Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this opportunity to speak on the Social Welfare Bill. It is always good, and appropriate during the debate on the Social Welfare Bill, to acknowledge the huge work of the staff in the Department of Social Protection, especially those in local offices around the State. Staff in every part of the Department have been very much on the front line of the economic collapse. They have had to deal with people who are trying to manage the consequences of the economic collapse. It has certainly been my experience that the staff have handled cases professionally, and many in a caring way. So many staff give more than everything to the job, particularly those who staff the Oireachtas Members' information support line and who support all Members in their work. If there was a system where the bureaucracy that exists in so many Departments was ironed out, we may not need those support lines, but I acknowledge that the people who staff the support lines do a superb job.

There are increases in payments in this year's Social Welfare Bill and Fianna Fáil fought hard to achieve those. They are small increases but they are sustainable. We do not want to go back to a situation where, in a few years' time, we again might have to cut people's income, cut the social welfare protections, cut the Christmas bonus and many other payments. This year the increases are small, and ideally there would and should be more, but they are sustainable and they can be paid for in the long term. If we can continue on that basis to build up the payments to people who are in receipt of social welfare, then we would not have to go back to a situation where we are cutting incomes of the most vulnerable.

I join my colleagues in welcoming some specific changes such as those in farm assist and the increase in the rural social scheme. I am delighted to see an increase in the budget for the community services programme, which does unseen work across the State. It might be appropriate that the community work and the increase would be linked into the town and village renewal scheme. I believe there is an allocation in this regard under the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs for the scheme but in order to make it more effective and to give it a bigger bang it should link into the schemes and programmes that seek to improve services in small towns and communities around the State.

I welcome the increase in the back to education allowance. I know there has been a focus on people who are under the age of 25 but it seems to have been missed that there are substantial increases in the back to education allowance for those people and those who are involved in education or retraining can gain from that.

There are couple of areas on which we need to focus. The length of time that social welfare appeals currently take seems to be stretching out again, particularly for those who are on disability payments or carers. My constant refrain, and I do not mean so in a political way but in a Government way, is that we seem to place blockages in the way of those people who are most vulnerable and those who are on the most difficult journeys in their lives. Carers are a prime example. The appeals process for carer's allowance has gone to six months in some cases, with the constant feedback and looking for information. This puts people who do not have the time or the ability to deal with this under enormous pressure. I think it is time that we looked at the social welfare appeals mechanism to bring some sort of express mechanism into place for those people who are under particular pressure such as those who are carers, those who look domiciliary payments and those who depend on disability payments. I have often had to deal with a situation where an application for the carer's allowance is submitted and because it gets turned down we end up in the appeals process and because of the length of that process, in many cases the person who is being cared for has passed away. Given the urgency of these applications there does not seem to be any way within the system to address this type of urgent situation. With regard to trying to free up hospital beds and trying to free up a system that is clogged, this is another example of where the Department of Social protection could work in conjunction with the Department of Health and the HSE in dealing with those allowances in an express way. That, however, would require the silos of Government Departments to come down and there seems to be an abhorrence - at senior civil servants level - to demolishing those silos. God forbid that we might actually assist people and make their journeys a little bit easier. Silos are blocking and hampering people's experience, particularly at very difficult times, and those silos need to come down and this is just one particular example.

Many of my colleagues have spoken about the anomaly facing people, and women in particular, who have worked and who have maybe taken a number of years off from work to care for or raise a family. These women are now paying the consequence in their pensions which can sometimes be €10 or €15 per week lower. It is incredible that was one of the changes brought in by a Labour Party Minister for Social Protection. Fianna Fáil will make this issue a priority for next year's budget. Again, a little bit of smart thinking around this could bring a solution. It is not fair on the people, who have worked but have given time to raise their families or have taken time out to care, should be penalised for doing so. It is not a way to encourage people to come home to care or to come home to a family situation. Now that paternity leave has been introduced, which we welcome, the impact of that change will broaden.

As Deputy O'Keeffe has said, there have been some limited changes this year for those who are self-employed. For too long, those who are self-employed have been ignored by the social protection system. There have been some changes in the last two budgets but the changes need to go further. We need to say to people who go on the journey of establishing their own business and for whom it does not work out that the State would be there to protect them if it does not work out. The State will be there on the basis of contributions that the self-employed person has made in order to give them protection and to encourage them to actually go down the road again of creating another business. Many people fail in starting their first business but they succeed in the second or third business. In doing so, they provide employment opportunities for others and employ business opportunities in their communities.

The €5 increase in social welfare payments is welcome but it will be eaten away because every local authority in the State is going to send out increased rent bills. It is a crazy situation when people get an increase from one arm of Government and another arm of Government takes it from them. The speed with which local authorities send out rent increase bills is in complete contradiction to the delays that are actually put in place when tenants try to get council and house repairs done. I imagine that all tenants will now be getting correspondence from local authorities increasing their rent. If those tenants had a problem with their house or need to get repair done the same urgency would not be attached. That is something that needs to be looked at.

Many of my colleagues have spoken about the importance of the community employment and rural social schemes. I welcome the increase in the number of rural social scheme places, but we must examine the entire offering of community employment and rural social scheme places. Deputy Pat The Cope Gallagher spoke about the inability of people under 25 years of age to get on such schemes. In many rural communities community employment is the first chance many people have to get practical employment experience. In the absence and destruction of the apprenticeship programme over recent years, the community employment programme has been the area where many people could pick up a skill which they could go on to use in construction or social services. We must re-invest in the community employment schemes network and ensure that the materials grant is adequate for the projects the schemes are doing. With rising insurance costs many community employment schemes are finding that the grant to support a scheme is being eaten up by those rising costs, which are outside their control. Accordingly, the opportunities the schemes can give to participants and the opportunities to communities who benefit from the schemes are being eroded by things that are outside their control. We must examine the costs, particularly around insurance and materials, across all the schemes, be it community employment, rural social scheme, Tús and others, and examine how working together can minimise them.

There is much work to be done in the social protection area, but it must be done on a sustainable basis and in a manner whereby we will not return to cutting. I reiterate the point that people on a difficult journey in life need assistance from the State, be it from the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Health or the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. They do not need blocks to be put in their way in a difficult life. I welcome the change of giving medical cards to children in families in receipt of the domiciliary care allowance, but that change must be accompanied by a far more intensive process in terms of making that award in the first place. There are so many areas in the lives of children and older people whose lives are already difficult where Government forces combine, and I do not mean this in a political way, to make their journey even more difficult. Surely the Oireachtas can set the aim of trying to take down the walls and blockages for people who are on a difficult journey.

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