Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to go ahead. I welcome the Bill and commend an Teachta Sherlock on bringing it forward. There are some really interesting elements to the Bill and, overall, it aims to improve our social protection system. That system is quite complex and can be difficult to navigate for some people.

One of the principles of the Bill is that the social welfare system should contribute to reducing poverty. I acknowledge that it does this already but it is important to say that it must do more. In the past two budgets, core social welfare rates did not move. More and more people are experiencing deprivation, according to the figures in the 2019 Survey on Income and Living Conditions. After the Covid pandemic, especially, we need to see a real focus on tackling poverty. Part of that needs to be an alignment of all social welfare rates with the minimal essential standard of living, rather than the over and back we see every year as we approach the budget, with announcements of a fiver for this group but not for that group. Those decisions should be evidence-based and that is where we need to go in terms of our social protection system generally.

It is positive that the Bill proposes the creation of a charter that will reflect the principles that are laid out. The Bill seeks to ensure that people are provided with information about, and access to, social welfare supports to which they are entitled. That is really positive. I am sure many Deputies have dealt with situations where, for example, people are left on illness benefit for longer than a year or two and, as they approach the pension age of 66, realise they do not have the required number of stamps. People in those circumstances often do not realise that they should have perhaps moved on to the invalidity pension but, by the time they do, it may be too late. This happens a lot with different payments and schemes. We see many cases within the social protection system where people are either locked out of receiving supports and face financial hardship as a result or are locked in and made dependent on payments because of impossibly strict eligibility criteria.

An example of what I am talking about is the case of a wonderful young artist I met earlier this week who is partially blind and in receipt of the blind pension. She has to be careful of every gig she takes and any bursary or award she might win. Such opportunities can almost be a hindrance because taking them means she risks losing her blind pension, which is her only guaranteed income. That is wrong. I cannot begin to imagine what it is like to live with that type of worry when one is partially blind or blind. As it stands, when people apply for benefits such as the blind pension, they are, understandably, required to submit medical evidence that they are eligible, which in this case means evidence they are blind or visually impaired. However, they are also subject to means testing of the income of their entire household. This means that blind and visually impaired people cannot earn a reasonable income by themselves and may be linked to a partner's income, which makes no sense.

We know there is a financial cost to disability. People do not cease to be visually impaired or blind because their income exceeds a very specific and low threshold or their spouse or partner has an increase in income. The social welfare system should seek to make people's lives easier, not harder. When I met the woman to whom I referred, I was reminded of another case that came up in my constituency office nine or ten months ago that also involved a women who was blind and in receipt of the blind person. When her partner's income increased on getting a promotion at work, she lost the pension. I ask the Minister to look at this particular payment. It should be paid to everyone who is blind or visually impaired, the number of whom is small in the grand scheme of things. Regardless of what they earn or what any person living with them earns, they should be entitled to the blind pension. When one reviews the list of social welfare payments that are means tested, this one really stands out, particularly where it is something people are dealing with throughout their entire life. I ask the Minister to look at it.

I welcome that the charter provided for in the Bill seeks to make access to advocacy and advice on social welfare more readily available. Citizens Information provides invaluable support to many people seeking advice on their entitlements under our sometimes illogical social welfare system. By enabling Citizens Information to report on the real-life challenges and successes it encounters, we will have an opportunity to improve the design and roll-out of social welfare measures and support families and individuals in accessing them.

The provision in the Bill on promoting take-up of benefits is really important. The example I gave regarding illness benefit shows that people may not be informed about, or may not realise, the negative impact of certain scenarios in respect of the social welfare system. The Minister recently introduced a very welcome change to the one-parent family payment by removing the earnings threshold where the applicant's child is under the age of seven. I would love to see that welcome change more widely promoted. People need to know about it. It would also be great to have access to information on PRSI contributions and stamps. Under the current system, people can make a request in writing for a history of their contributions. Many will do so, if they know about it, but it would be useful in this day and age to have some kind of online system, whether an app or something else, that would enable people to log in and track their PRSI contributions throughout their working lives. They could see where they stand, whether they qualify for things like treatment benefit and how far away they are from the required number of stamps for the State pension. Something like that would be hugely helpful.

The Bill contains a number of very interesting components. I commend an Teachta Sherlock on his work in bringing it forward.

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