Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister to the debate. This budget and the actions she has taken as Minister show a caring, competent and concerned Government and Minister at work. This budget has been particularly well received, such as the €12 increase in the maximum rate of all core weekly payments, the €2 increase in payments for children, increases for social welfare recipients and so on. I also welcome the once-off double payment for all weekly paid social welfare recipients, including the double payment of child benefit, which I understand was paid last week, the additional €400 for fuel allowance recipients, the additional €200 for recipients of the living alone allowance and the additional €500 in the working family payment and payments for carers and people with disabilities. This money is going a long way to help people face the serious crisis we are all in arising from the energy crisis.

They are all very good and laudable measures. Work still needs to be done, although not by the Minister, on the energy credits. I have continued to bring to the attention of others the question of people who are permanent residents of mobile homes and do not have individual electricity supplies. Their difficulty is that they cannot benefit from the €600 payment because they do not have an electricity meter. It is a serious issue and I have asked the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Minister, Deputy Heather Humphreys, to push a solution through. We have solved issues for many groups, including Travellers and others. People in this situation find it difficult to make ends meet.

The cost of living is a major issue for everybody. We cannot expect social welfare to pick up the tab for the proposed increase in motor tolls, but people who use cars to get to work are very angry at this unacceptable increase. It is an increase in the cost of living for such people and will mean they will use roads that are not as efficient and pollute the environment. I understand the Tánaiste has spoken about this issue. We need to deal with it as a matter of urgency.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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I am glad to speak on the Social Welfare Bill. Given that the cost of living is rocketing for many people, I will make my contribution all about the money. In my constituency, Kildare North, people are feeling the pinch.

The terms "social protection" and "social welfare" are important, good, positive, inclusive and caring. They form the basis of care for people in our society who need protection in the short term because of job loss or illness or in the longer term because of disability and caring. For those forced to depend on us, social welfare is certainly not something for nothing because when people have to depend on welfare they have little choice. People tell me they feel they have little power when in receipt of social welfare and are constantly being scrutinised. While scrutiny is necessary, it would be great if equal scrutiny could be given to the lavish costs in other parts of the public services and projects which overrun.

In Sinn Féin we believe in society and want to protect it. Therefore, we want to reform the social welfare system so that it reflects the way people are living in the 21st century. We want to make sure that all social welfare rates are adequate and that those who have to rely on the welfare system are protected from poverty. We all know that being poor costs an absolute fortune. There is never any money to save for a rainy day or the chance to avail of a good deal in shops or discounts on bills. It is important that people forced to depend on welfare have adequate funds and dignity in their person.

That is why the €12 increase in core social welfare rates provided for in the Bill is insufficient. It is insufficient even without the crucifying increase in the cost of living people are facing while everything is going up in price. These are the same people who have already cut back, not just to the bone but to the marrow. They are the same people who do not need the wealthy or privileged to lecture them in a patronising manner about how to manage their money better. You do not teach your granny how to suck eggs. Nobody knows better than those in receipt of social welfare how to budget.

An increase of €12 is not enough to keep people fed, warm, in school or college and out of poverty. It will also not be paid until January, when life is already extremely tough and Christmas is on the way. It annoys people when they see everything else going up in the budget overnight, such as excise on petrol, cigarettes and drink, although that is not happening this year, while they have to wait until January for their payments.

In contrast to the Minister in this Bill, Sinn Féin proposed raising the working age payment by €17.50 and pensions by €15. Those in receipt of the living alone allowance would also get the €17.50 rate increase. This was carefully costed and based on the excellent and reliable work of the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice. The payments we proposed would have been in people's pockets in October. The increases in the Bill are not sufficient to be social or protect people. As I said, "social welfare" and "social protection" are good, positive, inclusive and caring terms. Unfortunately, however, the Bill falls short.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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In her opening speech, the Minister stated the measures in the budget were designed to reach the people who need them most. I could not disagree more with this statement. Unfortunately, the budget was clearly not designed to target those most in need. This was very clearly proven in the decision to give everyone in the country, including Deputies, a €600 energy credit. This is far from a targeted approach.

The Minister was correct, however, when she said the Government compiled a budget that puts money in people's pockets - the pockets of big oil and energy companies, that is, because it is they rather than ordinary people who are being paid directly through the energy credit. It is important that we remember that.

The increases in the Social Welfare Bill 2022 do very little to protect the vulnerable in society during the cost-of-living crisis. We all know that once-off lump sum payments do very little to adequately address people's financial needs. The cost-of-living crisis is not going anywhere and once-off payments are not going to help anyone in the long term. The Department needs to stop putting an emphasis on lump-sum payments and meagre welfare increases year after year. We need to pay social welfare recipients sufficiently.

Many welfare recipients in my constituency, Donegal, have told me they are struggling to put food on the table each week and pay their electricity bills each month. It is devastating and the Bill does not go far enough for these people. It is clear that the social welfare system as a whole is in desperate need of a major overhaul.

Many times throughout this year I have raised the issue of community employment, CE, workers in Donegal who are still waiting for ex gratia payments promised almost a year ago. I am very glad to note section 12 of the Bill provides for the payments at last.

I would be grateful if the Minister would let us know when she expects these payments to be made. Will they be paid before Christmas or will it be in the new year? The former community employment workers are waiting for these payments. I welcome section 17 which exempts the ex gratiapayment for CE supervisors and assistant supervisors from income tax, given that they have been waiting on it for so long.

While they were mentioned in an earlier debate, I am very disappointed to see the Bill makes no mention of community welfare officers, CWOs, or the situation they are facing. I recently raised this issue in the Chamber. CWOs are under severe pressure, especially in my constituency of Donegal where they are stretched thinly.

There has been a significant increase in exceptional needs applications due to the cost-of-living, energy crisis and housing crises we are experiencing. The workload of community welfare officers has doubled, if not trebled, and there has been no increase in resources or supports. In fact the Department has gone back to an online system and pulled back from the system where CWOs would meet members of the public to address their needs. Moneys have been spent doing up offices but CWOs are not available.

It is incredibly disappointing that CWOs have been forgotten about in this legislation. I acknowledge that the Minister made some changes regarding the means test for fuel allowance, following the debate on last year’s Social Welfare Bill. I commend her on that and urge her to take on board the contributions to this debate and address the increased demands community welfare officers currently face as soon as possible. We need more CWOs. They need increased support and we need to ensure they are available and accessible to the general public. I cannot overstate the importance of this matter and the importance of the community welfare officer role in our communities.

I ask the Minister to scrap any ideas of creating a tiered social welfare system. I know she plans on bringing a proposal to Cabinet by Christmas detailing changes to the social welfare system. While I fully agree that many changes are needed to the system, the suggestion that higher earners could get larger social welfare payments if they lose their jobs is a very dangerous one. I urge the Minister to ensure that extensive consultation is allowed for any proposed changes to the social welfare system because it supports the most vulnerable in society. It cannot be allowed to turn into yet another system that favours top earners and values their contribution over the contribution of everyone else in society. Although this Bill goes some way towards temporarily assisting those in need, it does not take any real steps to adequately address people’s needs or keep people out of poverty. One in ten people is experiencing food poverty in this country. One in nine people in Donegal is experiencing food poverty. Will the Minister advise what this legislation will do about that?

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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Everybody welcomes the once-off payments. They are a help to people. I will concentrate on the core social protection payments. I will read the Age Action analysis because the work done by Age Action on this is second to none. It strongly urges the Minister to reconsider increasing the social welfare basic payments by €20 rather than €12. The Minister can do that. Age Action states that despite the united call across most civil society organisations for a €20 increase in core welfare rates, the Government got it wrong on welfare in budget 2023 even though it has the resources to protect those on the lowest incomes who have the least resilience in the face of the cost-of-living crisis. However, there is still time to fix the problem and raise core social protection incomes by at least €20 in the Social Welfare Bill 2022, rather than by €12 as announced on budget day. This would cost an additional €600 million at a time when tax revenue is buoyant from multiple sources, not just corporation tax.

