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

There is an error in Deputy Pringle’s amendment which reads: "The sum of the difference between €135 and €140 will only be paid to those already in receipt of social assistance and/or social insurance payment". Accordingly, if someone gets a social assistance or social insurance payment tomorrow morning, he or she would not be able to avail of it because it is only for those already in receipt of the payment. The word "already" needs to be deleted to meet the terms of what Deputy Pringle seeks.

I disagree with Deputy Pringle because from my experience of clinics, many of the people who are struggling are those who are just over the threshold for social assistance or social insurance payments. They are not in receipt of a social welfare payment.

They are paying through the nose for mortgages and in trying to make mortgage repayments and while it is only an additional €5 per month, many families already have calculated how they will spend it. This amendment would exclude many people. They are defined as the squeezed middle but many working families, the working poor, would lose out were this amendment to be accepted and consequently, I am opposed to it.

On a related matter, the broader issue being articulated in this amendment is that the savings to be made from this measure would be targeted at the more vulnerable. As the Minister of State is aware, I am blue in the face from stating in this Chamber there are potential savings of up to €80 million per annum in respect of child benefit that could be targeted at some of the most disadvantaged children. While no one has disagreed with me, the Tánaiste has indicated it is not her responsibility but is a matter for the Departments of Education and Skills and Children and Youth Affairs. The Department of Education and Skills has indicated it is an issue for the Departments of Children and Youth Affairs and Social Protection whereas the Department of Children and Youth Affairs has stated it is an issue for the other two Departments. I seek a small element of joined-up thinking that would save somewhere between €70 million and €80 million in child benefit. This is money that is being paid out each year to children who do not exist or who are not resident in this country and have no legitimate or legal claim to child benefit. I do not refer to cases in which EU residents reside here and the payment is being made abroad as under EU law, that cannot be interfered with at present. While I have a suggestion in this regard, it has been knocked down. I refer to the point that each year, the Department of Social Protection issues approximately 300,000 letters to parents - I received one myself a few months ago - to justify that the children are in the country and are attending school. One fills out and returns the form to the Department, which is getting a significant return from those 300,000 letters in that it identifies between €70 million and €80 million of payments - it varies from year to year - that are being issued to children who are not entitled to them. These are children who may have emigrated or who perhaps do not exist, as there have been numbers of fabricated personal public service, PPS, numbers, particularly in the past.

What I seek is the tying in of that money with school attendance. This is because rather than the Department trying to catch people out, it is known who is in this country and is residing here from the time when a child starts school at the age of five. Under the law as it stands at present, if a child who has started in and registered with a school misses 20 days, the school must report this to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. The education welfare officers must identify whether there is a legitimate reason for such an absence and all I ask is that in circumstances in which there is no legitimate reason for the child to be absent, the Department of Social Protection be contacted and informed this child does not exist or has left the country and therefore, child benefit should not continue to be paid.

The other aspect of such a measure is it would act as a huge tool in assisting welfare officers in ensuring that parents encourage their children to go back to school. I have given an example previously in this House of a six-year-old girl from County Cork called Jenny, who had missed almost 40 days between September and Christmas. The national education welfare service was contacted by the school and engaged with the family in question over the following months. It threatened legal action and eventually brought the mother and father to court where the father and mother were fined €300 and €200, respectively. Since that couple were brought before the courts, Jenny has had an exemplary record in school but the difficulty for her is she missed a full year of education. In addition, the resources of the welfare service were tied up in dragging a family through the courts. It would have been far better, had the welfare officer in question been able to approach that family in September or October to tell them that unless Jenny was sent to school, the welfare service would contact the Department of Social Protection. The family could have been told that under the law as it stands at present, people are not meant to receive child benefit unless the child is at school and that the welfare service would ask for that law to be enforced until Jenny returned to school. It would have made far more sense to have done this than to have dragged that family through the courts, thereby tying up the resources of the welfare officers in dealing with that issue when those resources could be better targeted at dealing with children with real and genuine social problems.

The Government could use some of the €80 million that would be saved to put the resources into school attendance programmes. There are some excellent programmes that have been a huge success, some of which are under financial threat at present because the resources are not available in Tusla to continue with them. Not only would this measure yield savings in respect of ensuring the children attend school and improving the efficiency of the education welfare service, it would also save the Department of Social Protection a significant amount of money in the long term because a child who gets the chance of education is less likely to get into trouble, to end up in prison or to end up on the live register in the future. Such children have better opportunities and are more likely to contribute to the economy in the long term. I am merely asking for something simple, namely, that the Ministers for Education and Skills and Children and Youth Affairs, together with the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, should agree to share information across the board.

The Government would save €80 million immediately that is being paid out to children who do not exist or who no longer are resident here. This first saving would be made rapidly but it also could be used as an additional tool to support the education welfare service in ensuring that children attend school. I do not seek anything new here, as the systems for measuring this and the law already are in place in this regard. The only request I make is that under some of the agreements made with the trade unions, when coming across a case in which the child does not exist or has disappeared, education welfare officers should send an e-mail to the Department of Social Protection's control section in Carrick-on-Shannon in order that the child benefit can be suspended. This is what the Department does anyway if a letter is sent out and a response is not received. Why must the system wait for the Department to send out the letter proactively and to wait for an non-response before this happens?

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