Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes, we opened the door. The door was open a long time in Northern Ireland and the UK as well. When I asked the Minister for the rationale for the two rates of payment, she more or less told me that all the people in this country between the ages of 18 and 26 are the sort of people who would prefer to sit at home watching "Judge Judy" than to go out and get a job or take on training. That feeds into the narrative. She should withdraw the remark in question. While we are on the subject of jobseeker's allowance and jobseeker's benefit, I ask the Minister to use her response at the end of Second Stage to set out what Turas Nua's future will be. My understanding is that its contract is due to expire in 2019 or 2020. Will she assure the House that Turas Nua will end at that stage? The organisation has been well paid to achieve its objectives, but it is no longer relevant. The people coming to me now illustrate very clearly that it is now more of a hindrance than a help to those trying to join the workforce.

How many self-employed people have qualified for the invalidity pension? What is the position with regard to self-employed people who become ill, disabled or incapacitated for a short period? Are there plans to extend the illness benefit provision to the self-employed? If someone is to qualify for the invalidity pension, he or she must prove that he or she is more or less permanently incapable of work. Not everybody who becomes temporarily disabled can prove that he or she is permanently incapable of work, not least because not everyone in these circumstances will be permanently incapable of work. I welcome the Minister's announcement that jobseeker's benefit for the self-employed will be introduced from the final quarter of next year by whoever happens to be the Minister at that stage. Even though the amount of PRSI being paid by the self-employed is less than half of that being paid by workers, it is proposed to give them the same benefits. I am aware of a number of surveys among the self-employed which have found that approximately 85% of them are enthusiastic about making a contribution to the new system, rather than letting the cost of it be borne by the taxpayer.

One in 20 people in Ireland is caring for a family member. Collectively, they provide approximately €10 billion in unpaid care work to the State. We have to come to grips with and start planning for this. All the studies show that by 2030, which is not far away, demographic changes will require one in five people to take on a caring role. That will be a fourfold increase. Some 73,000 carers are paid carer's allowance or carer's benefit. This means that 75% of those who undertake caring duties do not get any payment at all. While the amount they are paid is more generous than jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance, the difference is just €16 a week. The eligibility criteria for carer's allowance are too strict. One or two people who receive carer's allowance have come to me in the past few weeks. They are caring for a family member who happens to be a child in each case. Both of them are self-employed on a part-time basis but have had to turn away a few hours of extra work, thereby depriving themselves of the ability to earn a decent income in addition to what they receive as carer's allowance as they seek to lift their families out of poverty. I realise why there must be a limit on the time a carer can spend working outside the home. If someone is working outside the home all the time, he or she cannot provide caring facilities. There should be some flexibility in this regard. I recently came across the case of somebody who is working irregular hours outside the home. This person works 17 or 18 hours some weeks, but just ten or 12 hours other weeks. On average, this person works less than 15 hours a week. This person has been told that they have no entitlement to carer's allowance because they work more than 15 hours in some weeks. This indicates that there is significant rigidity in the system, which should be examined.

Many people have complained to me that when caring ends while the carer is still of working age, there are a number of barriers to returning to work which often result in carers being locked out of the labour market. I would like to mention Family Carers Ireland, which is an excellent organisation, in this context.

My colleagues and everybody else read the very useful suggestions it put forward for changes to the system that would cost very little in the overall scheme of things but there is no sign of them being implemented. For example, it suggested that carer's allowance be disregarded in the calculation of differential rent, medical cards for carers, a reduction in prescription charges, the reintroduction of the transport support scheme to which I will return presently, improvement to the senior alert scheme and flexibility in the conditions. It suggests simple things that would not cost anything extra, such as an early alert system for entitlement to the old age pension when a carer is three months short of 66 years of age, as applies for people in receipt of other social welfare payments and, of course, a review of the rules generally to provide more flexibility.

