Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will focus mainly on the Government counter-proposal, which describes the transformation of the Department of Social Protection. There is no doubt it has transformed but elements have not transformed for the better. I will draw attention to a few of them. The €70 million contract awarded to a UK company in respect of JobPath is absolutely outrageous. The jobs are being created for UK staff to run the process and deliver what was recognised as a failure in the UK. JobPath is already a wasteful disaster. Much of the process relating to it amounts to box-ticking. When the Minister announced JobPath she stated that it would provide intensive individual support, advice and coaching to all on the programme and that JobPath would also help participants to address social inclusion barriers, improve personal well-being and tackle personal difficulties such as problems with literacy, numeracy and addictions.

I can tell the Tánaiste that there is no advice or coaching being delivered. The group CV workshops are not supervised and there is no work to overcome social inclusion barriers. The only barrier I can see arises if somebody refuses to take on a training programme that is totally unsuitable. There is no context to skill experience. The provider has the brand new offices, signage and the €70 million for the contract. Each intervention with a jobseeker is charged to a contract and the jobseeker may often be forced into an unsuitable outcome. There is no initiative to identify skill gaps or to have a targeted approach to fill such gaps with appropriate training. For the life of me, I do not understand how when something has failed, we must persist with trying it again and seeing if it fails again.

There have also been changes to pension calculations that are grossly unfair.

A woman came to my office last week who had paid in excess of 30 years worth of pension contributions and got a reduced pension. When one compares that in terms of fairness to someone who has never worked before the age of 55 and works continuously until pension age, one sees that they get a full pension. It is calculated on the basis of the very first payment a person makes. If a person starts off as a student, takes time out to go to college, takes time out to look after children or other caring responsibilities or even takes a couple of years abroad, they can put themselves in a perilous position because it is calculated over all of their working life. This is grossly unfair. Increasingly, I am coming across people who are furious about that. It is transformation alright but it is not transformation for the better.

The third area I wish to speak to is the approach to rent assistance. I began raising this with the Tánaiste more than three years ago because I could see what was happening. It was subsequently tweaked a bit but the problem that there would be an acceleration in the number of people who could not make up the difference and would end up homeless was evident. There were improvements, certainly in the past year, when section 38 was more extensively used. I used it a lot through my office. If there is a risk of homelessness and there are particular circumstances, a case can be made to the rents unit. This has now changed very significantly in places like Kildare where the HAP programme is being rolled out. While there are merits in that programme, the section 38 element is being rowed back on. For example, a single adult who attempts to rent a property will be allowed €520 plus 20% over the cap. This is €624. Find me something for less than €1,200 in my area. If you can do it, you are a better person than me. We will accelerate the homelessness problem by virtue of this initiative that is rolled out as a solution when it will only cause even more problems. We saw the disgraceful programme last night on RTE. There is a price to be paid, not least the price for emergency accommodation and the damage that is being done to children. If one looks at the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, one will see that it does not go beyond Dublin. If a person ends up homeless in Kildare, there is no joined-up arrangement and they can end up without a social welfare payment in addition to being without a home. The person is told to go off and self-accommodate. I have begged some of the Dublin agencies to take Kildare families and they have generously done so. This is a disaster and its origin is in the Department of Social Protection and the arrangement around rent assistance.

At the end of every electoral term and just before the general election, there is a rush to appoint people to positions. Sometimes they are suitable but sometimes they are not. I hope we are not going to see that in the next week or two. In respect of finding a mechanism or way around appointing someone, someone for whom I have great regard and who I think has great abilities, those abilities are undermined by virtue of the fact that the system is bypassed for what is perceived to be an insider. It does not do politics or the Tánaiste any credit. I am sorry to say that I have no difficulty voting no confidence in her.

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