For older people the loss of spending power makes all the difference in terms of being able to afford to keep their homes warm, make essential car journeys or have a nutritious protein-rich diet. Older persons do not have the means to supplement their incomes. With private pensions and savings also losing value in terms of spending power, the State pension is the bedrock on which people rely to make ends meet. Most older people will not receive all the emergency lump sums and will not receive a higher pension until January. It is not uncommon for Finance Bills or Social Welfare Bills to contain measures that were not included in the Ministers’ speeches on budget day. The final decision rests with Dáil Éireann which must vote on the Social Welfare Bill that will set next year’s welfare rates. Age Action is calling for Deputies and Senators to support that proposed increase.

Based on information to date and the Government’s projected rate of inflation for 2022 and 2023, working age welfare payments will have lost €32.37 per week in spending power by the end of 2023. The State pension will have lost €42.54 per week despite the additional €12 from January onwards. The loss of spending power is so extreme because of the cumulative affect of inflation. A nominal €10 in December 2023 will allow a person to afford only what €7.76 would have bought in December 2020. By the end of 2023, a working age welfare payment of €220 will buy 15.9% less than €203 would have bought in December 2020. The €265.30 State pension income will buy 17.1% less than the sum of €248.30 bought in December 2020. Raising welfare by €20 in January 2023 will not erase most of this lost spending power but it is the least that must be done to limit the inevitable increase in poverty and deprivation next year.

Age Action provides a table giving nominal rates of disability allowance and contributory State pension compared with spending power in 2023. It states that working age welfare payments in December 2023 will see a loss of spending power of €32.37. Over the year, that amounts to €1,688. For the contributory State pension, in December 2023 the weekly loss of spending power will be €42.54 and it will be €2,218 for the year.

Age Action notes that the data demonstrate that core welfare rates are falling further behind inflation which reduces recipients’ capacity to purchase essentials such as food, fuel and transport. The cumulative loss of annual spending power despite the recent increases of €5 in 2022 and €12 in 2023 means welfare is being cut in real terms. Once-off energy emergency payments will further reduce the gap but many of these payments will not reach all households on welfare and will not compensate for the long-term effect of losing weekly spending power. For example, a person on a working age payment of €220 would need €1,688 in lump-sum payments by the end of 2023 to compensate for his or her lost spending power despite the €12 increase in weekly income. A person on the contributory State pension would need €2,218. Most households do not receive the full range of emergency lump payments and in every case the amount received falls short of the loss of spending power.

In his budget speech, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy McGrath, claimed that an older person living alone on fuel allowance would gain €2,375 between budget day and the end of 2023. This does not apply to many older persons, according to Age Action. Its report states that about 61% of older persons will fully benefit from the €600 electricity credits. The rest will share the benefit with others in their household or will not receive it. Approximately 31% of older persons of more than 66 years of age will receive the €200 living alone lump sum. Older persons living with siblings or other adults obviously do not receive it. A maximum of 40% of older persons receive fuel allowance and will benefit from the €400 fuel allowance lump sum. The expanded eligibility criteria will not apply until January 2023. New recipients will not receive that lump sum, or perhaps they will. I ask the Minister to clarify whether new recipients will receive that lump sum on a pro rata basis.

Only two thirds of State pension recipients get the full rate. This means that one third will receive less than the extra €12 per week.

Regarding the €253.30 bonus State pension, 100% of State pension recipients would obviously benefit from the extra week's payment in October, which would be paid at the existing rate. Only two thirds will get the full amount. However, some 58,000 people will turn 66 after October and into next year and they will not gain the full sum.

Age Action goes on to make a few other points. In particular, it states that tax revenues for September 2022 were €12 billion higher than in September 2021, an increase of 26%, with corporation tax accounting for less than half of the extra revenue available, VAT accounting for €2.8 billion and income tax accounting for €2.9 billion. In addition, up to the end of June 2022, the Social Insurance Fund was running a current account surplus of €721 million compared to a deficit of €1.1 billion at the same time in 2021.

The Central Bank has noted that welfare increases are a targeted measure whereas other decisions such as electricity credits for all households are among €2 billion of budget 2023 measures that were not targeted. In August 2022, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, advised the State that European countries should protect the poorest households from energy price rises and that putting in place relief measures to support low-income households, who have the least means to cope with a spike in energy prices, is, therefore, a priority. It stated that policymakers should shift decisively away from broad-based measures to targeted relief policies, including income support for the most vulnerable. For example, fully offsetting the increased cost of living for the bottom 20% of households would cost the Government 0.4% of GDP on average for the whole of 2022, and it would cost 0.9% of GDP to fully compensate the bottom 40%.

Age Action makes the point that despite recommendations from the Pensions Commission report to benchmark and index link welfare payments, the Government continues to ignore the social justice and business benefits of welfare indexation, which will stabilise the incomes of those who rely on the State for low and fixed incomes. That is from Age Action, a worthy organisation which has done a lot of research. I ask the Minister to consider the points it is making. I will put down an amendment to the Bill to ask for a report on that.

My last point is about community welfare officers, an issue I have been raising with the Minister for a long time. I suggest they are put back in the community either full-time or part-time. It was back in the 1970s that Brendan Corish introduced the community welfare officers and they were called that because they were actually embedded in the community. The idea was that people could go for emergency payments for electricity and so on. Given the fact it is taking up to six weeks for some of those emergency payments to come through, it is very important that we bring these officers back into the community for even two or three days a week so people have access to them.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I call Deputy Cathal Crowe, who is sharing time with Deputies Ó Cuív, O’Dea, McGuinness, Bruton and Carroll MacNeill.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It is good to see the Ceann Comhairle back in the hot seat again.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Thank you.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill, which gives effect to the measures announced on budget day back in September. What a good budget that was. It had €4 billion of measures to address the cost-of-living pressures people are facing, and €900 million was allocated to permanent increases in social welfare payments. There were a lot of really good things. I know the double payment of children's allowance has helped many people in recent weeks. There were huge increases in the social welfare budget this time around. We saw more people qualifying for the working family payment and the qualified child allowance and the fuel allowance were also increased, as were payments for carers and people on community employment schemes. There are an awful lot of positives.

I ask that some fluidity be built into this. Normally, hardships were felt by the people of this country in the winter months but it is about the economic outlook globally, not just the Irish economic outlook, as Sinn Féin might try to tell us, day in, day out, on the airwaves. The global economic outlook is rather shaky from February of next year onwards. We are in a state of stagnation at the moment but the global outlook changes in the early spring period. With that, there has to be an in-built fluidity to all of this, just like there was throughout the Covid pandemic, so social welfare can be reactionary to the state of the nation at the time and the hardships that people are facing.

That is why we have gone into government - to look after the people who are struggling most in this country. Sinn Féin Members can laugh all they want but they want to decrease the pension age.

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, we do.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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They would want to look at how they are governing in the North because everything they have done in the North has been about suppressing people and keeping a lowest common denominator that feeds a voting base. That is wrong; it is immoral.

Springboard has been a revelation and it is a fantastic pathway back into employment, but there are still too many people locked out of it, including people on invalidity pensions. Several people have come to my office whose circumstances have changed somewhat and they now want to take on these courses and see if there is a pathway for them to re-emerge and to return to the work environment, but so far they are meeting obstacle after obstacle.

The community welfare officer system, referenced by Deputy Joan Collins, was a fantastic model of in-the-community supports for people. I live in south-east Clare, where at the Westbury health centre every Thursday afternoon there was a queue of people who would wait to meet the community welfare officer. It was the perfect one-stop shop for all sorts of supports. Since that was has been withdrawn, many of them come to our offices but many do not come to our offices. There are people who could avail of more of the supports provided for in this budget but they do not quite know where to go for them.

This Bill is really good, although it has been criticised. Deputy Gould can scoff as much as he wants because that is what he has done every week. Every week since he has been elected, he has sat there scoffing at measures that are making a real difference in Ireland. He should look at his counterparts in the North.

