Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Politics is essentially all about choices, particularly so when there are limited resources and not everybody can be catered for, as one would hope and like to do. As the Government delivers a prudent budget in the shadow of Brexit, I have chosen to ensure we consolidate the progress we have made in recent years to ensure the social welfare system supports some of the most vulnerable citizens in Ireland.

Compared to 2019, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection will spend an additional €690 million next year on pensions, carers, people with disabilities, families and children. Approximately €520 million of that money is needed to simply keep up with demographic changes, particularly with our ageing population. This year, I am seeking a better deal for families and we have provided for further increases to our weekly payments for children, increasing the rate by €3 for children aged 12 years and over, and by €2 for children aged under 12 years. This brings the respective rates to €40 per week and €36 per week. There will be an enhancement of the school meals programme to deliver hot meals instead of cold lunches with provision for up to 35,000 children. There will be a further increase in the earnings disregard for one-parent family payments and jobseeker's transition payment of €15 per week, increasing the incomes of lone parents. There will be an increase in the income thresholds on our working family payments for families with up to three children by €10 per week. That is worth an additional €6 per week to families that are at work. We have also provided for a 100% Christmas bonus to be paid in early December. There will be an increase in the living alone allowance for more than 160,000 pensioners, widows and widowers and for more than 40,000 people living with a disability. There will be an increase in the fuel allowance of €2 per week, bringing its value to more than €686 over the course of the fuel season. For those who receive the fuel allowance alongside the household benefits package, the Department is providing for over €1,100 per annum towards the energy costs of over 200,000 Irish households. We will see the restoration of the full rate of jobseeker's allowance for 25 year olds and we will see payment of the full rate for 18 to 24 year olds living independently and in receipt of State housing supports. There will be an increase in the number of hours carers can work or participate in education and still receive their full payment. That increase is from 15 hours per week to 18.5 hours per week.

I have also secured an additional €2 million for community employment participants to engage in vital training programmes to prepare them for employment in the open labour market. We have a provision of €2.5 million in additional expenditure for tailored activation measures aimed at vulnerable groups such as women returning to work after many years, Travellers and the Roma community, and a specific provision for ex-offenders.

On women, in particular, I intend to develop a pilot scheme to assist women to return to the workplace. There are tens of thousands of extremely talented, skilled and productive women in towns and villages who have only stepped out of the workplace to raise their families or to care for a relative. Many of them want to return but perhaps some of them lack the confidence those many years outside of the workforce will take from somebody. I hope to partner with some of Ireland's top blue-chip companies to develop a pilot scheme of "returnships", whereby women can re-enter the workforce and quickly build up their confidence and experience, as well as focusing on the need to actively engage within the workforce.

Within this budget, I am also introducing a disregard on the social assistance schemes for any person in receipt of the HSE's blind welfare allowance. This will ensure the blind welfare allowance is not treated as income for the purposes of means assessment by my Department. This ends the situation where somebody on a disability allowance, for example, may have his or her payment reduced because he or she is also in receipt of the blind welfare allowance.

I am also providing funding for research in two key areas: first, for the project to undertake research on funeral poverty in Ireland and on the wider economic impact of bereavement and; second, to establish a judge-led group to determine, based on international best practice, maintenance guidelines and regulations that I intend to put on a statutory footing and which it is hoped will achieve better outcomes for those families affected by separation.

As outlined by the Minister for Finance and for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, yesterday, budget 2020 has been framed in the shadow of Brexit. In the event of a no-deal Brexit and its economic consequences, €365 million will be provided for extra social protection expenditure on the live register or related schemes or both. Probably more importantly, a further €45 million will be made available to assist people to transition to the new employment opportunities our society is creating. Even in this context, yesterday's budget announcement demonstrates the Government's commitment to providing a better deal for families. This builds on the measures we have taken over the past three years that genuinely are beginning to show a real impact on the level of child poverty in Ireland.

As I stated yesterday, the Low Pay Commission, in its recommendations for the national minimum wage report of July 2019, recommended an increase in the national minimum wage of 30 cent to €10.10 per hour. This recommendation was made on the basis of an orderly Brexit. The Government and Cabinet considered the report at yesterday's meeting and we have decided to make an order to declare for the national minimum hourly rate of pay to be held off for now until we get a clearer picture of what Brexit becomes.

This year, we have developed a significant welfare package that builds on the increases of recent years and from my perspective, particularly focuses on the groups in society that are most vulnerable and most at risk of poverty, in particular, but not only, families on low incomes with children. The measures announced yesterday adjust the social welfare code in such a way that it will focus available resources on those who need them the most. It strengthens our social welfare system and puts us in a position to provide for further improvements in the years ahead. Next month will see new measures introduced which were announced in budget 2019, including the introduction of paid parental leave and jobseeker's benefit for the self-employed. In addition, I have tasked the officials in my Department to continue working with their colleagues in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to introduce a system next year that will provide for the indexation of the State's pensions. This will ensure pensioners are provided with greater clarity about the value of their social welfare increases from year to year.

This is a social welfare package that provides a better deal for families and targets resources to some of the other most vulnerable groups in society. I will continue to work to ensure the social welfare system is focused on the people who need our support the most.

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