Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the announcement on the PUP but as previous speakers mentioned, we would like clarity as soon as possible on how it will apply to the taxi and arts sectors. They should not be left hanging on like last time.

The Bill serves as an indictment of how the Government has failed to prepare the supports that people need in their daily lives to deal with the ongoing increases in the cost of living. It further serves to show how the measures the Government announced in October's budget were already out of date then and are even more unsuited to the increased pressures people are under less than two months later.

Before budget 2022 was announced on 12 October, the Government could not speak highly enough of our family carers and the huge contribution they have made in keeping the pressure off the health services and looking after the most vulnerable, many of whom also fall under that bracket. A feature of this Bill is the change to the means test for carer's allowance. While that change is welcome, to postpone the move until June and to allocate only €10 million is a cruel blow. What will change between now and June next in terms of the needs of people who require care and those who provide it? The changes to the means test did not go far enough. Sinn Féin would have opened the payment to many more carers by allocating €50 million to relax the means test and further address inheritance issues. We would also have introduced a pension for long-term carers. Unbelievably, the Government also failed to address the issue of respite, which is missing from the Bill.

Sinn Féin would have increased the annual carer's support grant to €2,000. The Government made no provision for doing this and the availability of respite services continues to be subject to a postcode lottery. I suppose carers should be grateful for a €5 increase in the weekly allowance, which will go nowhere near to addressing the heavy fuel hikes we are seeing. The Government's fine words about our carers ring hollow when we consider what is not in this Bill.

Many aspects of this Bill are out of date, as many were when the budget was announced. The cost of living is going through the roof. Fuel poverty is a serious problem affecting more and more people as weeks go by. Fuel allowance rates and eligibility access to the scheme is limited and the scheme is too rigid in respect of income thresholds. While the Cabinet is said to be considering an emergency household support package, repeated references by Ministers to the supplementary welfare allowance for households struggling with energy costs will ring hollow for many people. This is because the allowance is at the discretion of community welfare officers. All Deputies know of individuals who had applications refused, even though we cannot get the figures because the Department does not collect the data.

One of the main issues raised with me in respect of social welfare payments is means testing for jobseeker's payments, the disability allowance and other payments. The rigid nature of the criteria means many people with particular circumstances in their lives have their payment cut or removed. People's lives are not designed to fit around the criteria the Department sets down for them. The Department needs to recognise this and design criteria that take into account the real circumstances in which people find themselves.

A major concern with the Bill is not only what is in it but also what has been left out. For every measure on which the Department falls short, real people with real issues are failed.

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