Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In his supplementary reply to me the Taoiseach said the Cabinet sub-committee on social policy had met on 23 February, but he subsequently informed me that the sub-committee had been merged with the Cabinet sub-committee on public service reform. Therefore, the questions predate the merger and the Taoiseach should have spoken about the new merged entity in his response. This is important because it involves a relegation of social policy at Cabinet level. In some respects, it is difficult to reconcile the idea that the Cabinet sub-committee on social policy would be included with the Cabinet sub-committee most responsible for the cuts affecting social policy, namely, the sub-committee dealing with public service reform and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

It is clear that the Government lacks a strong social dimension. That the social policy sub-committee has been merged with that on public service reform and that the Government has ended up mixing ICT strategy in the public service with social policy is a mistake. I suggest housing issues should be dealt with separately. The Minister has, for example, made a hames of the issue of rent allowance, which has caused untold misery for families across the country. A properly functioning Cabinet sub-committee on social policy would have alerted the Government and not allowed that to happen. The impact of the decision on rent allowance has been to shove families into appalling and low standard accommodation. If there was a proper social input at Cabinet level, the cut in the number of career guidance hours in schools would not have happened, nor would we have had the discretionary medical cards debacle. I put it to the Taoiseach that social policy deserves to be deal with by a separate Cabinet sub-committee. Is it correct that the meeting on 23 February was a meeting of the merged committees?

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