John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Neither party is concerned people are choosing what medication they can do without week to week. This is something else both parties have in common. While Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil both acknowledge fuel poverty - Deputy Willie O'Dea referred to it himself - they failed to turn about any of the cuts imposed on fuel allowance. The rate remains the same. Currently, 28% of households across the State experience fuel poverty. That means we have older people who are cold in their own homes. We know Ireland has the highest levels of excess winter mortality in Europe with an estimated 2,800 excess deaths every winter, yet Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have failed to address this in budget 2017. The reality is older people travel on public transport during the day to keep warm. They ration fuel at home because they cannot afford it and are having to go to bed early just to stay warm.

During the general election campaign, I met a lady who told me how she goes to her local library to keep warm. She meets many other elderly people from the community there. This is happening the length and breadth of the State. Our elderly have to go into public buildings to keep warm because of the gross inadequacy of the fuel allowance and the fuel poverty 28% of our population experiences. This is utterly unacceptable. Budget 2017 has done nothing in that regard. Due to the inaction of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, this will continue.

There was a song and dance about the €5 increase in the State pension. When we looked at the fine print, however, we realised older people will not see the increase until five months after the budget, a date unknown until the Social Welfare Bill 2016 was published last week. While it is acknowledged older people need this increase, the message from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil is they will have to wait for it. The Bill fails to address all of the significant inconsistencies which exist in our pension system. We have the most bizarre ongoing situation where 65 year olds are being forced into jobseeker's payment on retirement as a consequence of abolishing the transitional State pension. The only income available to those who are obliged to retire at 65 is a jobseeker's payment. The Department is not interested in whether these people are actively seeking employment, the main criteria for receipt of such a payment. It just wants 65 year olds to take the jobseeker's payment quietly for the year. Many cases involve a person retiring at 65 who has worked for maybe 40 or 50 years who has diligently paid pension contributions but is now told they cannot access their pension for a year. As of April of this year, there were more 65 year olds in receipt of jobseeker's payments than any other age category. That is 5,075 65 year old men and women across the State.

In recent weeks, a lady made contact with my office on this matter. Her late husband was forced onto the jobseeker benefit on retirement. He had worked his entire life and, for him, signing on caused him frustration and distress. The lady told me how the Department instructed her late husband not to leave the country for any lengthy periods or he would lose his payment. The couple had hoped to visit their children and grandchildren in Australia, a country difficult to visit for a short two-week stay. The Department, however, dictated what this man could and could not do. This situation caused huge distress to this man on his retirement. He did not want to be made feel he was to receive payment for no work on jobseeker's benefit. On retirement, he was made feel he was supposed to be seeking work while, at the same time, he was restricted when it came to visiting his family abroad.

That is only one case of many. Forcing 65 year olds into a jobseeker's payment will not sustain the State pension system. It does not work and it leaves older people at a financial disadvantage receiving €64 less than they would on the State pension. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil saw no need to address this in the Social Welfare Bill.

Women are also bearing the brunt of the changes made to the State's contributory pension scheme by Fine Gael. When it comes to retirement, the gender pension gap between men and women is 35%. The number of PRSI contributions needed to receive the State pension remains at 520. This was significantly increased from 260 in 2012. The primary reason for the inequality in the pension cuts is that women often have to take time out of work to rear children or were forced out of jobs due to the marriage bar. Despite inequality for women, however, neither Fine Gael nor Fianna Fáil saw the need to address women's pensions in budget 2017 and, consequentially, in this Bill.

Those with disabilities will see a €5 increase in their payments but the promise of a new motorised transport grant remains just that - a promise with no action. Three and a half years after a commitment from the Taoiseach in this Chamber, there remains no replacement grant in place. Transport costs are cited again and again as expensive and difficult to manage. Those with disabilities cannot be left to wait another three years for this replacement.

It is not enough to give those with disabilities an extra fiver and leave it at that. Those with disabilities need to be encouraged and given the same opportunities as others to avail of full paid employment. This has been done fantastically through the likes of the WALK Peer programme and the work it has done in supporting young people with disabilities into the workforce. I welcome the provision of €2 million in 2017 for projects which provide pre-activation supports for people with disabilities. However, we need to know where this money is going and the details of it. We have asked repeatedly as to whether the WALK Peer programme will get funding next year. Those involved in it do not know if they will. The Minister and Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities have abdicated their responsibility in this regard, failing to give groups like WALK Peer an answer and certainty about their funding.

