Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I warmly welcome the announcement made by the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, on undocumented workers. This is a significant announcement. Many of us in this House over a long period have looked for these changes that have been announced today. It concerns people who have been sadly living in the shadows in this country and I welcome the measure because it is a positive step for approximately 17,000 undocumented people and up to 3,000 of their children. They are being denied access to basic services even though they have been paying tax and PRSI. Yet when they go to claim that, they are not entitled to it because they remain undocumented.

From personal experience, I commend the work done by the Department's community welfare officers who have, in many instances, been the only ones in the State sector able and willing to help out those undocumented workers. On many occasions, I have approached those officers and they have always been forthcoming and never found wanting. Every one of these individuals wants to more productively contribute to our society and economy and I have no doubt that the vast majority will on foot of this.

As we are coming into the Christmas period and measures are being taken at last to address the undocumented Irish residing in this country, I ask that we do not forget, and we redouble our efforts on, the undocumented Irish on the other side of the Atlantic in the United States. I know the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, and others are involved in that.

While I am congratulating the Government, I congratulate the Minister for the work she has done to improve the plight of carers, in terms of the income thresholds and allowances, the changes being introduced in this legislation. The joint Oireachtas committee has made recommendations to the Minister to improve the position of carers and this is a positive development.

I turn to something that is not in the legislation and which I believe needs to have adequate provision made for it. That is the area of just transition. There should be a specific line in the Vote for just transition workers. These are workers who have been laid off as a result of the changes to move towards a more climate-resilient economy. I have seen it in my part of the country with Bord na Móna and ESB workers but it is not just those workers. Across various sectors of our economy in the not-too-distant future, we will see staff being laid off and we should have a wraparound service and a designated official in the local social welfare office who can engage with those people on reskilling, support them to start their own business and provide them with access to adult guidance and the education avenues that can be made open to them. It is important that a specific service be designed around those people.

While I am on the issue of just transition and supporting communities decimated by the decisions like the closure of Lanesborough and Shannonbridge power stations, I will give a practical example from my constituency. In the village of Ballyforen, a proactive committee was established following the decision and announcement by Bord na Móna. It made two applications to the just transition fund, which were successful. As a result of that it has secured over €1 million in investment based on a proactive proposal but is now being asked to come up with co-financing of €250,000. It is an isolated rural community where, because of Government and planning decisions, jobs have been lost, yet the community that does not have employment is being asked to put its hand into its pocket to fund the replacement jobs.

That is not a just transition. On top of that, we have a pandemic which makes it impossible for communities to fund-raise, but they should not be in that position. Just transition should be about something very different. It should be about supporting communities, not asking them to fund the jobs that are going to replace the ones that are being lost. That is not a just transition. It is important that that specific aspect of co-funding is urgently revisited by Government.

While I am on the issue of support for communities, the ESB has promised the community of Lanesborough and Ballyleague - I know the Minister has visited the area - the sum of €500,000. The community understood that this was as a result of the closure of the power station in Lanesborough. We found out this week that the money that will come from the ESB, if it ever comes, is conditional on the ESB getting out of its current licence conditions with the EPA in respect of the site at Lanesborough in County Longford and on it being granted planning permission for energy services, whether synchronised condensers or battery storage. That needs to happen before the ESB will consider the allocation of funding to that particular community. That has come as a shock to the local community, which expected this funding to be forthcoming. Again, that is not a just transition.

I want to look at another aspect of the climate agenda. In fairness to the Minister, she has increased the fuel allowance rate and the means test threshold for the fuel allowance. That is very welcome, but the difficulty is that that money does nothing to make it easier for people to heat their homes in a more sustainable way. All we are doing at the moment is kicking that can down the road. Carbon taxes were supposed to be about driving the overall reduction in carbon emissions, but what we are doing at the moment through the mechanism that we are using in funding the fuel allowance is funding the continuation of the burning of fossil fuels. That is doing nothing to fundamentally address the challenges that we have right across the country.

