of the key aspects of any stimulus package is that every cent in social welfare is spent, usually in the local economy. The Minister should consider the boost a reversal of cuts would give social welfare recipients and local economies.

Having campaigned in Dublin and elsewhere during the recent elections, she will be aware of the many towns and villages which have become wastelands because shops and services have closed. If nothing else, she should consider reversing some of the cuts she implemented in recent years, including the changes to illness benefit, treatment benefit, the diet supplement scheme, the fuel allowance, the household benefits package and the telephone allowance, all of which have had a detrimental impact. The Minister also diminished entitlement to the State old age pension by hiking up the pension age and cut the bereavement grant, rent and mortgage interest supplement and the back to school clothing and footwear allowance.

The Labour Party promised during the general election campaign that, if elected, it would not interfere with child benefit rates. Child benefit payments for a family with four children have been reduced by €58 per month since the Minister came to power. In addition, the core rate of jobseeker's allowance for many young people has been cut by €44 per week, while the eligibility period for jobseeker's benefit has been cut by three months. I still cannot get to grips with the logic of cutting maternity benefit. Changes to the invalidity pension will result in a cut of €1,914 per annum for many people aged 65 years. I have set a number of areas that should have been addressed in the Bill. If the Minister had taken action on these issues, she would have reinforced the message she appears to be sending outside the Chamber in the leadership contest for the Labour Party. Members of her party are being offered a Hobson's choice of either the Minister for social welfare cuts or the Minister of State for medical card cuts.

I welcome the Minister's conversion to the view that austerity does not work, which has been Sinn Féin's position for a number of years. She stated recently:

Ireland has to move away from the current economic narrative of pain and penitence; we need to become a society again, not an economy... But this cannot be done under the austerity model.

We have been shouting this message from the rooftops for years and the Labour Party has not listened. If the Minister's views become the new model for her party in government, my party and the electorate will measure it by its actions. I regret, however, that this Bill does not suggest it has adopted a new model.

Most of the changes in the Bill are welcome, if not urgent. I referred to the change regarding An Post. Most of the other measures are minor changes aimed at tidying up various matters. Sinn Féin has some minor concerns about some technical aspects of the Bill. We will deal with these in greater detail on Committee Stage as we require additional information from the Department. At a minimum, the scope of the legislation should be widened.

As well as the change regarding An Post, the Bill introduces changes to PRSI and share based remuneration. Sinn Féin welcomes the proposed change regarding the recovery of PRSI from employers in respect of refunds. I tabled amendments previously to address an anomaly that arises when deductions are made to payments made to former employees in unfair dismissal cases. None of these deductions, which are made in lieu of social welfare payments, is transferred to the Department of Social Protection. Addressing this matter would require a minor change in the legislation in line with the tidying up being done elsewhere in the Bill. Under the current system, where €5,000 is deducted from an award of €10,000 for social welfare payments, the employer may get away with paying only €5,000. We should ensure all moneys employers owe the State are paid. Employers would think twice before unfairly dismissing an employee if, as I propose, many awards would double. Changes such as this should be made in miscellaneous provisions Bills aimed at tidying up matters.

While I have a few minor concerns about the proposals on family income supplement, the possibility of holding reviews halfway through the 52 week period is, in the main, a welcome change, which has been sought for some time.

I do not oppose the recovery of overpayments made by the Department, although I have raised concerns about this issue previously. While persons have only four years in which to claim back overpayments in tax, I am dealing with a case involving an overpayment by the Department that occurred 30 years ago. There is something of a disconnect in respect of the time permitted to recover overpayments. Fraud is a different matter and should be pursued. In the cases of overpayments made in error, the Department should write them off as hard luck after a certain period has elapsed. If the position were reversed, one would not have a hope in hell of claiming back a tax overpayment from Revenue because the onus is on individuals to ensure their tax affairs are in order and they do not overpay or underpay tax. Similarly, the onus should be on the Department to ensure it is not overpaying allowances.

It is damning that the respite care payment people receive today will be €325 lower than previously. Expenditure on social welfare has been reduced by €1.6 billion since the Minister took office, which is a substantial amount. As I stated, given the recent change in circumstances and the savings made in the Department, the Minister should start to reverse the reduction in her Department's expenditure by ensuring the savings made are redistributed to the most vulnerable.

By virtue of that going back into a local economy, it comes back to Government in many ways, such as through the employers' PRSI, employees' PRSI, VAT and PAYE of workers in shops and factories. In fact, it is a stimulus. There is a model that is used by the Department of Finance which shows how a stimulus returns so much to Government over a period. I do not have the expertise to give the Minister the exact figures but I am aware that if the Minister had used €1.5 billion as a stimulus over a period of three or four years, she would have had a return of two or three times its size which would be sustainable because she would have created jobs.

I welcome the changed circumstances in terms of the numbers working and the numbers who are no longer totally dependent on social welfare, but the major concern I have is the type of work that is being created. I refer to the significant numbers who will be dependent on family income supplement in the future because they are ending up in low paid jobs, with no permanency attaching in many cases. I have continually raised questions about the concentration on schemes that do not end up delivering full training or increasing suitability for employment, the keys ones being the likes of Tús, Gateway and JobBridge. The Minister and I will continue to disagree on those. I would encourage the Department to do a lot more in promoting the one job creation scheme that could be encouraged, that is, JobsPlus. That scheme is a model, where participants are in full-time employment, get a wage above the minimum wage and contribute PRSI and PAYE, and therefore their jobs are more sustainable because the grant to the employer is a lot larger.

I will leave most of the discussion on the technicalities and the specific points of the Bill to the Committee Stage, which will be next week, where we can tease out in greater detail the impact of some of the changes which may not be as positive as they seemed initially. Most of the changes are positive, but I will oppose any change to the designation or mention of An Post in the Bill.

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