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Government closed down the community welfare officers and the Deputy is coming in here to-----

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Deputy Gould will have his chance in a minute.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy is fooling nobody apart from maybe a few people down home.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Cuirim fáilte ar ais arís roimh an Cheann Comhairle.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Go raibh maith agat.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I note this Bill is not going to the select committee. I do not know whose decision that was and I presume it was the Business Committee, but would we dream of doing that to the Finance Bill? Is it because one deals with the big people and the other with the small people? This is the Bill that every year deals with the small people on the ground, for better or worse. I will certainly be lobbying within my own party next year for the Social Welfare Bill to go to the select committee for detailed analysis. At a select committee, as with all committees, very little changes on the day but it can often lead to changes in the future.

Second, I note that the social welfare increases are below the rate of inflation, and there is no denying that. There are many one-off payments and I know why that is so. It is because there is a limit to the amount of money available and there is a consideration that some of the money that is coming into the Exchequer at the moment might be transient. On the other hand, we cannot have welfare recipients going backwards in real terms.

There are good things in this Bill. I particularly welcome the changes in the fuel allowance. As the Minister knows, the committee has been arguing for a long time on that issue. At the same time, we need structural changes in welfare. There was talk about bringing in a universal working age payment, rather than having all of these different payments. I do not know if that has been dropped. I often wonder why, if someone cannot work, to get effectively the same payment they have to go through all sorts of different hoops and onto different schemes. I would like to see us eventually looking seriously at the basic income. Individualisation is not going to go away. As family make-up becomes more complex, it is something that, sooner or later, we will have to look at. As the Minister knows, I have been arguing for a long time about changes to the means test, and I welcome the announcement the Minister made at the select committee this morning.

Of all of the one-off payments, one that I would like to keep as a one-off payment but paid every year is the double child benefit. I think it would be of great assistance to parents if that was paid in September or August every year because there are enormous costs on all families at back-to-school time in paying for clubs, music lessons and all of these costs up-front. That should be seriously considered by the Government. I will go into more detail on technical issues on another day.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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For the information of Deputy Ó Cuív, if Second Stage is approved today, it is intended to refer the Bill to the Select Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands pursuant to Standing Orders 95 and 181.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I stand corrected. I was told it would not be going to the committee.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Let there be no panic.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I am glad that is all cleared up now. The Ceann Comhairle is welcome back. I am delighted to see him.

I strongly support the remarks of Deputy Joan Collins in respect of community welfare officers. The net effect of the administrative changes that have been made in that regard has been to make the poor poorer. That is my day-to-day experience of how those changes have worked.

I am sure there is a good reason for it, but I and many other Deputies have been confined to three minutes speaking time on the biggest item of annual Government expenditure. I do not know whose idea it was but it is not a very good one. I would love to have it explained to me. I will have to confine myself to asking the Minister a few questions.

In the context of the Government's compensation package for people affected by inflation, there was an announcement that a lump sum of €500 will be paid to most categories of social welfare recipients, such as those in receipt of disability allowance, invalidity pension and so on. As the Minister will be aware, people on such allowances are entitled to take short-term training courses under the aegis of SOLAS, during which time they continue to get their social welfare allowance. They do not get an increased amount; they continue to get their usual amount. I found out, to my absolute bemusement - this was confirmed in a written reply sent to me by the Minister - that if the date of payment of that €500 coincides with a time when a person is on such a training course, he or she does not get the €500. That is daft, frankly. It is insupportable. It is a deterrent to people going on training courses that are designed to help them back into the workplace. I raised this issue with the Taoiseach on 15 November and he agreed it is a glaring anomaly and stated it would be resolved. Is it going to be resolved? If so, when and how?

The Minister recently made an announcement encouraging people to stay on working after they reach the age of 66. What is the position with regard to all the people who are contractually bound to retire at 65? The Government has consistently refused to legislate or accept legislation to outlaw that type of contract. We are told that to interfere with them now would be unconstitutional. If it is unconstitutional, let us have a referendum and change the Constitution. We have had referendums previously on less serious matters.

What is the current status of the auto-enrolment scheme? Is the Department going to press ahead with the scheme as announced? Is it working on that? Will there be a proper debate on the matter in the House? The scheme as announced contains a number of serious flaws and could be much improved. It should be properly debated in the House. When will it be in operation? It has been delayed for two years, largely due to Covid. According to my calculations, a person on €45,000 a year will have lost approximately €8,000 in benefits from his or her employer and the State as a result of that delay.

If the Minister could specifically answer those questions when replying, I would much appreciate it.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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For the information of Deputy O'Dea, as regards the timing allocated, I accept his point that it represents a vast departure from the traditional way of approaching the Finance Bill and the Social Welfare Bill, but the time is allocated by party whips, in this case the Government Chief Whip. In fact, the time available for Second Stage debates is also decided by the Government Chief Whip and the Government.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I was not blaming the Ceann Comhairle.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I know that.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I am blaming a flawed system.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Perhaps he will take up the issue with his parliamentary party.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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It is good to have the Ceann Comhairle back. I wish him well.

I, too, wish to refer to community welfare officers and the work they did in the past. When a person applies for supplementary welfare now, he or she has to wait a considerable time before getting approval. It is normally the case that when a person applies for supplementary welfare allowance, it is a matter of great urgency.

An issue linked to that relates to volunteers at the Citizens Information Services. In Kilkenny, there are two and a half members of staff. The centre had nearly 60 volunteers but, for some reason, it now has to limit the number of volunteers. What does that have to do with the Bill? A considerable number of constituents who may not turn up at the office of a Deputy will turn up at a Citizens Information Service and be helped by professionally trained people to complete their applications. The Citizens Information Service in Kilkenny now has to close at certain times and stop the one-to-one interaction with the individuals who turn up. I find that disturbing because many people like to turn up privately to discuss their business and get an issue resolved. Someone in the Government needs to look at allowing the volunteers to do their work and be accommodated in terms of the services the Citizen Information Service delivers. Two and a half staff members cannot deliver the range of services that was previously delivered by the permanent staff and nearly 60 volunteers. It is an urgent matter that should be addressed.

I welcome the changes that will be made to the fuel allowance in January 2023, but I wish to ask the Minister, as I did in a parliamentary question recently, about retired public servants who, at pension age, cannot qualify for the fuel allowance. If they have a change of family circumstances, however, and a partner dies, the person can then, because he or she is drawing a welfare payment, qualify for the fuel allowance. That is an anomaly in the system that needs to be addressed urgently. Changes are coming in January 2023 but they should happen sooner because people are suffering fuel poverty and finding it very difficult to make ends meet. They have commitments in their households. Those who are affected by this anomaly are deeply concerned and they should be included at a much earlier date in order to benefit from budget 2023, as was the case with the many people who received the increased fuel allowance and double payments and so on. I ask the Minister to please address that issue.

Another matter I wish to raise relates to foster carers. A case in this regard has been already made to the Minister by a particular group. This cohort fall short in their contributions towards a full State pension. I ask the Minister to examine that with a view to changing the system that is currently in place and ensuring that cohort of people, who give an invaluable service to the person who is ill, but also substitute in terms of the institutionalised care that might be needed if things were otherwise, are entitled, as they ought to be, to the contributions being allocated to them, and thereby entitled to a full pension.

These are examples of small anomalies in the social welfare system that can be best worked out in a debate in the House, through which Members can bring their experiences and information to the attention of the Minister and make life easier for those affected by the issues we are raising.

I agree with Deputy O'Dea regarding the time allotted. It is the business of the Government Chief Whip, but it is a pity the valuable interaction with the Minister on Second Stage is not recognised with more speaking time.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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It is great to see the Ceann Comhairle back and that his alertness has not diminished in any way.

I agree with Deputy McGuinness and commend the Minister on her acute understanding of different families in different anomalous situations and her capacity to respond in that regard. It is a feature of the Bill. Maybe her experience in credit unions has stood to her.

I commend her on the consistent progress she is making in tackling poverty. The latest data from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, show that the number of families in consistent poverty has halved since 2016, down now to just 4%. That is still 4% too many but significant progress has been made. It is especially encouraging to see the substantial number of children being taken out of poverty. Key measures, such as the increase of nearly 60% in the child dependent payment, from less than €32 to €50, for a child of 12 or over, have helped in that regard.

