Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I note the Minister's outline of the commitments in the programme for Government. There are also commitments in the document which was signed on behalf of our party and the Minister's party. Nevertheless, it must be made clear that over the past five years, there have been five regressive budgets in which the poor bore the brunt of austerity. It will take a number of budgets and quite a shift in expenditure in the Department of Social Protection to repair the damage that has been done over those years.

The Government's main contention, and the former Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, repeated it again this evening in an unrelated debate, is that the last Government maintained the social welfare system and maintained the level of benefits or the purchasing power of benefits. Of course, that is not true. The claim is undercut immediately by the fact that over the past five years, when there has been no increase in social welfare rates apart from the €3 per week in the old age pension in the last budget, inflation has increased by just under 5%. That is a 5% erosion of the purchasing power of social welfare benefits. Some studies have been conducted on the impact of this on the elderly. Due to the type of goods the elderly purchase, it is estimated that the inflationary impact on them is approximately 7%.

Leaving that aside for a moment, the Government claimed that it did not cut basic rates of social welfare in any way. It did not cut the basic rate of jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance, but it made it more difficult to qualify and it paid jobseeker's benefit for a shorter period. That is tantamount to a cut. It claims it did not cut the rate of carer's allowance, which is true, but as the Minister is aware every carer in the country is automatically entitled to the respite care grant and the reduction in that grant of €350 per year represented a cut of €7 per week for every carer. It was only restored in the shadow of a general election. That was the equivalent of a cut in the weekly payments. Most people on social welfare who did not have a large extra income were entitled to a fuel allowance but that allowance was cut. It has been restored by 45% to 50% but that is a basic cut.

Instead of having to provide for themselves for the first three days of illness, people who claim illness benefit must now provide for themselves for the first six days. In effect, that is a cut. Maternity benefit was cut and taxed. We could also mention the household benefits package, the free telephone rental allowance and the school clothing and footwear allowances, which were designed to assist the poorest people in society. They have been slashed quite blatantly. These cuts have a particular impact on the elderly.

I already mentioned the impact of inflation. In addition to that, the free telephone rental allowance was abolished, which impacted on the elderly, and there was the evisceration of the household benefits package, changes in the method of calculation of pensions to the detriment of pensioners, restrictions in the higher rates of disability allowance and invalidity pension for people over 65 years, restrictions in tax relief on medical insurance which disproportionately affects the elderly, the increase in the threshold for the drug repayment scheme, again affecting the elderly disproportionately, and changes in the qualification conditions for people over the age of 70 years.

While this erosion of purchasing power was taking place, a raft of new charges were introduced, such as water charges and property tax. People who were trying to provide for themselves were subjected to a pension levy, whereby €2.5 billion was gouged out of their savings. Contributions to the fair deal scheme increased, as did carbon tax. The waiver for refuse collection was abolished. The increase in the VAT rate from 21% to 23% also had a disproportionate effect on the elderly. After all of that, a €3 increase per week after five years appears quite meagre.

All of this has given rise to poverty levels I do not have time to discuss but they are quite considerable among the elderly, children and lone parents. We must have the worst poverty rates among lone parents in the civilised world. It has given rise to horrendous inequality. The most recent figures for disposable income show that the top 10% of people in the country had 25% of all disposable income, while the bottom 10% had just under 3%. That is just income. If one factors in access to capital and assets, which is almost exclusively confined to people in the upper echelons, inequality in this country has reached a perilous stage.

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I am not pretending, nor will I suggest, that these matters can all be dealt with in one budget. Obviously, it will take several budgets but we have a number of very specific commitments relating to these matters. We do not envisage making Ireland a perfect society as a result of the next budget but we are certainly determined to ensure that it will be a better society. We are determined to ensure that the era of regressive budgeting will be over and that there will be specific measures in the budget relating to social welfare that will halt the increase in poverty, particularly consistent poverty, and move more quickly towards the targets the Government set itself and that it failed abysmally to achieve.

I wanted to ask the Minister about a number of specific items in the Estimates. He referred to the reduced expenditure on lone parents of €170.5 million. He said this was partly offset by increases in jobseeker's payments, the family income supplement and the back-to-work dividend. According to my calculations, the increases in the family income supplement and the back-to-work dividend only come to approximately €42 million between them and that is not all. That increased payment does not all go to lone parents. I would like to get a specific figure for the loss to working lone parents as a result of the changes introduced by the previous Minister.

I also note an allocation for the back-to-education allowance. The Minister will be aware of a pretty damning report about this allowance and its impact on employment. I would like to hear the Minister's views on the future of the allowance.

There is also a transfer of €24.5 million to the housing assistance payment, HAP. Could the Minister tell us what percentage of dwellings have been transferred from rent allowance to the HAP? I also notice that there is a €20 million reduction in rent allowance. This will change pretty dramatically if the programme for Government is to be fulfilled.

That is all that I have time to say in this very short debate. I heard the end of the previous debate. The fact that we are discussing this matter through exchanges and one-off speeches on the floor of the House is a retrograde step. The real place to debate Estimates is in committee and I strongly recommend to the business committee that we go back to that system.

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