John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on the Social Welfare Bill 2016 and budget 2017. Let us be clear, in that the budget was not our budget, but it was one over which Deputies on this side of the House had a degree of influence. Compared with budget 2016, it is significantly different. Consider budget 2016's changes in social welfare and USC payments. Those who benefitted the most from the USC changes were on approximately €70,000 and were probably €800 per year better off. If they were on €20,000 or €25,000, they were €200 better off per year. If they were old age pensioners, they were €150 better off per year. This year's budget is different. To be fair to the Minister, while people may argue that the payment increases are modest, they are moving in the right direction. I am not the only one saying this. According to the ESRI's initial analysis, the greatest gains in budget 2017 would be seen by those in the lowest income quintile. It is important to recognise that, while we would all like to see additional payments, the manner in which this has been done seems to have been fairer than was the case previously. I would like to believe that some of that is down to the influence of Members on this side of the House.

We welcome the €5 per week increase in the State pension. As the Minister knows, it was a central plank in our manifesto and was stipulated in the confidence and supply agreement. Deputy O'Dea articulated the relevant points well. We welcome the other social welfare payments that have also increased by €5 per week and the partial restoration of the Christmas bonus to 85%.

I wish to discuss pensioners. The Minister is familiar with this issue. The Bill is short in what it does, but there are considerable anomalies in the level of contributory State pension that someone receives. The initial qualifying criterion is that one must have made 520 contributions. In addition, though, there is an annual average. People who have worked their entire lives will qualify at the maximum level, but those who have taken time out to study, rear families or so on have gaps in their pension contributions. They could have made more total contributions than people who entered the workforce later yet they still receive smaller payments than them. The Minister and his officials are aware of the anomalies. The challenge is to introduce a system that addresses them without disadvantaging people who are already in the system. We need a transparent process to deal with this matter. Everyone has ideas and suggestions, but we need the benefit and support of the Department's technical expertise to test our proposals. There is no point in introducing a change that will look good on paper but adversely affect people who are in receipt of pension payments now or will be in future.

That needs to be a transparent process so the proposed changes that come from this House or from the Committee on Social Protection would be tested and validated to ensure they do not have a negative impact. That work should be done quickly. As the Minister knows, the statistics clearly indicate that this issue affects women more than men. There are fewer women in receipt of the full contributory State pension than men because they took time out from work in the past. That needs to be looked at quickly, in a transparent manner and with the technical support of the Department.

As I am talking about pensioners, I wish to refer specifically to widows and widowers. Deputy Mattie McGrath made a point with which I agree, namely, that it is very difficult for a two income family to adjust to having one income and a living alone allowance. People who are older, who are dependent on that allowance but who had two incomes previously, are still running the same house, still heating it and so forth. The costs are not halved, yet their incomes are. Research needs to be done on those costs and the living alone allowance must be targeted to meet them.

I am sorry that the increases announced are not being introduced until March. To be clear, I am happier that they are being introduced in March at €5 per week for around 40 weeks rather than at €4 per week for around 50 weeks because that will be the starting point for next year's budget. However, from the point of view of fairness and equality, those who will see small adjustments and increases to their take-home pay will enjoy that benefit from the beginning of the year but those who are dependent on social welfare payments will not see increases until March. There is an inherent unfairness in that. This is not particular to the Minister for Social Protection but relates to the manner in which the budget was framed. Collective responsibility at the Cabinet table did not deliver fairness. Benefits should be enjoyed by all sectors of society at the same time. If changes in taxation are to be effective from January, then changes in social welfare payments should be effective from the same date.

Reference has been made to additional allowances such as the fuel allowance, telephone allowance and so forth. As a former Minister of State, I had responsibility for pendant alarms, among other things. I visited many community groups, particularly in rural Ireland, for whom such alarms were hugely important. They may not be so important in urban areas but in rural areas, where I saw them operating, they were extremely important and in that context, the removal of the telephone allowance has had an adverse effect. I welcome and support the €5 increase in the State pension and the other primary social welfare payments, as well as the restoration of the Christmas bonus. I also welcome the increase in the income disregard for lone parents from €90 to €110.

I support the various provisions in the Bill for self-employed people, particularly the introduction of optical and dental benefit. I attended a briefing given by departmental officials on these provisions. Section 9 refers to treatment benefit. There are two elements to this section, the first being the extension of treatment benefit to the self-employed with effect from March, the second being the extension of treatments under the dental and optical schemes to self-employed people, that is, those paying class S PRSI. Section 4 extends the invalidity pension to the self-employed. It provides for the extension of eligibility for invalidity pension to self-employed persons. Self-employed workers paying class S PRSI and who meet the qualifying conditions will have access to the existing invalidity pension scheme which currently provides cover for employees in the event of long-term illness.

Self-employed recipients will have an entitlement to an invalidity pension on a similar basis to those who are employees. This section will be subject to a commencement order and will not come into effect until December 2017. I am not convinced that it would take that long to implement such a change. I urge the Minister to review that date to determine if it could be brought forward. While I understand that there may be technical issues in terms of administration and so forth, the delay does seem to be excessive. I am sure that the Minister will argue that there are budgetary implications but the commencement seems to be a very long way out.

In the time remaining, I wish to speak about lone parents, as other Deputies have done. We know that children of lone parents are at greater risk of poverty in comparison to children with two parents. Without getting into the figures, the Department has introduced new schemes, reduced the age limits for entitlement to the lone parent allowance and so forth. With the exception of the increase in the income disregard, there is nothing in this budget specifically for lone parents. There must be a very robust evaluation of the new schemes being rolled out by the Department. The Committee on Social Protection is looking at this and will produce a report shortly. Such an evaluation is needed to ensure that the goals and targets set by the Department are being met, not just in a quantitative sense, but also in terms of the quality of life for lone parent families. That is crucially important. There has been a huge amount of debate on lone parents, their payments and the need for them to re-enter the workforce. However, they have greater barriers to such re-entry because of a lack of child care and other supports. Lone parents are doing the work of two people in many cases. The changes that have been introduced by the Department relating to lone parents need to be assessed. Officials from the Department indicated to the Oireachtas committee that it was too early to determine the effects of these changes and that research has not been done in this area yet. This needs to be researched on a continuous basis so that any unintended consequences or adverse effects can be dealt with in a timely manner.

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