That has been very significant, especially in its extension to those on low pay who are in work. The national childcare scheme, though not in the Minister's remit, is also significant in extending support to families who really need it and have children who can benefit from early childhood education, and the opportunities to train and work, which the Minister has pioneered. The House should recall that Ireland has one of the most effective tax and welfare income schemes for tackling poverty and helping people in their position. This year's budget is particularly effective, and I commend the Minister and her colleagues on identifying families at risk who might otherwise have been overlooked, renters, carers, the low paid at work, and those with children and students. The help for those groups has been particularly significant.

In the present climate, I also commend the Minister on her approach to energy poverty. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, told us before the budget that 30% of people were exposed to energy poverty but, after the budget, it concluded that those people had been protected. The budget has been very effective. At €1,324, the fuel scheme is now more than double what it was just four years ago. The broadening of the scheme to those aged 70 and over is very welcome. I particularly welcome the removal of the anomaly Deputy McGuinness talked about, that of those public servants who would have been excluded. Many of those people will get the household benefit of €1,750. Such older families will really benefit.

The warmer homes scheme is very welcome because it is not just helping people this winter; it is helping them forevermore in their homes. A benefit of up to €2,000 for delivering those warmer home measures has now been extended to the low paid at work, those on domiciliary care allowance, those carers who are living in, and those on disability allowance who have children. This is a very significant, permanent shift in helping us to tackle poverty, especially energy poverty.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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It is very good to see the Ceann Comhairle back. I, too, commend the Minister on her work on the Social Welfare Bill, which is the largest package in the history of the State. It comes at a most important time, when families are facing difficulties with fuel price challenges and cost-of-living challenges generally. I also commend the Minister on the structure of the Bill. I recognise that these changes will take effect from January and will include the front-loading of direct cash payments and lump-sum payments to families who need them most at this time of the year, when heating is being turned back on and heating bills are going up. I commend the structure of that and note that this approach was not, unfortunately, adopted by Sinn Féin and critics of the Government. This is exactly the right approach to get money to people, when they need it, through the mechanisms that are there.

I particularly compliment the Minister on her focus on working families, an exceptionally important group. The changes to tax in the Finance Bill and the extension of the threshold for the working family payment, which is a very important change, support families at work who are under pressure. I again note that Sinn Féin took no such approach to support working families in the same way, which is so disappointing because it is something that should be supported right across the House. The Minister is aware of the number of times I have raised with her the changes we wanted to see to the domiciliary care allowance and its extension. I again thank her for her work on that. I also note that she has managed to introduce the first increase in that allowance since 2009, bringing it up to €330 a month. That comes on the back of last year's good progress on carers, where there was the first really significant extension to the income thresholds, and a savings disregard for that, for 14 years. These are exactly the sorts of values I want to see reflected in this House: support for carers and families who need it most and have a child or elderly person who needs extra care, or a child with a disability. I met one lady in Shankill last week who has given up her working life for a different life caring for her child and is afraid the increases to the carer's allowance will go some day. That is the big worry that keeps her awake at night. I tried to explain the approach of Fine Gael and the Minister, which is to extend eligibility and protect people in that group. It is so very important.

I will highlight the work around the extension to the fuel allowance generally, especially to the over-70s. So many people in my constituency are living in houses that have been paid for but, because there are no other places for them to move to, they are living in houses they cannot necessarily afford to heat. There is no discrimination in that; it can come to any house at any time. The extension the Minister has made to the fuel allowance, particularly for the over-70s, is an important statement of values for those we will not allow to get cold this winter or any winter. These are very important changes that the Minister has introduced. I commend her work on them and her constant focus on eradicating poverty and devoting resources to those who genuinely need them most.

Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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Cuirim fáilte ar ais romhat a Cheann Comhairle. Bhí tú sa Chathaoir cúpla uair ó shin. I will raise a few matters with the Minister. We have always had quite a good, constructive relationship. However, I need to respond to some of the points raised by an Teachta Cathal Crowe. He is not present in the Chamber. He is well able to dish it out but whether he can take it is a whole other question. The world and its mother can grasp Sinn Féin's pensions policy but clearly an Teachta Crowe cannot. I am more than happy to explain it to him so that he can grasp it. I also note his concern for the people of the North. It is refreshing to hear that from Fianna Fáil but, as far as Deputy Crowe is concerned, I am sure that it is all chat and absolutely no action. Again, it is disappointing that he did not hang around to hear some of the responses to his claims and his excitement.

I will return to a few of the issues I would like to raise with the Minister. The issue of cohabiting couples is one I have also raised with the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, during the debate on the Finance Bill. As the Minister for Social Protection knows, cohabiting couples are assessed together for social welfare purposes but it is different when it comes to tax reliefs. Married couples get the tax relief but cohabiting couples do not. In fairness to the Minister for Finance, I had quite a good engagement with him on it. He said there were some issues in respect of certain court cases. It would be an interesting measure to look at, however. I note the Minister for Social Protection said in her statement yesterday that she had tried to take on board some of the suggestions made last year. It may be worth looking at the fact that cohabiting couples are assessed together for social welfare purposes but not when it comes to tax relief. That just does not seem fair.

This is increasingly becoming an issue. Since I raised it, more people have contacted me regarding it. It raises real issues for those who are cohabiting. For example, one woman contacted me who was cohabiting with her husband while they went through a divorce. Of course, the housing situation means it is more difficult for people to be able to leave but the divorce was not on amicable terms and the joint assessment required by the Department of Social Protection made life very difficult for her because of her situation. As her soon-to-be ex-husband did not engage with this assessment, she was caught in limbo and was in a difficult financial position. This situation has also arisen a number of times in respect of pensioners and so on. Given the fact that cohabitation is treated differently in terms of tax and social welfare, it would be an interesting to see whether it could be considered for next year.

I will also flag the waiting times for claims. Other people have also raised this issue. I know of one lady on disability allowance who was reassessed and had to wait two months to get her payment. It is obviously backdated but the point is she was left in a very vulnerable position.

Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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A robust and adequate social welfare system is the cornerstone of any republic, the sworn duty and aim of which should be to look after the most vulnerable and the less well-off in society. The nation's population will be healthier and freer to enjoy their life, if they know there is a safety net for them and their families if they fall on hard times. In the current cost-of-living crisis, with soaring energy and food costs increasing daily, our social welfare system is needed now more than ever. This is why I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill and to raise some of the issues my office and I are dealing with on a daily basis.

We must reform our social protection system by ensuring that all social welfare rates are adequate and protect those who are most at risk from poverty and deprivation. Despite a growing cost-of-living crisis, current social welfare rates are far behind where they need to be. Working age payments need to be brought up to a minimum essential standard-of-living system. The €12 weekly increase to core social welfare rates is inadequate, as this has been already swallowed up by the rate of inflation, the extra costs of the weekly shopping trolley, and a massive increase in utility bills. A €12 increase in this day and age is not enough to protect those reliant on social payments from poverty and does not recognise the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on those on fixed incomes, particularly old age pensioners and people with disabilities.

Households will also have to wait until January 2023 to see these increases. Sinn Féin brought forward proposals to increase social welfare rates with effect from October, in order that people could see additional support in their pockets immediately. Turnaround times for some supports are causing unnecessary hardship, anxiety and mental stress on people who are already in very difficult circumstances.

My office is constantly dealing with people in County Wexford who are in dire need of the supplementary welfare allowance and the additional needs payment but are waiting for far too long for their applications to be processed. This backlog also puts additional pressures on already exhausted social welfare officers. I ask the Minister to take these issues seriously and put a resourced plan in place to address this backlog.

I am also very concerned about energy poverty, especially in more rural areas like County Wexford. The announced expansion to the fuel allowance is welcome but very limited. There will be little additional eligibility for those households that would have been locked out of the scheme before this year's budget. Those who will gain from the changes to eligibility will not do so until January 2023. We in Sinn Féin have called for eligibility for the scheme to be expanded to working family payment recipients to target increased accessibility for the scheme among lower income working families with children.

