Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The carer's allowance is a welcome and very valuable payment. Those supplying care for others do a great job and there is no question about that. I was recently told of a girl who came back from England, where she was working, to look after her father who was very ill. She has no income here and applied for a carer's allowance and, unfortunately, was turned down. Her father is very ill and she is an only daughter and the only person available to care for him. She does not want to put her father into a nursing home although he would be entitled to be admitted to one. It is unfortunate that she has been refused that allowance and the refusal should be examined. I might come back to the Minister on that issue.

Widows and widowers apply for pensions on the deaths of their partners and there are usually small children involved in such situations. The widow's pension is the poorest of all social protection payments. That should be looked at and increased because such people need more support, as is evidenced by such people who attend at Deputies' constituency offices. This is not a recent development but, rather, has been going on for the past 20 or 30 years. The widow's and widower's pension should be considered separately to social welfare payments. The payment for widows and widowers who have young children should be increased to try to help alleviate the difficulties that come with a death in the family.

An issue raised last night is that of people who have to retire at the age of 65 when the current pension age is 66. As was said, the age of eligibility for the pension will rise to 67 or 68 for some people and there is very little interim support for those who have to retire at 65. Either the working age should be increased to allow people remain at work or a scheme should be brought in such that people are not put into poverty and there is something to help them during the years between retirement and becoming eligible for the pension.

Following the economic crash, quite a number of self-employed people found themselves out of work and there was very little support for them. Things are gradually improving in that regard. However, the self-employed create jobs and pay PAYE, PRSI and the various other taxes that go with employing people, often amounting to thousands of euros, but when they get into difficulty, there is no help available for them. That is wrong. I appreciate that slight changes were made in the budget to help self-employed people who find themselves in difficult circumstances because of the recession or for other reasons.

I come from a rural constituency and there were community welfare officers in the community until quite recently. Community welfare officers attended my home town of Ballymote and nearby places such as Glebe at least once a week and people went to those locations to meet them. Those officers have been taken out of rural areas and are now based in town centres and a person who wants to meet them has to do so at a certain time on a certain day. It can be difficult, in particular for single parents or families with young children, to make what could be a 40-mile round trip to meet them. Deputy McLoughlin will be aware of the issues involved in travelling from isolated places such as Glebe. Some people may have no private transport and there may be no public transport available and they would therefore have to hire a taxi to bring them to the meeting, which is very expensive. These services were removed during the recession but that should be reconsidered and community welfare officers put back into communities to help those in need and ensure it is easier for them to access the services required.

Maintenance recovery is another issue of concern, although it may not come under the Minister's brief. It is of particular concern for separated mothers of young children. While a court as part of a separation settlement may award a sum of perhaps €50, €60 or €70 a week to a parent, in many cases the money does not make its way to where it should. The process to address that is very cumbersome because one has to go back to court, which could take two or three months, by which stage there could be a sum of €2,000 or €3,000 owing to the parent looking after the children of the marriage. That should be examined and, although it is not part of the Minister's brief, she could, perhaps, keep it in mind in the future.

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