Project Ireland 2040 committed to retrofitting 45,000 homes per annum from 2021. We know that the budget announcement falls far short of that in that just 22,000 homes will be retrofitted next year, which is less than half the original target. However, one in four people in Ireland cannot afford to heat and light their homes. Of those 22,000 homes that are to be retrofitted next year, just 4,500 are homes where people are in receipt of the fuel allowance. As we know, there are 370,000 people in receipt of the fuel allowance. Some 7,000 families who are in receipt of the fuel allowance have applied to have their homes retrofitted and will wait 26 months to have that work carried out. We need to ensure that people can get rapid access to the retrofitting of their homes so that they can have sustainable, long-term heating systems that are not dependent on the fluctuations in fossil fuels on international markets. That is the only way that we will break the cycle of fuel poverty. The challenges that are there in terms of the increased cost of electricity and energy costs are hitting every home and not just those people in receipt of the fuel allowance. While the retrofitting grants are available from Government, the value of those grants has decreased from one third to just over one quarter due to the rising cost of materials. For many families, the grants are of little use if they do not have the €18,000 to €20,000 that they need to put alongside the grant to reduce their heating bills, improve their health and increase the comfort in their homes, as well as address that particular climate challenge that we all have to meet.

I want to leave two final points with the Minister. The first relates to the fuel allowance and an anomaly within the system in regard to people in receipt of the carer's allowance, which I ask the Minister to look at before Committee Stage. This relates to people in receipt of the half rate fuel allowance who are part of a couple where one of the couple is in receipt of the contributory old age pension. If one is in receipt of a non-contributory old age pension, the half rate carer's allowance and earning up to €100 in employment, one still will receive the fuel allowance. However, if one is in receipt of a State contributory pension and lives in a household in receipt of the adult dependent allowance and the half rate carer's allowance, the half rate carer's allowance is considered to be income and one is denied the fuel allowance. There is an anomaly within the current system such that the half rate carer's allowance being the only income other than the State contributory pension and the adult dependent allowance coming into that household, one is denied the fuel allowance because the half rate carer's allowance is considered to be income. However, someone who is on a means tested payment can earn up to €100 and be in receipt of the half rate carer's allowance and the non-contributory State pension and still get the fuel allowance. That anomaly is discriminating against those people who have paid their PRSI and paid into the system over a long number of years. I ask the Minister to address that particular anomaly for a small cohort of people on Committee Stage.

The final point I want to leave with the Minister is the income disregard for farm schemes. Section 20 of the Bill makes provision for that, which is very welcome. I had a briefing earlier today from the Minister's officials, for which I thank them. They correctly stated that the justification for this is to ensure that low income farmers get involved in environmental schemes and to help to meet our overall climate challenge. That is a very commendable measure. The Minister knows as well as I do that the big problem we have at the moment is the age profile of suckler and beef farmers in this country. We need to get that age profile down if we are going to drive the type of change that we need right across that sector in terms of reducing overall emissions. Where the older farmer is handing on the land to a son or daughter, there is no difficulty in terms of the non-contributory old age pension because the younger farmer farms the land, the income is generated by that younger farmer and is calculated as such by the Department of Social Protection.

However, if an older farmer does not have someone willing to take over the land or does not have a blood relative, and he or she decides to lease out the land, all the income generated from that lease is deducted from his or her non-contributory State pension. If farmers continue to farm the land in a haphazard way, which is not sustainable from a climate point of view, they will only have to deduct the income that comes from that activity, but if they lease their land out to a younger farmer who would farm it progressively and in a sustainable way, they will, in effect, have to hand over all of that income to the Department. In the interests of trying to improve land mobility and the emissions profile of suckler and beef farms, in particular, I ask the Minister to look at the income disregard. If farmers go into employment, they can earn up to €200 a week but if they are leasing out their land to a young, progressive farmer, they get no credit for it. I hope this issue can be reviewed by the Department.

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