We also called for a discretionary fund to be established to provide a safety net for those outside of the eligibility criteria who might need support. I ask the Minister for her response to this proposal. It would make a huge difference to the lives of families in County Wexford and beyond and would ensure that they can stay warm this Christmas and throughout the winter. Insufficient heat is one of the measures of deprivation.

Overall, I welcome the increases in social welfare protections that this Bill will bring but I respectfully ask that the Minister give due consideration to the other issues raised. Right now, we must do all we can to protect people from poverty and the deprivation that it brings.

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to raise an issue that was raised with me by a constituent this week. His wife is on a community employment scheme but has recently gone on maternity leave. Because of this, they have lost their entitlement to the fuel allowance and the lump sums. These were payments they were waiting and depending on. I ask the Minister to consider this anomaly because I know there are a number of anomalies and to include women on maternity leave in those payments.

I think we can all agree on the Trojan work of my colleague and Sinn Féin spokesperson Deputy Kerrane in the area of social protection. When this Government was formed, our party president Deputy McDonald said Sinn Féin would be the most effective Opposition this State has ever seen. From the pandemic unemployment payment to the disability lump sum, Deputy Kerrane has put the Government under significant pressure to make changes to its policy. As a result, the Government has moved further in protecting vulnerable people. This shows what happens when you have constructive Opposition that holds the Government to account. Sinn Féin is not like Fianna Fáil under the confidence and supply agreement. Sinn Féin is showing real opposition and real leadership with real solutions.

Deputy Kerrane has submitted a number of amendments to this Bill and I ask the Minister to consider them seriously because they are constructive. The key issue we are trying to get across is that nobody should be forced to live in food, fuel or energy poverty. Nobody should go to bed hungry or cold. This must be the basic condition this Government must strive for.

It is going to be a tough winter. As I came into Leinster House this evening, you could feel the cold. It is all very well for us to be in a nice and warm Chamber with food at a reasonable price but many people will really feel the cold tonight and for the rest of the winter. This is why the Social Welfare Bill is so important. The Government needs to ensure a minimum standard of living.

We saw yesterday how the Government refused to admit that we are in a housing emergency. Today I hope the Minister does not shy away from the need to ensure that social welfare payments effectively take into account the cost of living. In 2020, we spent the lowest amount on social protection relative to GDP of any European state. It is not enough to recognise this. The system must be overhauled and we must put people first.

Backbench Deputies, particularly those from Fine Gael, came in here today and cried about the loss of social welfare officers in the community. It was their Government that did this. We have crocodile tears from backbenchers Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Deputies. They should stand up and be counted and put social protection officers back in the communities where they belong.

Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Otto von Bismarck said that politics is the art of the possible. We saw what was suddenly possible during the pandemic when the rule book went out the window and hospitals were effectively nationalised. It was suddenly clear to the Government that it was not possible to exist on the basic rates of social welfare.

While I welcome recent discussions around linking social welfare rates to previous income, we must ensure we do not leave part-time workers and the lower paid behind. Social welfare rates should be based on a minimum essential standard of living. We in Sinn Féin want to reform our social protection system by ensuring that all social welfare rates are adequate and protect those who rely on them from poverty. The current social welfare rates are far behind where they need to be and this has been highlighted by the cost-of-living crisis.

I met recently with a number of groups providing food bank services in south Kildare. They are doing great work in tackling food poverty but if we had a living wage for workers and an adequate safety net for those who lose their jobs or cannot work, they would not have to exist. The irony is that we have Government politicians looking for photo ops with these food banks, which is a disgrace.

While there are good people working in our social welfare system, there is far too much red tape. All of the application forms need to be reviewed. The form for carer's allowance, for example, is 40 pages long. The whole system needs to be streamlined. Applications for disability allowance are taking three months to process. There are huge backlogs in supplementary welfare applications. People with no incomes are being forced to live hand to mouth while they wait on a decision. The Department is clearly under pressure. The Government must invest in the people necessary to bring the service into the 21st century and it needs to start paying a living wage to civil servants. New entrants are paid little more than the minimum wage. We should be leading by example.

We also need to make it easier for people who have not been in good health in the past to get back to work. If someone starts a job or a business and his or her health does not hold up, he or she can often spend weeks trying to get back into the system. Sometimes the stress of failing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We need to ensure they can hold on to entitlements for a reasonable period and can get their payment back immediately if necessary. The safety net will encourage them to take risks if they are able to. We have submitted a number of amendments around rates and criteria and I urge all Deputies to support them. Maybe Deputy Cathal Crowe might understand that as well.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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A considerable amount has already been said, particularly by my colleagues. Strangely enough, I am in agreement with them. We have laid it out in the sense that we will be bringing a number of amendments forward. I think even the Minister would accept from time to time that anomalies are created. In fairness, she dealt with the issue of the disability support grant not being paid to National Learning Centre students. That is to be welcomed. I like to think consideration would be given to the other amendments we are offering.

In the long term, I like to think there would be agreement across the board that on some level, we need to take rate changes and scenarios like a tenner here, a fiver there and €12 there out of here and make sure we set what is a minimum essential standard for people. It would be difficult to argue against that. We need to look at the likes of a social welfare adequacy commission that would make these determinations on the basis of the inflation rate index linking with all the necessary pieces. We all know that whatever rules we had with regard to the economy have been thrown to the side in the past number of months. It is about ensuring people have those necessary protections.

I previously raised the issue of additional needs payments with the Minister. She spoke about the additional resources she was putting in with regard to that but there are still difficulties. A considerable number of people would not have considered additional needs payments previously but are under severe pressure. We all know about the energy crisis and the multiple crises with which people are dealing such as housing. That is something that needs to be looked at. I know it is a particular issue in Dundalk. It is having an impact with regard to people who have been offered social housing that has not been kitted out where someone does not necessarily have the funds to do that.

On some level, even from my point of view, and that of the people in my office and some of our councillors, this is not freeing up the house these people were previously renting. We have limited resources in housing, and this is an issue we are not dealing with.

As I said, I ask the Minister to look in a constructive manner at the amendments being put forward by Sinn Féin. Beyond this, we must all address the issue of the social welfare system in respect of it being fit for purpose, including catching people where necessary. We must also consider dealing with the idea of poverty. I refer to those removed from education, and all the rest of it, who need these added supports to allow us to bridge the gap and bring more people into the education system and the workforce.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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As the spokesperson on disability for my party, I wish to raise several concerns around disabled people. There are persistently low levels of employment among people with disabilities, despite a widespread desire for work and career aspirations which are held by many and could be realised with the correct supports. This has resulted in appallingly high levels of poverty and enforced deprivation across households headed by a person with a disability.

Currently, the rate of poverty and social exclusion for people with disabilities in Ireland is one of the highest in the EU, at 38.1%. Equally, EU figures show Ireland to be the country with the lowest employment rate among people with disabilities, at 32.3%. The Government has committed to addressing the additional cost of disability. The Indecon report, which was commissioned by the Minister's Department, found that people with a disability face a higher daily cost of living, yet measures have not been introduced which would fundamentally address this issue within the social welfare system. The Government could have used the opportunity of the budget to begin to address the major shortcomings in provision for people with disabilities and family carers, but it fell short of this.

While I welcome many of the measures announced in the budget, several areas require further attention. I will speak on several of them. There is a need for a review of the means test for disability-related supports. Current means-testing requirements can be very rigid and limiting for many people with disabilities due to being based on entire household income. Income thresholds also limit many disabled people from taking up employment, as they lose essential entitlements if they earn too much. The one cited to me most often is the medical card. People do not want to lose their medical card and basic payment. This particularly applies to those who work on commission, because they find then that they lose their payment if they get any sort of work on commission at all. There is also a problem if there is a change in the financial circumstances of the partners of those receiving the blind pension or disability allowance. If the household income goes up, blind or disabled people either lose their entitlement or their rate of payment is cut. My argument is that these people will not cease to be blind or disabled simply because their partner changes jobs or their salary increases.

