Dáil debates

Wednesday, 13 November 2019

Social Welfare (No. 2) Bill 2019: Second Stage (Resumed)

 

3:50 pm

Photo of Tom NevilleTom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's budget. I wish to highlight some of the measures being introduced in it such as the extension of the hot school meals scheme to 35,000 additional schoolchildren. The living alone allowance payment will increase by €5 per week for people with disabilities and pensioners living alone. Some 370,000 households will benefit from the extra €2 for the fuel allowance payment per week. Eligibility for the household benefits package will be broadened for people under the age of 70 to allow for another adult to reside in the household. The earnings disregard for working lone parents in receipt of the one-parent family payment or the jobseeker's transition payment will increase by €15 to €165 per week. Carers will benefit from an increase in the number of hours they can work or study outside the home from 15 hours to 18.5 hours. The carer's support grant of €1,700 a year will continue to be paid.

I very much welcome that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is to commission a research project to examine funeral poverty in Ireland and the wider economic impact of bereavement. Could the Minister indicate the timelines and when the report will be completed? Could she furnish us with the findings of the research as soon as possible with a view to the policy that will be put in place on the back of it?

Other measures I wish to highlight in the time available to me relate to help for those seeking work. A total of €2.5 million is being provided to target specific job activation and training supports for groups that are most distant from the labour market or have challenges entering the workplace. In particular, it is intended to develop returnships for women who have been out of the workplace for a prolonged period, usually to raise a family or care for a relative, and to help them to participate once more in the workforce. I very much welcome the initiative, which is about trying to get people to return to work and to remove the barriers to work. The Minister is well aware of the number of times I have raised the issue in the Dáil. A €10,000 grant was provided about two years ago for employers to take on anybody aged over 50 who was long-term unemployed. I continue to raise the issue of older people between 50 and 55 years in the workforce who face discrimination in trying to get work. We must try to break the barrier to them accessing work. As employers or employees, we as a culture and society must step up to combat that, in particular now that we have reached 4.8% unemployment, effectively, full employment. We must grow the existing productivity in the economy and in society that is not being fully tapped into.

The Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation attended a committee to discuss workers becoming unemployed and those who might be unable to continue with their current occupation, such as manual labourers, for example, those in the construction industry. When they reach a certain age their bodies are simply not able to retain the physicality required but that is all they know as they might have been doing the job for 15 or 20 years. We must help and advise those people to retrain. They are not used to academic-type work but they have developed brilliant physical and manual skills. We must help that sector to diversify. A man who is 50 or 55 years of age who has worked on a building site for the past 30 years still has another 15 to 18 years work, or even longer if he wants to continue. Some workers might still have a young family to rear. We must create the opportunities and options for those people, in particular if we are trying to attract them into apprenticeships in the wet trades so that there is career advancement when their bodies get older and they are not able for such manual work. That will add to the attraction of apprenticeships as well. I would like the Government to look at this area in the next six to 12 months and perhaps commission a study or report into it. I learned today at the Joint Committee on Climate Action that education and training boards are working on this area, especially in the context of a just transition for people who have been working in manual jobs for 15 to 20 years. A study is required on how to help such people to transition to other areas of employment, which could be used as a blueprint and to attract people into those roles and to give them some hope. Men in their mid-50s call into my office who say people will not hire them because of their age. That is not on. We must change that, keep shouting about it and combat it. I look forward to some of the new initiatives that will be put in place in that regard. I thank the Minister for the grant of €10,000 for the long-term unemployed that she introduced in recent years.

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