Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. He is looking after both of us. I appreciate his interest as much as I am sure the Leas-Cheann Comhairle does. In regard to the general issue of the tight timescale for progressing Social Welfare Bills, which arises from the need to implement various budget measures, the submission from FLAC commented on this. However, FLAC's submission would have serious implications for already tight timelines. I recall that it took the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection more than six months to examine the transgender Bill under the new arrangements. Everybody in this House operates to tight timetables. I am glad that the heads of the aforementioned Bill were published yesterday and I thank the committee and its members for its deliberations over a protracted period.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh suggested that we make the in-house guide on the various amendments to the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act available to the public, subject to appropriate disclaimers. I would broadly favour that approach and I recognise it would be useful to Members, social welfare practitioners and the public in general. I will consider the suggestion. A certain amount of work may be required to prepare the guidelines for publication but I accept the Deputy's point and will revert to him. It is probably not something we can do immediately but I would be more than happy to consider it because I think it would be helpful to people. I thank him for the proposal.

I do not propose to accept the amendments. I will explicitly address the concerns that have been voiced by a number of Deputies regarding the technical amendments set out in section 3 of the Bill. There is a misapprehension that the proposed amendments will in some way threaten the future viability of An Post or diminish its position in social welfare legislation. That is absolutely not the case. I want to reassure older people, in particular, because there may be an amount of campaigning type propaganda - not here but outside - which is giving rise to fear among elderly people that the services they receive from the Department of Social Protection are at risk. I would like to send the message that they are not at risk.

The amendments are designed to achieve two objectives. They aim to protect the State and its contract with An Post from challenges by third parties. This is what happened with the previous Government. A challenge was issued in 1999 which ultimately wound its way to the highest European courts and which suggested that the contract would have to be put out to tender. That is the history of the matter. The core objective we are trying to achieve is to give An Post, as the Department's contracted payments service provider, the necessary authority to assist the Department with its fraud and control measures. As a number of Deputies have noted in their contributions, An Post is uniquely placed to assist the Department in fraud and control measures. That is probably a significant part of the reason for An Post's success in winning the contract. As Minister I have, for example, directed that jobseekers' payments should be collected in person because An Post is in a unique position to assist with verification and to ensure the people who receive the payments are who they claim to be and are in this country, as they are required to be unless they have otherwise notified their local social welfare office.

These amendments support the contract I signed prior to Christmas and which is currently in place. This contract will maintain the continuity of cash payment services throughout the towns and villages of Ireland. As I indicated during our Committee Stage discussion, the contract has a duration of two years and will be renewable for a further four years. While I hope An Post will seek to renew the contract, that is a matter for the management of the company. Given that An Post gets a significant amount of valuable work through the Department of Social Protection, I am sure it will be in favour of maintaining the contract.

I do not want these unfounded concerns to cause unnecessary anxiety among the clients of my Department. The amendments provide a solid legislative basis for the arrangements under which payment services are to be delivered by An Post as a payment service provider.

Critically, they also enable An Post to carry out activities that will contribute to the prevention and deterrence of welfare fraud and enhanced control. That is very clear from the text of the Bill.

In all procurements by the Department of Social Protection or any other Department, EU procurement rules must be adhered to and there is a host of legal provisions and case law to guide a Department's procurement processes. Of particular importance in this regard is the requirement that certain principles must be applied and be seen to be applied; these include non-discrimination, equal treatment and transparency. Non-compliance with these legal stipulations could render our procurements and the contracts arising from procurement competitions null and void. The contracts with An Post were legally contested and objected to during the previous Government's term by people entitled to do so.

We must ensure we avoid the risk of contracts being open to legal challenge in the interests of the continuity of welfare payments. There are valuable consequences of An Post being a contractor for the company and postmasters, which people have mentioned, and it is also important for services to our clients. Transparency is of particular importance and the European Court of Justice ruling made it clear in a 2007 decision that any further contract without a formal and public competition would put us in breach of EU directives. Deputy O'Dea was a Minister at that time but the legislation was not amended after the court ruling, although arrangements were put in place for cash payment through An Post until 2013. In preparation for the cessation of those arrangements, my priority was on having a robust procurement competition and an open process. This procurement was the first full and clear specification of the scope and scale of services required to support cash payment services to welfare clients, with specific regard to issues around the prevention and detection of fraud and the enhancement of the control procedures.

With regard to the work of postmasters, the business strategy of An Post is in the first instance the concern of the company's board and the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. My officials and I will continue to work resolutely with An Post and the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and his Department officials to ensure a strong and vibrant post office network. I serve an urban area, although it has a rural hinterland, and the Deputies have mainly spoken about rural post offices. Small post offices and sub-post offices in urban areas are equally important to people living in urban areas.

I am aware of the concerns aired in debates but as the Minister I must ensure the arrangements entered into can stand up to scrutiny, and neither I nor An Post can be exposed to risk with the existing contract won by An Post. In this respect Deputies must be careful what they wish for. Some people seem to suggest that people should not have any right to use any access to electronic fund transfers, for example. The An Post business case must be developed by the company but it should develop a capacity for electronic funds services either on its own or potentially in conjunction with another provider. It is a significant and important contract area. On Committee Stage some people veered almost to arguing that people should be forced to use their local post office. Would people put up their hands to indicate how many are receiving child benefit directly from a local post office? If somebody has a bank account, although people bemoan it the preference is to use the service for the sake of convenience; that is instead of going to queue in a local post office. The critical issue is the upgrading of services within local post offices to ensure they can compete with electronic fund transfers.

I do not know how many Deputies would say to retirees in receipt of a pension from the Department of Social Protection that they should not be allowed the choice of putting the money directly into bank accounts but rather that they should have to queue at a post office. I am not sure that is what Deputies intend.

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