Several of my colleagues have raised concerns about the delay in processing emergency payments of different types. I wish to include in this the application for rent allowance for someone fleeing domestic violence circumstances. I was informed of the case of one woman seeking this rent allowance who was told it would take five weeks. Luckily enough, the new landlady was aware of her circumstances and was understanding. She said she could wait for the payment. Not all landlords or landladies are able or willing to wait for a payment. I wrote to the Minister about this issue. I hope this is a once-off situation that can be addressed and will not happen again. I say this because some people may end up going back to a domestic violence situation and this is intolerable.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for her response to the demanding and challenging situation we have faced over the last couple of years. Many issues were in need of attention and they received it. This was because the Minister clearly understood the issues being faced and was determined to respond to them in good time. We therefore owe her congratulations for this and we wish her well in future.

We have limited time and I wish to touch on a couple of things. I like the Opposition. I enjoy the Opposition. John B. Keane once said to another Member of this House on television that "I enjoy you as a politician". In any event, the Opposition is a necessity and we need to hear from them as well. This does not, however, mean that Government backbenchers have no hearts or compassion or have hearts of stone. We meet our constituents on a fairly regular basis, perhaps more regularly than many people would give us credit for. We hear their stories first-hand. This is, of course, the best way to do it. By meeting people first-hand, we get a better understanding of what is in their minds and concerning them the most. I have noticed over the years that when people are in a potentially challenging situation, their innermost concerns and worries affect them greatly. They reach out at that stage for some help and some sign or some way through the haze. This is a natural thing. Ordinarily, and during the recession it was not always possible to do this, it is greatly important that we reach out to those people at that stage to stabilise them. It is also important from our point of view when we meet our constituents in clinics to reassure them that whatever the situation is, it can be resolved, we can tackle it and deal with it and there is a way around it. This is reassurance and it is hugely helpful to these people in the context of providing for their families and themselves.

Two other things came to my mind, which are not necessarily the responsibility of the Minister. The body charged with the responsibility to make determinations on higher education grants often has the attitude of offering half of the grant rate. Half of a grant, though, deprives a child of the opportunity of going to third level education. People might as well not get it at all. The obvious thing to do is to award the full grant and if investigations may not prove fruitful afterwards, it could be withdrawn.

I also wish to mention those people, self-employed or otherwise, who have insufficient contributions to qualify for a pension. When I was in the Minister's Department, which is a long time ago now, I did some work in this area. Unfortunately, some of it had to be reversed afterwards. My belief is that people who have made contributions during their years of employment, whatever that employment may have been, whether self-employment or otherwise, and made those contributions in good faith, have a constitutional entitlement to some pension arising from it, albeit a limited one. In other words, if people may have made only 50% of the required contributions, then they should get that 50% pension. They can then get the rest by way of a means-tested pension if they are in that category. The important thing, though, is to enable people in this situation to qualify for the pension they would be entitled to based on their contributions. If such a pension is not sufficiently big, then there is also the means-tested system.

All of us here would like much more time to discuss this issue because it affects the social fabric of our society. This is important from all our perspectives, whether we are in the Opposition or the Government, and whether we are backbenchers, Ministers or whatever. I thank the Minister for being here, for listening and for being of a mind to do what was necessary when it had to be done, because we had nothing else.

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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If Deputy Durkan wishes, he can come over to this side of the House after that contribution.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I would not be comfortable over there.There are certain things that Deputy Gould can do over on that side of the House.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy very much. I call Deputy Higgins.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I am pleased to be discussing this legislation and the changes that will come in as a result of budget 2023. Our social protection system, and our social welfare system before that, has always been instrumental when it comes to supporting and protecting people when they need help the most, whether through times of illness or unemployment or when people reach an older age or need maternity benefit or carers' allowance, etc. There are so many other instances in which we supply help when people need it.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, and now during this cost-of-living crisis, we have seen the importance and value of supporting people and protecting jobs when this needs to happen. This is what we are now continuing to do with budget 2023. In 2021, almost €3 out of every €10 spent by the Government was on social protection measures. We supported more than 3 million people last year through the 85 million individual payments made. This accounted for more than €30.8 billion in spending. This Bill will allow us to continue to support the most vulnerable in our society. There are some really positive measures in this Bill, too many to go through in the couple of minutes I have. I wish to highlight in particular, though, the benefits for families.

There were 27,108 recipients of maternity benefit between July and September this year. This Bill will increase the rate for maternity benefit from €250 to €262 per week to support mothers in those vital first few months of a child's life.

It was Fine Gael in government which introduced paternity benefit in 2016 - a massive step forward in recognising the important role that both parents play in a child's life. It is time to look at extending paternity benefit beyond two weeks. That is something I would wholeheartedly support and perhaps something we might look to in future budgets. I welcome that paternity benefit will also be increased to €262 per week along with adoptive benefit and parent's benefit. We first introduced parent's benefit in 2019. This has been increased from two to seven weeks per parent and is taken in the first two years following birth or adoption.

Research shows that when it comes to taking time away from work to care for children, it is still mostly mothers who do it. Even though benefits and leave have increased for fathers in recent years, uptake has remained somewhat low. Many fathers in particular feel the effects that taking leave may have when it comes to their career. However, I am encouraged that the number of fathers claiming parent's benefit is now on the rise. In 2021, only 28% of applicants claiming the benefit were male. In 2022, this had increased to 35%.

Coming from the corporate world, I have a big interest in gender diversity in the workplace. While we have made strides, the adherence to old-fashioned gender norms about who should work and who should mind children in families made up of a mother and a father can still be present, in particular when it comes to workplaces. I welcome the increase in fathers claiming parent's benefit and taking that time off. I reiterate a call I made previously in this House to employers to support parents within their organisation and encourage them to avail of the full parental supports available to them.

On top of the increases in maternity and paternity benefit rates, the Social Welfare Bill will also see a €40 increase in working family payment thresholds, a €12 increase in the maximum rate of all other core weekly payments, a €20.50 increase in domiciliary care allowance, a €30,000 increase in the savings disregard for fuel allowance for older people, extended eligibility for participation on community employment, CE, schemes and an increase in earnings attracting the lower employee PRSI rate.

In the cost-of-living crisis, our focus is on putting money back in people's pockets, on supporting families, on supporting individuals and supporting businesses with energy bills and rising inflation. I thank the Minister because that is exactly what the Bill sets out to achieve.

Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the opportunity to examine the Social Welfare Bill 2022, which gives effect to the changes announced in budget 2023 as announced by the Ministers, Deputies Michael McGrath and Donohoe, on 27 September last.

This cost-of-living budget will help families to cope with the impact of rising costs of living. There is no trickle-down side to this. There will be a direct and substantial aid to those most in need. This month alone will see people on half a dozen schemes receive lump-sum payments such as the €400 cost-of-living fuel allowance payment to all households getting the fuel allowance, the €200 cost-of-living lump-sum payment for pensioners and people with a disability receiving the living alone allowance, the €500 cost-of-living lump-sum to all families getting the working family payment, the double payment of child allowance to support all families with children, the €500 cost-of-living lump-sum payment for people getting the carer's support grant as well as the €500 cost-of-living lump-sum disability support grant which will be paid to all people getting a long-term disability payment. The single biggest measure, costing nearly €900 million, is the permanent increase in the social welfare payment of €12 - the largest ever increase in these payments and part of the largest ever social protection package.

In Fianna Fáil, we reject the Opposition's proposal to give less to pensioners. Pensioners deserve our support and we will continue to oppose the idea that they should be treated unequally.

These increases will apply to all people who receive a principal social welfare payment. More people will qualify for the working family payment, the qualified child allowance and the fuel allowance, which is being increased, as are the payments to carers and people on CE schemes. Of course, this is on top of benefiting from the other once-off measures addressing inflation which I have mentioned. The one-off payments to people are welcome and necessary. I will single out one change as important. The expansion of the fuel allowance scheme to people over 70 years of age is extremely significant. A couple over 70 with an income of up to €1,000 per week will be eligible for fuel allowance for the first time ever from January 2023. This significant change will benefit thousands of households, not only in my constituency in Dún Laoghaire but across Ireland. I raised this issue of people with a modest pension being locked out of the fuel allowance scheme during the summer, when I called for that threshold to be increased. I thank the Minister and her colleagues in government for taking that suggestion on board. I would ask that a publicity campaign be launched to ensure that people are aware of this significant change and that there is sufficient staff within the Department to deal with the increased volume of applications that no doubt will follow. It is important that people get that.

