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

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important Bill, which gives rise to a number of issues.

The Government has appointed Mr. Bobby Kerr to review the post office network nationally and to establish how more Government work could be put through it. The single biggest income source for the post office network is social welfare payments. It is important that this issue is developed. It is an issue I raised with Deputy Pat Rabbitte when he was the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and I have raised it with his successor, Deputy Alex White, also. It came to my attention recently that when the Revenue Commissioners introduced the local property tax it spent over €500,000 putting a paper-based system in place to collect it. It would have made far more sense to let the sub-post office network operate the paper aspect of that system rather than to require the Revenue Commissioners to put a separate system in place. People could have gone to their local sub-post offices where sub-postmasters could have inputted their data into the system and electronically transferred it. Payments could also have been made at local post offices thereby saving the taxpayer €500,000 in administrative costs.

That is just one example. The Department of Social Protection has plenty more. The cost of processing the physical paper forms that must be submitted to the Department is high. As there is a great deal of personal information on some of those forms, I could understand that the Department would not want it being processed through a local sub-post office. However, it is important to remember that postmasters sign the Official Secrets Act. They are the only people outside the public service who sign it and they are in a unique position to deal with many of the schemes that are there at the moment. Significant savings could be made by the Exchequer across the board as we would not have to put an alternative paper-based system in place if we used the services already in place in local communities through our sub-post offices. It is a win-win for everyone.

Another bizarre situation that arose involved the new driving licence system which 40 offices across the country are now administering. One must either go online or physically present oneself in one of those offices to make an appointment. For a lot of people that is not possible, particular older people. They are left in a situation where they have to make two journeys; one to make the appointment and the second to go back and fulfil it. Why could that not have been rolled out through the post office network? The technology exists already within the post office network to facilitate it. It would have brought the service to a far more accessible network of sub-post offices across the country, putting more business through them and providing services in communities. Instead, we have made it much harder for people to access.

I hope the Minister of State will talk to his colleague in the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and postpone any decision to close any post office until Mr. Bobby Kerr's report is published. While I understand the Government is doing that, it should back-date decisions on publication of the report to cover any of the sub-post offices which have been closed since the Government announced this initiative last December. I include in that a post office just outside my constituency at Cappataggle in east Galway. It is well known to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle who will support me on that.

When the Minister of State comes back to me, he will make the point that An Post signs a contract and must guarantee that 95% of social welfare recipients can access their payments within a 15 km radius of their homes. The Minister of State will say that gives a guarantee that we will have a network right across the country. However, that requirement relates to 95% of the population. If the Minister of State takes his mobile phone and travels to parts of my constituency, he will see that while there is more than 95% coverage for most mobile networks, it is far short of that as he goes west through my constituency and out further. It is easy to meet the criterion of 95% coverage when one is talking about large population centres like Dublin, Cork and Galway. However, people in rural communities who have to travel are looking at round trips of 30 km, or 19 miles, to collect a social welfare payment.

While I am on the issue of round trips, I received a letter today from the Midlands North West Division where again we are seeing the closure of more community welfare officer clinics. The community welfare officer provides a very valuable service. The system is meant to be flexible, particularly for people who are in difficult financial circumstances. They may be accessing social welfare payments but also an emergency payment for a financial crisis a family faces. In rural Ireland, people will not go to a community welfare officer or, as they were known historically, relieving officer, unless they really need to. They just do not go to the relieving officer unless they have to. With the closure of these clinics, Keadew in County Roscommon is now being closed, for example, and relocated to Boyle, which is a 44 km round trip. It is the same as asking someone with no money in his or her pocket here in Dublin city centre to go to Wicklow town for assistance. However, there is no public transport to get there and the person must either get someone to assist with a lift or borrow money to get a taxi. I guarantee the Minister of State that when one goes to the community welfare officer, he or she will not give financial assistance to pay for the taxi needed to get there in the first place to make the case that one needed money for a particular emergency. That is the type of twisted logic we have at the moment.

I received notice today that three clinics are about to be closed at Keadew, Ballinlough and Roosky, respectively, in County Roscommon. We should be expanding clinics in some of these rural communities by making them available if not on a weekly basis, then on a fortnightly basis. Instead, we are seeing a reduction in clinics making them less accessible at a time when public transport is being cut. We had an announcement last week from Bus Éireann which is now looking at reducing the bus service from Athlone to Westport. That will directly affect the people in Ballinlough who want to access the community welfare clinic in Castlerea. We are making it far more difficult for people in rural Ireland to get the support they need. I urge the Minister of State to reassess the decision on these and other clinics across the country.

I was interested today to see the breakdown in relation to delayed discharges from hospital. People are stuck in hospital who are trying to get out and they are usually older people. Many of them are trying to get into nursing homes while others want to go back to their own homes but cannot because no grab rail is provided or it is not accessible without small works. One of the barriers in this context relates to carer's benefit. It is an issue I raised with the Minister of State before Christmas and I thank him for his assistance in that regard. The delay in processing a carer's benefit application is currently three months. This is an application on behalf of a person who has paid his or her PRSI over a long number of years and wants to take a period out of employment in order to care for an older or disabled person. He or she applies for carer's benefit, having had to give notice to his or her employer of his or her intention to leave work. Usually, a person will tell the employer he or she will be leaving in four weeks given that the case is black and white in terms, for example, of a mother's complete disability and an uncontested medical assessment. Given that the person has been paying PRSI for 20 years, for example, he or she will consider that there is no issue in relation to the required contribution. Nevertheless, it takes 12 weeks to process that application. There is no justification for that period of time. The reason, of course, is that the handful of staff in Longford is inundated by the volume of applications.

