Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted the Minister is here for this debate. This Bill is designed to give legislative effect to a range of social welfare measures announced in the expenditure report of 10 October 2017, including increases in weekly rates of pensions, benefits and allowances and proportionate increases for qualified adult dependants as well as an increase in the qualified child payment. I welcome those but, like my colleagues, I am annoyed that people must wait until next March or April to get them.

The Government could fall in the mean time - it nearly fell today - and they would get nothing until the Government came back, which, again, could be next March or April.

Provisions are also included that provide for the extension of entitlement to maternity benefit and maternity leave in cases of premature births. Indeed, as I understand it, the extended period of benefit will be equivalent to the duration between the actual date of birth of the premature baby and the date when the maternity leave was expected to commence, that is, ordinarily two weeks before the expected date of birth. This new measure will increase the duration of maternity leave and the associated maternity benefit to be paid in cases where a baby is born prematurely. This is an issue that is close to my heart given my own experience as a grandfather of a child, Amy-Berry, who was born very prematurely and who I hope is at home watching me tonight and who is doing fine, thank God. We needed to be sensitive around those areas.

I also think it is important to speak on this Bill in light of the recent analysis performed by publicpolicy.ieon the levels of severe deprivation within the EU. Indeed as publicpolicy.iehas noted, EUROSTAT recently published data to the effect that 7.5% of the population both in Ireland and the EU suffers from severe deprivation. This is a large number of people. The number ranges from 0.8% in Sweden to 31.9% in Bulgaria, which is a staggering difference. Ireland is in the middle rank of countries with rates of deprivation of between 5% and 10% of the population alongside the UK, Slovenia, Belgium, Spain, Poland, Slovakia and Portugal. If we look at the definition of severe deprivation that is employed, we can see that the situation really is quite shocking. Severely materially deprived persons have living conditions constrained by a lack of resources and experience at least four out of nine deprivation items the individual cannot afford. They include an inability to pay rent, a mortgage or utility bills on time and to keep a home adequately warm. Heat is very important for all of us. Although there is too much heat in here at times, it is different when we are in a cold house. They also include an inability to face unexpected expenses, and some of my colleagues have referred to death grants, an inability to afford to eat meat, fish or a protein equivalent every second day, which is not too much to ask for, and an inability to afford a one-week holiday away from home. Another such item is a car because if people living in the countryside do not have a car, they might as well be confined to their house because there is no public transport and they cannot afford taxis, even if they could get them. Other indications of material deprivation include an inability to afford a washing machine, which one would not think of as being luxury item, a colour TV or a telephone, including a mobile phone. I note the telephone allowance was cut some years ago, which was an awful blow to people. It should have been replaced because a lot of pendant alarms went with them.

Will this Bill assist our people to move out of the kind of severe poverty I have just mentioned? We must wait and see. The actions of the Government to date would largely suggest that it will not get people in any of those categories out of those situations. While some of the measures of this Bill are indeed welcome, as I have noted about the prematurity payment, much of it does not go far enough. Mar a deirtear sa seanfhocal, tús maith, leath na h-oibre, and I wish the Minister well in her post. I have dwelt with her as Chief Whip and in other positions. As she always has been engaging and helpful, I look forward to working positively with her.

I invite the Minister to come down and visit the social welfare offices in Cahir. We might pay a visit to what I call Turas uafásach but what the lads call Turas Nua. Turas uafásach means a terrible journey. It is a scandal. It was brought in here from across the water and anything good never came in from there. We see it with Brexit. That is what I mean. I am not being racist. A private company got this job. I know the farm relief service has it. To answer my two colleagues present - if the Minister does not answer them, I will - they are correct in that each candidate it gets in the door is taken off a valuable community employment scheme and the company gets money for them. It just want to get them in. Some people have received awful abuse at the hands of some officials in the Turas Nua office because the people behind the counters knew an awful lot less about the schemes than the people who go into them. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae and others are right. Regarding transport, it is just hauling candidates into town 20 miles away once a week. They could be doing valuable work on community employment schemes at home, which many of them did, but they are denied that. I have been calling for an evaluation of the community employment schemes for at least ten or 12 years to demonstrate the value of those schemes. We are losing people all over the country. When they reach a certain age, they are put off. Where are they going to get work at the age of 57, 58 or 59? As we need some sensitivity, the Minister needs to come and see what is happening on the ground. I am sure she is well aware of it.

I also refer to widows who did not get anything in this budget and to women who were forced out of the workforce when the marriage bar was in place. The Minister must make a start here. There was no start. She said she could not afford to start it. A total of €5 million would have gone a long way towards starting to help those people who are being nakedly discriminated against every week when they get their cheques in the post in comparison with those of their husbands or partners or anybody else for doing a noble duty, that is, for having, rearing and educating children and making sure they made their way in life.

The Minister could start doing something with the €5 million that the Taoiseach, St. Leo, got for his communications unit. It was fairly banjaxed during the past couple of days. They could not communicate with one other, never mind communicate with the country and backbenchers. I bear the former Tánaiste no ill will. I wish her well. I think she was hard done by in many ways but all communications and no substance is no good. Regarding these gurus who have been hired, some of that money should be put towards looking after the widows, children and the deprived and the Minister should try to see what Turas Nua, or Turas uafásach, is doing. It should not be called Turas Nua. The Minister said she could not give it all in one year because of how much it would cost and I accept that but tús maith, leath na h-oibre. She should start it and make some kind of balance, as the Government did with maternity leave so it would be in some way sensitive. I know it is not in the nature of Fine Gael ever to be really sensitive to the ordinary people but it should at least show it has a heart.

On putting €5 million into spin for the Taoiseach, St. Leo, he could spin so much he will not be able to get out of it and he will fall out on his ear. The whole lot will collapse around us, there will be no Government, there will be nothing else and as I said at the beginning, we will not get the pensions. The widows will have to wait for the pensions until 1 April, April Fool's Day. They will be made a fool of because there will be no Government to pay them and Fine Gael will be out then knocking on doors and there will be another three months of negotiations to try to keep his sainthood in government but the gurus in the communications unit will be off in some other job like Carr Communications or some other big job. They do not care about the ordinary people. All they are paid for is spin involving the Taoiseach with a hard hat turning a sod and everything else. We do not see him standing in front of social welfare offices with #leoforthepeople. We do not see him standing in front of Turas Nua offices, #leofortaoiseach. It is #tohellortoconnacht for the ordinary people and it is not acceptable.

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