I welcome the increase in the school meals programme, especially given the significant issue of child poverty experienced by families every day. It is not news that parents are struggling to feed their children or to provide a warm home and sufficient clothing for them. It is a stark reality for people out there.

One measure which did not appear in this Bill is any increase to the back to school clothing and footwear allowance. This is a missed opportunity. Time and again, as September approaches, voluntary organisations are left to pick up the tab due to the Government's inaction on tackling back to school costs. The struggle for parents to cover these costs year on year will continue unless there is an increase in the back to school clothing and footwear allowance. I am sorry to see that my and others' calls to the Government to increase this payment were ignored.

Sinn Féin welcomes the provision of paternity leave and benefit.

We welcomed and supported this Bill when it was brought forward ahead of the summer recess. It is legislation that Sinn Féin had called for consistently and it is a welcome start in developing Ireland's parental leave practices.

To be welcomed in this Bill is the extension of access to certain social welfare benefits for the self-employed, including farmers. This, again, is a welcome first step in providing security for those who are self-employed when and if they need it. The unchanged rate of PRSI for the self-employed is also to be welcomed. We know that the self-employed have seen little or no support from the Government throughout the recession. In many cases, unfortunately, a number of businesses did not survive. We must support those who take a risk in setting up their own business and taking on employees. I hope to see a further rolling out of social protection measures for the self-employed.

Year on year, Sinn Féin provides a fully comprehensive alternative to the budget that is fully costed by the Department of Finance. In this year's one, we addressed head on the real issues that the most vulnerable in society face annually. A social welfare Bill brought forward by Sinn Féin would look very different from the one we are debating this evening. Sinn Féin would not stand over discrimination against young people in our social welfare system. In our alternative budget, we included a €40 increase in the jobseeker's payment for the under-26s as part of its restoration over two budgets. We also included the increase in the back-to-education allowance for under-26s to the full rate, and we welcome the fact that the Government has done this.

For lone parents, we included an increase of 10% in the FIS and an increase in the cut-off age for the one-parent family payment to 12 years as a starting point. Eventually, we would hope to restore it to its former level. These measures would have directly targeted lone parents and in some way address the issues they face on a daily basis.

When it comes to older people, Sinn Féin brought forward an older persons package worth over €410 million, including a three-week extension to the fuel allowance, a €9.50 increase in the living-alone allowance, and reinstating the transitional pension for 65-year-olds, as well as further measures to address the inconsistencies within our pension system. For those with disabilities, we proposed an increase of €5.50 in the disability allowance and the blind person's pension. With that, we also allocated €1.1 million to secure and replicate the WALK PEER programme, which supports young people on disability allowance to move into paid positions of employment in the open labour market and further education or training in mainstream settings.

The coming together of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil has done one thing well in that it has allowed them to see that they are, in fact, both the same. Of course, this does not come as news to many of us. Approaching this Social Welfare Bill and following on from the budget, we have seen two things - Fine Gael carrying the can for the continuation of the measures imposed by Fianna Fáil before it, and Fianna Fáil throwing its own party policies out the window and chasing after Fine Gael in every single thing it does. The marriage of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil does work. It works for the developers and the bankers, it works well for the wealthy, it works for those who inherit rich estates and other inheritances, and it works well for the Ministers and the Government, who do not forget their own pay increases. Let us be very clear, however, that the marriage of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil does not work for the ordinary people. It does not work for young people, it does not work for lone parents, it does not work for our older citizens, and it certainly does not work for people with disabilities and children.

The Social Welfare Bill in its present form does not do everything it could have done. It is the result of a budget that further marginalises our young people, lone parents and those living alone. As the main Opposition party here, Sinn Féin has little room to bring forward amendments to this Bill given the fact that, as an Opposition party, we cannot table amendments that constitute a charge on the Exchequer or on the public. Having said that, it is my full intention to frame amendments in such a way as to bypass the restrictions so a proper debate can take place on the many issues that should have been dealt with in this Bill. I look forward to a debate on Committee Stage. We will certainly be tabling a number of amendments. As I said at the start of my contribution, it is important that the record be set straight on the hot air blown into this Chamber by Fianna Fáil. It compounded the poverty levels of the very people it is in here talking about and trying to lift out of the poverty trap.

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