Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I compliment the Minister and her colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy McGrath, on a very comprehensive social welfare budget to tackle the high cost of living. I know from dealing with constituents that they very much welcome the increases that have been announced, which have already been paid out. It was right and proper the Government was in a position to do that.

I share the concerns of other speakers about CWOs, not that they are insufficiently flexible or compassionate but that they are simply snowed under with the volume of work they must do with the new people who have moved to Ireland and the increased pressures on residents locally.

They are not even able to process some of the applications in a timely fashion, but the purpose of being able to present to the CWO relates to being able to get access to those funds in a timely fashion.

The Minister will be aware I raised a specific case with her office regarding a family who require an exceptional needs payment. They work part time and are subsidised by the working family payment. Their eldest son is 22 years of age, and because of the cut-off, they cannot get an adult dependant on the payment any longer despite the son going into his fifth year of studying medicine. He is still in full-time education and the family still have the same costs associated with that, but they are down €2,500 per annum. They have been unable to get a social welfare payment or an exceptional needs payment.

I might share with the Minister an extract from a text message I received from the son's mother the other evening. It states:

I don’t feel the social welfare will grant me exceptional needs payment and at this stage I need to know as the stress over the last number of weeks has been awful on us as a family wondering from day to day is my son staying or leaving college. I had a chat last nite where I just broke down and cried uncontrollably for what seemed a long time. My 22 year old son held me and told me it was ok [because] he knows I do everything in my power to keep him in college but the system is flawed - at aged 22 no longer considered a dependant. That needs to change for others in the future. I am a broken woman but my son is my best reward and we have both now accepted he won’t become the doctor he dreamed of being. I can’t go through this for another 2 years; I just can’t. What a waste of almost 4 years of college, and a waste of the government money too.

She went on to thank me for my intervention.

We need people to deal compassionately and flexibly with these kinds of issues. I understand the cut-off of 22 years because most college places last for four years rather than five or six years, but someone studying, say, medicine, dentistry or veterinary medicine will have to attend college beyond the age of 22 years. We need to respond to a case such as this when it is raised with us. We need to consider extending the age bracket beyond 22 years if the applicant is in full-time education and is not repeating a year. If that is not permissible, we need to intervene and give some financial support for the likes of this young man, who has, against the odds, come from a lower socioeconomic background, studied exceptionally hard, achieved an exceptional leaving certificate, was admitted to study to medicine, has passed the first four years of his course and is now potentially going to drop out because we cannot make the necessary intervention. If we cannot do that, we are failing this family and I do not want to see that happen. I do not want to undo all the exceptional good work the Minister did in the lead-up to this budget and in previous years, and I ask her to take a personal interest in this file and to ensure this young man will get to realise his ambition and become a doctor.

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