Finally, I join my colleagues in expressing concern about the community welfare office system. Recent changes have led to community welfare officers being one step further removed from the individuals who are most in need of financial support. Emergency appointments are extremely hard to obtain for people. Those physically present in the community welfare offices are not dealing with a much larger volume of calls, callers or those seeking their assistance. Certainly, the recent changes need to be evaluated to ensure we keep that kind of direct contact. All public representatives in this House are receiving a higher volume of requests from people who are in dire straits of various different degrees, be it financial or otherwise, and need to avail of the community welfare office system, which is a fantastic system. We need to ensure it is front-facing and welcoming to those most in need.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Now we have Solidarity People Before Profit. Deputy Boyd Barrett has ten minutes.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thought there were 20-minute slots.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry, ten minutes was on the clock. The Deputy can have 20 minutes.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Acting Chairman can give me half an hour, if she wants.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The Acting Chairman ought not encourage the Deputy.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The simple fact about the situation for the vast majority of people on middle and low incomes, working people, or people dependent on pensions or social welfare is that they will be worse off next year than they were this year.

This is the fundamental fact. As much as the Government may try and bedazzle people with a long list of measures it has taken to try to mitigate the absolutely diabolical cost-of-living and housing crisis that people face, this is the fact. The official rate of inflation is running at 8.1% but, of course, as everybody that examines these matters, such as the ESRI, has made clear, the inflation rate for people on lower incomes is higher. It is the highest for those who have the least because they spend most of their income on the things that have seen shocking increases in cost and price, whether food, energy or housing. The people who have the least are suffering the most. The vast majority of people will be poorer next year than they were this year. Meanwhile there is another group of people for whom it will be much better next year. It was better for them this year than it was last year and it was better last year than the year before. This is the truth that is never mentioned in these debates.

There are a few facts in this regard that are worth putting on the record. Energy poverty in this country is at an all-time high of 29% of the population. It is shocking to think that just under one third of the population is suffering from energy poverty. It is estimated that if current trends of energy cost increases continue this figure will increase to 43%. This is almost double its previous recorded high of 23% in 1994 and 1995. If this trend continues, just under half of the population will soon suffer energy poverty. More generally, according to Social Justice Ireland when housing costs are taken into account, 19% of the population is living in poverty or on the poverty line. This is 935,000 people, including 300,000 children. Almost one in five of the population lives on or below the poverty line when energy and housing costs are taken into account.

It is a very different story for others. The median pay package of top CEOs last year increased by 42% to an average of €2 million each in pay. Oxfam stated in a report produced earlier this year that the wealth of Ireland's nine richest billionaires increased in just one year by €15 billion. This is not how much they have; this is how much their wealth increased in one year. That brought the total wealth of nine individuals to €51 billion. We cannot even imagine how rich these people are. A report on the pay of directors for Irish companies shows that many of them recorded maximum bonus payments in 2021. While everybody else was getting poorer and being hammered with the cost-of-living and housing crisis the directors of companies, or most of them, received massive bonus payments. Last year, the average non-executive director, which is basically a part-time job sitting in on a few board meetings, was paid on average €107,000. The average for executive directors was close to €1 million for sitting on a company board. Look at how well these companies were doing while other people were being crushed.

Electric Ireland made an additional €63 million in 2021, with profits reaching €679 million, yet in March this year it announced price increases of almost 25% and further increases in August of 11% for electricity and 32% for gas. That affects 1.2 million households. Bord Gais operating profits grew 74% in the first half of 2022 to €39.4 million. In the previous year, they were only €19 million. Bord Gais increased its prices twice in September 2021. Its domestic customers now pay an average of €760 more for electricity and €573 more for gas than last year. Overall estimates suggest that over the past year and next year most households will have lost between €4,000 and €6,000 in real terms because of the rise in the cost of living, housing costs and inflation. These are savage income cuts in real terms.

It is also briefly worth mentioning the wealth figures. The richest 5% of people in this country amount to 93,000 households. Between them this group has €388 billion. It may be of interest to the public out there that net household wealth in this country has now reached more than €1 trillion for the first time. We are the fourth richest country in the world. There is a problem with the distribution of that wealth. According to TASC and the only study the Government did on this in recent years in 2017, the richest 10% of our population own 53% of the wealth but the least well off 50% of the population has 1.4% of the wealth. The average wealth of the richest 93,000 households in this country is €4 million whereas we have one fifth of the population living in poverty and this situation is getting worse.

Against this background what did the Government do in the budget to address the situation? It provided a 5% increase for pensioners and social welfare recipients, which is €12 per week. According to Social Justice Ireland the necessary level of income per week to be sure of not suffering poverty is €286. The weekly pension went from €253 to €265. This is €21 short of the poverty line. This is the reality. While we are thinking about this, let us not forget about the 93,000 richest households, which have €4 million each in wealth, never mind income. The vast majority of those dependent on the State pension are, in effect, living in poverty or a very close to it. We have a 5% increase when inflation is officially running at 8% but in actuality is approximately 9% or more for those low-income households that spend most of their income on food and heating. There is no change to the basic rates of fuel allowance, living alone allowance, domiciliary care allowance, carer's support grant, back to school clothing and footwear allowance or child benefit.

Many people went out on the Cost of Living Coalition protest in advance of the budget.

There is no doubt the Minister was changing the figures over that weekend because we managed to get 20,000 people out on the streets. She was put under pressure and we got some one-off payments. I am sure everybody will be glad of those payments, but they are going to disappear into the pockets of the CEOs and executive board directors and the profits of the companies I mentioned. All that money is heading into their pockets. It will be gone come the new year. By the end of the winter months, the reality will kick in that, in terms of a basic income, people received less than the rate of inflation and the rises in the cost of living. They will be poorer next year than they were last year. That will be the reality once those one-off payments disappear. None of this would be necessary if there was a willingness to make a small increase in the tax burden of companies and extraordinary wealthy households that have become more extraordinarily wealthy and profitable in the past year or two and redirect that towards ensuring nobody in this country lives in poverty, everybody can afford a roof over their head and heating and food prices are affordable. That is the big picture as far as I am concerned. A few sticking plasters will not deal with the gaping wound of deprivation, poverty, housing misery and energy poverty that huge numbers of people are experiencing.

Beyond those general points, I will make a few specific points. A child over 16 years may be entitled to a disability payment while he or she is at school. However, I discovered that if the mother applies for the back to school clothing and footwear allowance for the child going back to school, she will be refused the allowance, unbelievably, because the child is getting a disability payment. Just so the Minister knows, the mother is not allowed to take the disability payment off her child. The child gets the disability payment because he or she has a disability and he or she is entitled to it. That is the child's income. The idea that the mother does not get money for the back-to-school costs, because the child is on a disability payment, is frankly obscene. This needs to be addressed immediately. It is shocking and, in reality, it is a form of discrimination against people with a disability.

The husband of a very unwell woman came into my clinic. She is ten years on illness benefit. The rules around illness benefit were changed in 2009 so that a person could only be on it for two years. Prior to that, there were long-term recipients of illness benefit. When that change came in, people were given the option to stay on illness benefit if they thought it was the best payment for them, and this woman did so. As a result, even though she has been on that payment for ten years, she has been denied the fuel allowance all those years. She was also denied the one-off cost-of-living payment of €400, and I have received replies to parliamentary questions to that effect. In case the department official is passing a note to the Minister saying the woman can apply for other allowances, she did that and was denied them both.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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It was a better answer.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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If she is entitled to illness benefit, she should be entitled to the fuel allowance, which she should have been getting for the past nine years, as well as the cost-of-living payment. The Minister should do something about this.