Only a handful of staff is available to process these applications and no additional resources have been provided for them. In fairness to them, they are more than accommodating in trying to facilitate people, particularly in emergency cases, but all cases are emergencies and the staff can only do so much. I urge the Minister of State to provide the resources required. There is a lack of joined-up thinking between Departments and also the problem of silos. The Department of Social Protection and the Department of Health are not joined. For example, because carer's benefit or carer's allowance has not been approved for a person, his or her elderly relative cannot leave hospital and it is costing the State €850 a night to keep him or her in a hospital bed because we are not prepared to process an application for €230 a week in order that he or she can return home, have some dignity and remain there for as long as possible. In the interests of those poor human beings who are in Guantánamo, in accident and emergency departments across the country, in the interests of those patients who are lying on trolleys or who, sadly, do not even have the opportunity to lie on a trolley and are queueing to be given a chair in an accident and emergency department, I ask the Minister of State to please prioritise this issue, release beds in order that patients in accident and emergency departments can be given hospital beds. This problem has arisen because we are not providing the resources needed to process applications for carer's allowance or carer's benefit and it would make far more sense to do so.

I will make one further point on the issue of the need for joined-up thinking. There are many thousands in low paid employment who do not know that they are entitled to a top-up payment from the Department of Social Protection in the form of family income supplement. If they have children and are financially better off on the live register rather than working, the Department has a very innovative and positive scheme - family income supplement - but there is a significant problem in increasing the uptake of the scheme. Rather than waiting for people to apply for the payment, I ask Department staff to pick up the telephone and call the Revenue Commissioners to ask for a list of those on low pay. The Department could write to them and ask if they have children and if they are in low paid employment and in such cases that they may be eligible for family income supplement. The Department could identify such families by linking child benefit payments with those in low paid employment through the PRSI database. Revenue and the Department have improved their data sharing in cases in which people are claiming benefits while in employment and paying PRSI. We should make efforts to encourage people to stay in employment by offering the possibility of a top-up payment which would makes things manageable for them and help them to make ends meet. We could be proactive and employ joined-up thinking instead of having departmental silos where the Department of Social Protection will not talk to the Revenue Commissioners and where the Revenue Commissioners will not talk to the Department of Social Protection. This would ensure access to the scheme for those who need it.

A related issue is highlighted by a conversation I had this week with an employer in my constituency. This employer offered work to four people at a rate of €10.75 an hour, which is higher than the minimum wage. Each of these individuals was receiving between €340 and €370 a week in social welfare payments and each of them refused the work being offered. They were quite willing to take the job if they were paid cash in hand, but they were not prepared to take it if it was to go through the books. One of the issues raised was the loss of the medical card, while some of them were not prepared to take up full-time employment. These anomalies need to be removed from the system. The employer took on an employee under the JobsPlus scheme; the person concerned had been unemployed for seven years. The employer only recently became aware of the JobsPlus scheme and is very happy with the employee. The opportunities for that individual to find paid employment would have been virtually nil without access to the JobsPlus scheme. Schemes are available, but in many cases employers do not know about them. As is the case of family income supplement, employers need to be made aware of them.

I refer to the barriers in taking up employment. Another employer told me that he was offering a job for five half days a week, but he could not find anyone to take it. This is understandable because anyone who takes up the offer will lose his or her social welfare payments because of the regulation that a person who works five days a week is not entitled to such payments. That aspect of the system needs to be changed. People are being precluded from gaining access to employment because of this rule and employers are precluded from offering part-time employment which might turn into a full-time job in time.

I welcome the announcement today of possible tax changes for the self-employed. This is a very positive development. Self-employed persons are the risk takers, the ones who are prepared to take a gamble, take on additional employees in the hope they can make things work while developing the business. However, the self-employed do not have a safety net. The Tánaiste spoke about making changes to the long-term disability or illness benefit scheme, but nothing has been announced to date. Those who are prepared to take a gamble and ready to grow their business and, by extension, the prospects for others to gain employment are the real drivers of the economy. They need to have both a short-term and long-term safety net if they get sick. If a business goes to the wall, the employees will have a safety net, but the employer will not. This needs to change.

My final point is topical as it relates to the proposals to be put in the same-sex marriage referendum. One of my constituents worked with a major catering company and then moved to work in her partner's business. She continued to pay PRSI class A contributions until she walked up the aisle to get married. She walked down with far fewer rights, as she could no longer pay class A contributions purely because she was married. The fact that she was in a relationship with her partner had made no difference until her date of marriage, but once she got married, she could no longer continue to make these contributions. She was blatantly informed that, in the view of the Department of Social Protection, her husband should provide for her from that date forward. This is an anomaly in the system and it is one of those marriage bars that have historically been in place in the social welfare system. This question will arise again for many more people should the referendum be passed later this year. I ask the Minister of State to remove this anomaly because people should not be discriminated against because they happen to get married.

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