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

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill 2018 which largely gives legislative effect to the budget day announcements and deals with a number of other pensions and civil registration issues which it was intended to deal with in the 2017 Bill. I will allude to that in a couple of moments. I thank the Minister's officials who ran a briefing session for Members yesterday which was helpful and informative. It is important to note that. I will not go through every section of the Bill given that I am sharing time, but I acknowledge the main provision in the budget which was an increase of €5 across most payments for those in receipt of full payment amounts. It would be remiss of me to fail to acknowledge the earlier contribution to the debate of my colleague, Deputy O'Dea, who has since left the Chamber, and I do so now. He always strikes early on behalf of pensioners with his call for an increase in pension payments. He is first out of the blocks on that one on an annual basis.

As I said last year, the Minister is the one sitting here and she is getting the brunt of my contribution, but many of the issues I will raise are not referable to her Department in isolation. This is about joined-up thinking in government. The people we are here to serve, represent and look after do not look at the Department and at Opposition, they look at Government and how they are being served and dealt with. As we go through programmes, it is important to look at things from that perspective and not in isolation. I acknowledge that I have only the Minister here tonight and that she cannot be held responsible for every other Department but it is important that the public has a sense that there is a joined-up approach to what we do. Specifically, I make the point that it seems somewhat unfair and unreasonable that the people who will benefit from increases in social welfare will only receive those increases in March.

However, workers who receive an increase as a result of a tax adjustment will benefit from that in January. Somewhere along the way, the Government must get its act together. Benefits being given to people who are finding it difficult to survive on social welfare payments or who are in low-paid jobs should be delivered at the same time. I understand that the Government only has a certain amount of money, but this is an important point.

I acknowledge that some of the budget day announcements did not require legislation. I particularly wish to mention the Christmas bonus which was announced but which is not referred to in the Bill. It is important that there is clarity and understanding regarding the extra week paid at Christmas. People have begun to rely on it and it should be established as a regular annual payment rather being treated in a discretionary manner year after year.

I wish to refer to statistics because sometimes when we discuss increases in social welfare payments, people not in receipt of them fail to realise the importance of the payments and the difficulties experienced by some of those who do receive them. Incrementally, there has been there has been a slight improvement in the rates year by year. Some 11.1% of children were in consistent poverty in 2016, an improvement from 11.5% in 2015. Some 25.2% of children experienced deprivation compared to 31% in 2015. Those are improvements but the figures are still high and I doubt that the Minister is happy with them. I wish to put on the record the importance of each social welfare Bill. Those figures will improve as a result of the measures being brought in by this year's budget. However, it is important that we are constantly mindful of the outstanding issues.

When the Minister appeared before the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection last year, she asked what are the most important issues for the committee. The two issues highlighted to her were the 2012 pensions anomaly and lone parents. The issue of lone parents will not be solved as quickly as the 2012 anomaly. It will take consistency over several budgets to do so. We know that the rate of consistent poverty is far higher among lone parents than the general population. I acknowledge that improvements are being made on an annual basis.

Organisations such as St. Vincent de Paul are receiving twice as many calls this year as they were a decade ago. The Minister heard the figures referred to by other Members. Some 780,000 people in Ireland live below the poverty line. That is the context in which the Minister is bringing forward the Bill. It is important that we do not think of it as a giveaway. It is a lifeline and a necessity for those dependent on social welfare.

I wish to again refer to sections 20 to 23, inclusive. Section 20 provides a right of entitlement in certain circumstances to spousal pension benefits for same sex spouses and civil partners who are members of occupational pension schemes. Sections 21 to 23, inclusive, relate to the Civil Registration Act. I support the amendments and am glad they were brought forward. However, I am disappointed that the primary Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill 2017 has not been advanced. As I stated, it is a bit of a mess in the sense that the heads of the latter were published but then the Second Stage debate commenced without some critical elements regarding defined benefits being in place. However, the Government's hand had been shown. No progress has been made on the Bill for a year. Although I acknowledge and support dealing with those issues now because they need to be dealt with, I encourage the Minister, insofar as is possible, to try to advance the 2017 Bill in regard to defined benefits in order to bring clarity. The longer it is left open, the more opportunity there is because the heads of the Bill have been published.

Last week, the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection began to examine bogus self-employment contracts and so forth. Although a representative from the Department commented that the number of self-employed as a percentage of the total workforce is diminishing, the self-employed still account for a significant 15% of a total workforce. That percentage is greater than it was one, two or three years ago. I acknowledge that the Government has improved the lot of the self-employed. I was self-employed for several years before I was elected to the House. I understand that the issue of jobseeker's benefit for the self-employed will be advanced at a later date but I would like it to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Last year, there was much debate on the State pension, which is addressed in section 9 of the Bill before us. Section 9 deals with a matter which was discussed at committee and was the subject of a Fianna Fáil motion in the House. There was complete agreement that the matter had to be dealt with. I welcome that section of the Bill. As I stated to departmental officials at the briefing, I am glad that there is clarity on a date to which the payments will be backdated. I acknowledge that other Members have asked why they are being backdated to 2018 rather than 2012. The Minister will say that she does not have the money to backdate them to 2012. We were bogged down on the issue for a considerable time. People were very unfairly dealt with and this section affords an opportunity to remedy that.

As I informed the Minister on Question Time, that issue should not be seen as setting a precedent for the separate issue of the new total contributions system. While I acknowledge that the aggregated contributions system is on a 40-year basis with up to 20 years provision for caring, the new total contributions system may not employ the same mechanism. I ask the Minister to consider the issue of people keeping their own records. When a person applies for a contribution statement, the period of caring does not clearly show on it as a credit and it is difficult for people to ascertain the extent of the Department's knowledge in that regard. The Minister should examine that procedure from an administrative point of view and consider a situation whereby the credits for a person who takes time out of work to care for children for two or three years appear as they go on his or her statement and he or she receives the disregard at some point in the future. That does not currently seem to be the case.

I welcome section 12, which deals with the domiciliary care grant. I welcome that the grant has been extended for the families of children who die during the relevant period. Deputy Shortall raised the issue of the accompanying respite care grant. The respite care grant is generally paid if one is in receipt of this payment in the month of June and I assume that will continue to be the case. My experience is that there are higher levels of appeals of application for the respite care grant in certain areas and it seems to be more difficult to get the grant in such places. I ask the Minister and the Department to examine that.

Section 3 rightly deals with the employment contribution. It provides for an increase in the reckonable earnings threshold for employees from €376 to €386 where employer PRSI contributions are paid at the lower rate. In the light of the earning threshold increase, the Minister is ensuring that the situation remains neutral. As I stated, the Minister cannot do everything. The logic behind the section must apply everywhere. The point made by Deputy Shortall is that people who would previously have been eligible, whether through a medical card, GP card or over-70s medical card, may now not qualify based on increases they will receive. The Minister has recognised that and taken appropriate action in the Bill. I ask her to work with colleagues to ensure that the same principle applies across the whole of Government.

See this speech in context