The association put forward another initiative at which the Government should look very carefully. There are a number of services relating to carers that are funded but not uniformly or evenly throughout the country. The amount of assistance a person receives under various schemes depends on where in the country he or she happens to live. It is the postcode lottery. The proposal from the organisation in question clearly shows the requirement for some rebalancing of existing local budgets and an overall increase of approximately €3 million per annum, which is not a fortune, to guarantee services such as respite, individual supports, training of carers, information and advocacy in a fairly uniform way throughout the country. Surely regardless of where people live they are entitled to the same service as everybody else.

Disability is an area where poverty seems to be increasing rather than decreasing despite the economic growth we have enjoyed in recent times. More than one in three, that is, 39.1%, which is, in fact, almost one in two, of people who are unable to work due to disability live below the poverty line. In its pre-budget submission Inclusion Ireland highlighted the lack of workplace supports for people with disabilities. It is not enough to identify a job for a person with a disability. In many cases the people must be supported in the workplace, at least in the initial stages.

The national disability inclusion strategy includes a target to increase public sector employment for people with disabilities from 3% to 6% by 2024. At the rate of increase we have at present according to figures produced by the National Disability Authority it will be 2041 before the 2024 target is met. I urge the Minister, as I have urged the Taoiseach on many occasions, to let us have the motorised transport and mobility allowance back. It was frozen in 2013. Thousands of people have qualified for it since but every time I or anybody else asks when it will be restored we are told it is very complex and detailed, that it involves legislation and that this person is looking this and another person is looking at something else. For heavens sake, it has been more than five years.

Advocacy for families with disability is virtually non-existent so the personal advocacy service provided under the Citizens Information Act 2007 should be commenced immediately. Will the Minister comment on why 73% of decisions on disability allowance cases are overturned on appeal? There is almost a knee-jerk reaction to refuse disability allowance applications. Do not give me the old story about holding back documentation for the appeal. In my experience that is not a widespread practice among people applying for disability allowance. They provide all the documentation and anything to support their claims. In 73% of cases appeals are partially or wholly successful. If up to three out of every four decisions of a judge at whatever level were reversed we would surely conclude there was something fundamentally wrong.

I welcome the increase in the disregard for lone parents although it is far short of what was sought. As the Minister is aware, the committee on social protection did a lot of work and research on how to improve conditions for lone parents who were very adversely affected by Deputy Burton's changes in 2012. The reaction of the Department to the report was most disappointing. The report makes several very good suggestions that would cost relatively little, peanuts in many cases, and would substantially improve the position of single parents. I cannot understand why the Department does not take them on board.

Yesterday, we discussed the idea of a maintenance recovery unit. Will the Minister comment on the fact that at present if somebody goes to court for maintenance and the recalcitrant partner decides not to pay, some social welfare officers at least insist on assessing the maintenance against the individual even though that individual is not being paid any money. Surely this discourages people from pursuing maintenance. They open themselves to a terrible risk. If they get the order but the money is not paid a social welfare official will state that according to the information available the person has maintenance of a certain amount per week and therefore it will be assessed against the person. That is a practice and make no mistake about it.

With regard to pathways back to work for lone parents the situation is still very unclear. There is a lack of co-ordination between various Departments. For example, financial support appears to be available only for full-time courses, which does not facilitate the caring responsibility of single parents.

With regard to pensions, I note section 9 of the Bill and we will return to this in more detail on Committee Stage. I realise the 40 year baseline is only for the calculation of what is due to post-2012 pensioners but when the new system that will replace the total contribution system is being established we will urge the Minister very strongly to use a baseline of 30 years. We will also very strongly recommend reducing the huge hurdle to qualification of 520 paid contributions back to 260 contributions.

I note from my brief perusal of section 9 that if somebody claims home carer credits and separate credits, such as for periods when they were unemployed or on disability, there is a cap. The cap on home carer credits is 1,040. A person can have up to 539 non-home carers credits but if he or she has both he or she is still restricted to 1,040, which is extremely restrictive.

There are a number of other issues. For example, recently a colleague brought to my attention an anomaly in the provisions of the domiciliary care allowance. What happened in the case in which she was involved was joint custody was granted and each parent was spending equal time each week with the child. They have both been refused domiciliary care allowance on the basis the relevant legislation states the parent must spend at least five nights per week with the child. I will send the details to the Minister.

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