Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thought I was after the Independent Group but I am always happy to speak on a €2.3 billion package. That is what is before us. It is worth acknowledging the scale of the intervention in terms of the social welfare budget. There will always be criticism in this House about political priorities. Yet, the ESRI is a respected body and even its independent analysis states that the total budgetary package is progressive.

The research estimates that it will result in reductions in the numbers of those at risk of poverty. That is a clear and independent assessment of what happened in the course of the budget and of what is happening in the course of this House passing the social welfare Bill. It underlines the efforts within the Government to help those people who are struggling with the cost-of-living increases, and we accept that is happening. Many of the sources of the cost-of-living increases are international factors, which I do not have to go through, but the Government is trying to use the national levers it has to deal with those incidents and to ensure that the people who elected us to this House, on all sides, can cope with that.

This week I have been speaking to many older people who have recently received the fuel allowance. Despite this being a measure from last year's budget, many people are only coming around to realising they are eligible for it now. Many of these people would never have been eligible for social welfare supports in the past. These include people who are earning up to €26,000 or €50,000 as a couple, and they benefit from the fuel allowance payment. When that is coupled with the once-off energy credits and the once-off payments, the ESRI is correct that we have managed the rates of being at risk of poverty for many people, and that these measures continue to try to keep the incomes of people who are reliant on social welfare ahead of the inflationary rate. We have done that in two ways, and the ESRI goes on to comment on the once-off nature of some of these payments. There is no doubt that the once-off nature of the payments is a factor. Many of our critics suggested that such payments should not be repeated, that we would not keep track with inflation and that we would pull the rug from under the people who we are trying to protect. That did not happen because the Government was committed to ensuring it protected people. I welcomed the use of once-off rates in this short period because we need to have the flexibility, when changing inflation rates come about, so that when costs increase and decrease, we can respond to them. Should that inflation rate become embedded over time, we will inevitably have to look at embedding those once-off rates into the core rate. To do that at this stage would be irresponsible. We have to continually monitor our financial position and the once-off measures are an important way for us to maintain that balance.

I also want to thank the Minister for the measures taken for carers and providing a pension for those people who are caring. Many people contribute huge parts of their lives to care for people within their families and wider circles. It is only right that when they get to retirement age, that they have the right to retire, like anybody else. This taps into something that we responded to this week with the new rates of unemployment benefit for people who find themselves out of work. There has been a feeling that when pay-related social insurance was introduced, people would get something for it. If they worked, they contributed to PRSI and they attained certain benefits, as with any insurance product. Unfortunately, over time, mostly because we sought to protect those people who were most vulnerable, it appeared that those people who were contributing were not getting any additional benefit from doing so. They appeared to be receiving the same benefit as those people who we were protecting. I can imagine Deputy Paul Murphy suggesting that I am somehow trying to criticise those people who are on social welfare. I am not doing so but if people are paying an additional amount into the scheme, there should be benefits from PRSI. I believe in that concept and scheme.

One of those benefits is the pension. There is not much of a difference between those people who are on contributory pensions and those who are not. We are victims of our attempts to try to protect people who are the most vulnerable and to ensure they have a good standard of living. We also have to acknowledge that when workers pay PRSI there should be some additional benefit for them from having contributed over that time. I welcome the Minister's contribution to Cabinet this week and the announcements afterwards to the effect that if workers find themselves unemployed, they will receive an increased payment, beyond what the basic payment would have been up until the introduction of these measures. The benefit of that is to send a message to people that if they contribute to PRSI there is a definite benefit. I welcome that. The Minister and the Government also underscored the financial basis of the pension age staying at 66 this week. They did so by putting in place strong and prudent measures to fund it going forward. We are not just throwing out a glib promise that it will be done and we are not saying it during an election campaign. We have put in place a foundation that should leave the pension rate at the age of retirement, which it has always been at, despite others suggesting that it was lower. In doing that, we have again sent the message that by contributing to PRSI there is a benefit.

I encourage the Minister to go further. Let us look at other ways that we can reward people who are contributing to PRSI. Let us send the message that if they have worked for all of their lives and paid those stamps, they will receive an additional benefit beyond the level of protection we have to and should provide to those who need it.

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