Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his balanced contribution. The Government is committed to carrying out a social impact assessment of the main taxation-welfare measures before publication of the budget. This will be carried out by the cross-departmental body led by the Departments of Finance, Social Protection and Public Expenditure and Reform. Like the Deputy, I look forward to it being done quickly.

In response to Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett, on the figure of 1%, it was not a panic measure but a control mechanism. What we were trying to do - the Deputy will disagree and say we have not done so - was to give some tax relief to low and middle income families. However, we disagree on that point.

On the particular instance mentioned by the Deputy regarding housing, I have asked housing officers to look into it. I am happy that the Deputy has brought the particular case to our attention. I want to ensure officers use discretion and brought to their attention some weeks ago the discretionary powers available to them as set out in the legislation. I want to see these powers being used throughout the city in a fair and equitable manner. If there are blips and officers in some areas are operating with discretion, while others are not, I want to ensure this does not continue and that discretion is used throughout the system.

I do not want to rehash the discussion that took place before I came into the Chamber and will just deal with issues the Tánaiste did not raise.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh raised a concern about people coming back into the workforce losing out, zero hours contracts and low pay. One of the first changes the Government made when it came to power was to reinstate the minimum wage. The Minister of State, Deputy Gerald Nash, is addressing the issue of contracts and wages and will do so quickly. We want to ensure abuses in the system are removed. The Minister of State is already involved in consultation on the issues involved and we will see him roll out quickly in the new year the fair pay commission which is urgently required. We all have anecdotal evidence of what is or is not happening, but the Minister of State will deal with the substantive issue early next year.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked if the Government had taken on board any of the suggestions made in the UN report. It adopted a key recommendation made in the report to make an explicit commitment to end child poverty by setting a child poverty sub-target in April 2014 which will lift over 70,000 children out of poverty by 2020. I could go back over the documentation and who said what, but that would not be constructive as the issue has been rehashed in the debate.

With the permission of the Chair, I will try to address the issue of rent allowance, although the amendment has been ruled out of order.

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