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

I thank the Minister for her presentation but I must confess that I am no great fan of the Social Welfare (No. 2) Bill. We will not vote it down and plunge the country into a pre-Christmas election, which I am sure nobody would want, but neither am I a great fan of the deal negotiated under the confidence and supply agreement. However, even since the budget was negotiated, the parameters in regard to Brexit have shifted. I will come back to that in a moment.

According to Social Justice Ireland, the budget and the Social Welfare (No. 2) Bill, which is an integral part of the budget, "betrays the vulnerable". That is a pretty damning indictment but, as I understand the budget and the Bill, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that Social Justice Ireland is in fact correct because the budget both increases poverty and increases inequality. I read an analysis recently from a Mr. Michael Taft of SIPTU, who said that taking the headline figure of inflation into account, in order to just stand still pensioners would need to get €168 per annum on a projected 1.3% rate of inflation.

That is bad enough if it told the full story but of course it does not. I made the point time and again that for people who are just living from week to week and existing on the basic necessities of life, inflation runs at two or three times the headline rate of inflation. I will give an example. Across all social strata in this country, the average household spends approximately 14.5% of its budget on food but the lowest 40% of the population, the four lower deciles, in income terms, the figure shoots up to 20%, which means that increases in food prices bear down hardest on those least able to afford them. The same can be said of other basic necessities such as the cost of heating, public transport and other such expenditure.

I did make a statement in advance of the budget that I did not know how certain people occupying certain positions could accept a €1,700 increase, while at the same time we were providing nothing for social welfare recipients. That did not make me particularly popular among my colleagues.

I should probably not have singled out Deputies because they are part of a group subject to the national wage negotiations within the Civil Service, but they are not the highest paid group. Many said to me that when tax, PRSI etc. are taken into account, the actual net rise only compensates them for inflation, but at least they are being compensated. If one looks at the trajectory of wage rises in the private sector, it is different, though not in the entirety of the private sector since it is a very diverse sector. Some of the wage rises in the private sector more than adequately compensate people for inflation. The reality is that if somebody is on €100,000 a year and one gives that person a pay increase of €2,000 per annum, while somebody else is on €203 per week and receives a pay increase of €5 per week, one is increasing inequality. If one gives the guy on a €100,000 salary an extra €2,000, with nothing for the guy on €203 per week, one increases inequality even further. The net result of that is that vulnerable people will see their standard of living drop and they will fall even further behind the rest of society. Speaking for myself, I see no justification for this. It is not only unfair, but it fatally undermines social cohesion in the country.

One in every six people, some 760,000 people in the country, live below the poverty line. The majority of those who are welfare recipients will now live in even greater poverty because welfare increases have failed to keep pace with increases elsewhere in the economy. An analysis of the budgetary figures has shown that the least was given to welfare-dependent households and those on the lowest earnings. That is hardly something to be proud of. The Minister has included a section in this Bill to enable her to increase the minimum wage by order when she deems the circumstances justify that. Will she clarify whether she intends to do that from 1 January 2020, when the Brexit situation will be much clearer? The parameters of Brexit have shifted and it is almost certain that we have managed to avoid the nightmare scenario of a no-deal Brexit, as the Minister will be aware. If it is the Minister's intention to do that, will she take the opportunity at the same time to compensate other people who have lost out as a result of the fear of a no-deal Brexit, such as pensioners who do not live alone, people forced to live on disability income, single parents among whom poverty is rampant, and carers?

Another example of something that I fundamentally disagree with is the Minister's usage of an increase in the fuel allowance as the exclusive method by which increases in the carbon tax will be offset for the most vulnerable. The Minister knows as well as I do that there are many vulnerable sections of society which do not get fuel allowance, including jobseekers, carers, people on illness benefit and single parents. In a response here in this House to a parliamentary question, the Minister told me that the Government had carefully worked out that €28 multiplied by two, which is €56, was the appropriate sum to compensate for the budgetary increase in the carbon tax. If that is the case, why was the €56 not extended to people who do not qualify for the carer's allowance. The stated reason for all of this is the danger of a no-deal Brexit. It is ironic that the country that is going to leave the European Union is now having a general election and the two parties competing for power in it are offering to spend money that would put an alcoholic sailor on shore leave for a day to shame. Trillions are being mentioned in the country that is exiting the European Union, and we cannot afford €5 for people on social welfare.

The latest CSO statistics indicate that approximately one child in five in this country, that is, 230,000 children, lives in a household below the poverty line. The figure has remained virtually static for some time now. The budget contains some alleviation measures but they only scratch the surface. The National Policy Framework for Children and Young People, 2014-2020, sets out a target of taking children out of poverty by 2020. That now looks like an impossible dream.

With regard to disability, the Minister will recall that in last year's budget, work was commissioned on a cost of disability allowance. The question was how much it would cost to enable a person who could not work because of disability to live like a person who did not have a disability. What has happened to that? Have conclusions been reached? Has a report been sent to Cabinet? Why commission work on something such as this if there is no intention to follow through? The motorised transport grant, an essential aid to people with disabilities, has now been suspended for six years. I have asked on numerous occasions here when it is going to return. I was told that it was all so complicated that the whole Civil Service seemed to be working on it at one stage. What is so complicated about it? When it was suspended in 2013, people who already qualified were left in situbut tens of thousands of people must have qualified in the meantime under the previous criteria. Now they are trying to exist side by side with people who are actually getting the mobility grant. That is most unfair. It also is unfair that the Citizens Information Act 2007 provided for the establishment of a personal advocacy service for people with disabilities which has not yet been brought into force.

The Minister recently told us that we would need a conversation about carers and I agree with that. One in 20 people in the country are now carers. It will be one in five within the next ten to 15 years, a startling escalation. The Minister will also be aware that three quarters of people who spend their lives caring for a loved one do not qualify for any carer's allowance. That is a reality. The Minister got a request from representatives of the Carers Association to increase the number of hours that they can work from 15 to 18.5. A natural assumption was attached to that that if one increases the number of hours somebody can work, one thereby proportionately increases the amount a person can earn. It makes no sense otherwise. The Minister responded by saying that if she increased the means test for the amount that people could earn by the requested amount, this would cost a phenomenal sum of money. We are talking about two different things here. When one increases the number of hours that a person can work, surely it logically follows that the amount that person could earn increases.

The Minister will also be aware of a submission from Carers Ireland relating to tackling the postcode lottery for caring around the country. It made a detailed submission that involved some rebalancing of existing resources and approximately €3 million in extra expenditure. That would have put an end to the situation where the amount of access one has to the services provided by the State and these caring associations would not depend on where one lived. That is right and proper. Yet we are told that the expenditure of an extra €3 million would compromise the country's ability to deal with a no-deal Brexit.

I welcome the slight increase in the earnings disregard for single parents, but if one looks at the poverty levels among single parents, how many single parents will this take out of poverty between now and next year? We recently passed a motion in the House, tabled by Deputy Brady, to the effect that there should be an agency to pursue the putative parent rather than have people traipsing through the District Court, with all that it entails. We have been talking about this for quite a long time and there is no sign of any action.

We congratulated ourselves after the last change of Government, saying that we had moved from regressive budgets to progressive budgets. I think we are back to regressive budgets again. I heard a Government spokesman and others telling people on social welfare that, in view of the danger of a no-deal Brexit, the Government would have to be pragmatic.

"Pragmatic", of course, is a Merrion Street code word for "Go to the back of the queue". Only a short time ago we had the then Minister for Social Protection, now Taoiseach, launching his social welfare cheats campaign, which lumped all welfare recipients together and labelled them as potential cheats and scroungers. The image that some commentators want people to conjure up every time we mention welfare increases is that of a slovenly, workshy man or woman sitting on a couch, watching horse racing or the soaps on a big plasma television and milking the system for all it is worth. I can assure the Minister the reality is very different. The people we are talking about are those who just get by from week to week, dreading the next bill or the next family occasion, which more often than not they will have to avoid because they cannot afford to go. Their benefits are spent on the basic necessities of life, even before they are received.

If we are to grow and develop as a cohesive and compassionate society, rather than a collection of competing economic interests, surely we must put those in need by virtue of their health, age, disability or other circumstances at the top of the queue when it comes to sharing out the fruits of economic growth. To do otherwise is not just reckless and irresponsible, it is unjust and unfair.

See this speech in context