Beyond that, I see no justification for why people on illness benefit, jobseeker's benefit, maternity benefit, death benefit, injury benefit, or carer's benefit should not have the fuel allowance. Why should they not have it? There is no good reason for this. They will suffer during the coldest winter. They are suffering with the increases in bills. Just because of their short-term payment, based on their PRSI contributions, they are refused fuel allowance. That is outrageous and the fuel allowance should be extended to them.

Deputy Devlin said it was good that the income thresholds for the fuel allowance, people in receipt of pensions, people aged over 70 or for people under 70 on a State pension have increased. I accept that is a positive measure. I received an answer from the Minister to a parliamentary question that stated she does not intend to advertise that fact in January. There will be no public information campaign. I suggest that she holds a public information campaign, in January, that is broadcast, loud and clear, informing people to check whether the new means thresholds will mean they are entitled to the allowance. It should be broadcast from the rooftops, on the radio and television that people may be entitled to the fuel allowance.

The autumn bonus double payment was included for some benefits but not illness benefit. Why not? I do not see why it should not be included. People are off work as a result of illness. Just because it is short term does not mean they are any less affected by the cost-of-living crisis, winter costs and so on. Unless the Minister will say otherwise, I assume all the people who do not receive the double payment will also not get the double payment at Christmas. They should get the double payment at Christmas because they need it just as much as everyone else.

Those are my points, which I hope the Minister will address. They are anomalies, which is a nice word for them. They are injustices. On the wider issue, the Government has to do a lot more.

On the question of how we pay for all this, one way would be through employer PRSI contributions. In our budget, which was costed by the Department of Social Protection, People Before Profit suggested a new PRSI rate of 19.75% to be paid by employers for employees who are paid more than €90,000 per year. It would pertain to a relatively small cohort, for whom they would have an increased PRSI contribution and would raise €866 million in one year. We have some of the lowest employer PRSI rates in Europe. If we were to slightly increase the 11.5% rate to 13.05%, we would raise €1.5 billion, a calculation that was costed by the Minister's Department. If a relatively small increase were made to the lower rate of employer PRSI and to the higher rate of employer PRSI for the highest earners, we could raise €2.3 billion. That would go a long way to redistributing some of the wealth in this country to alleviate poverty and energy poverty in particular.

The Minister will be aware of a study that suggests the average additional costs can be between €9,000 and €12,000 per year for those with a disability. Where in the Bill is the premium, on an ongoing basis, for people with disabilities to compensate them for the €9,000 to €12,000 additional cost they incur? We should do that.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The main reason I wish to speak on the legislation relates to patients with long Covid, many of whom are young with no underlying health conditions. They are presenting with prolonged multi-system symptoms that are impacting on their daily lives, affecting their ability to work and causing significant disability for some. Long Covid is having a significant impact on our labour force. An Australian study produced on long Covid indicated that even low rates of Covid-related permanent illness or disability could lead to significant future societal burden.

Long Covid is costing at least €500 million in lost work and welfare alone. Data from the Minister's Department has shown that 0.81% of those who contracted Covid-19 and claimed the enhanced illness benefit payment were medically certified as unfit for work 12 weeks later. If that is extrapolated across the total number of people infected with Covid-19 in the adult population, it equates to 21,459 adults who are unfit to work or hold down a job. If that is extrapolated over a six-month timeframe, it equates to €586 million in lost wages and welfare payments alone, never mind the impact long Covid is having on our overburdened health service. On a population basis, more than 21,000 people may be unfit to work due to long Covid. That excludes those who have relapsed after the initial recovery from the SARS-CoV-2 infection or the tens of thousands more experiencing less severe forms of long Covid who have had reduced participation while still in employment.

The sad fact for many of these people is that trying to get access to care and treatment is nearly impossible. On average, they wait six months to access long Covid clinics and, if they happen to be in Dublin, they are waiting more than 12 months. At the same time, the Mater hospital long Covid clinic, which treats neurological conditions such as brain fog associated with long Covid, is set to close at the end of this year. Many patients are being forced to travel abroad to access treatment because of the lack of clear referral and treatment pathways in this country.

The Minister will recall that on 9 November, my colleagues in the Regional Group and myself secured the unanimous support of this House for a motion on the issue of long Covid. There were two provisions in that motion. which was unanimously adopted by the House. One of them was to "ensure that all healthcare and frontline workers who are unfit to work due to long Covid are entitled to special leave with the removal of the arbitrary eligibility date of 7th February, 2022, for healthcare workers and further ensure that the current scheme does not abruptly cease in June 2023".

For some bizarre reason, the health service, through the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, has set an arbitrary date in that someone in the health service had to have contracted Covid at least 84 days prior to 7 February of this year and be out of work for that period to get extended leave until June of next year.

We actively supported and encouraged front-line healthcare workers to go in to work during the depths of this pandemic at a time we did not know what this virus was doing or have access to vaccination. We are now setting arbitrary dates without any justification as to why these dates were being plucked out of the sky. I know of two healthcare workers who contracted the virus last January. They were young, fit, capable women who are still out of work today and, because of the system in place, they are living on fresh air as their entitlements have been exhausted.

The key issue with regard to all of this and the reason I am bringing this up with the Minister is we need to recognise long Covid as an occupational illness for all healthcare workers and other front-line workers. To do that, we need her to act under section 87 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 and the 2007 regulations introduced on occupational injuries and bring forward an amendment to those regulations to allow for long Covid to be considered an occupational injury for front-line workers.

Under those particular regulations and section 87(2) of the primary legislation, it states that a condition where there is a risk to a person's occupation that is not common to the population as a whole should be considered under this scheme. The reality is that the vast majority of front-line healthcare workers who contracted long Covid did so at a time a vaccine was not available. However, those workers continued to go in during the height of the surge in the most recent variants. The Minister and I spoke earlier and she told me that a substantial amount of the additional €16 million in the Social Insurance Fund was down to the surge in the Omicron variant earlier this year.

The workers who went to the front line of our health service during the Omicron peak to treat patients in hospital and ended up contracting Covid-19 and remaining out of work due to long Covid are denied any support at present. I ask the Minister to amend the regulations to include long Covid as an occupational injury in those circumstances. This change is happening in other countries throughout Europe. Denmark has brought it in and Israel, Italy, Latvia, Norway and Slovenia are doing it at present. The European Commission has recognised long Covid as an occupational illness yet we are not prepared to do that here for our own front-line healthcare workers.

The difficulty is that healthcare workers have an arbitrary date when they will be completely knocked off benefits. Other front-line workers, who are not healthcare workers, are getting no support whatsoever because they did not get the extended leave. I know one healthcare worker who was a clinical specialist physiotherapist within our health service. She is a very young, fit woman who has, since the beginning of this year, gone to the private Covid clinic in the Beacon centre and for private MRI and ear, nose and throat, ENT, appointments in Tullamore. She has attended the public Covid clinic in Galway but has also gone to private appointments in Dublin with Dr. Jack Lambert. At this point, this woman is paying €120 per month for essential Sublyme capsules; €65 per month for a multivitamin treatment; €30 per month for a probiotic treatment; €30 per month for melatonin and €25 per month for Naltrexone. The bills go on and on. This is someone who went to work because the Government asked her to do so to provide care for people who were ill and who went in during surge after surge and wave after wave of Covid-19 to work in our health service.

Now the State is turning its back on those individuals and it will turn its back on many more next June. That is only the healthcare workers, not to mention other front-line workers. When we had this debate in the House earlier this month, colleagues from all sides spoke about front-line workers, including teachers, who contracted Covid-19 in school. Some were in special schools, providing supports to children with a disability. They are being denied any support from the State, which is turning its back on them.

On top of those public sector workers, at least 4,000 people were still out of work 12 weeks after they contracted Covid. They were medically certified by the Minister's Department to be unfit for work. I believe they are only the tip of the iceberg in this matter. We need to recognise this as an occupational illness. I hope the Minister will do that.

In the time that is left, I want to raise one other issue with her. We need a root-and-branch overhaul of our tax and welfare system in this country to ensure that work always pays. People should always be financially better off in work than on the live register or claiming welfare. The systems are built against people. The evidence is that where people work and are able to actively participate in the labour market, they are financially better off. Research was published by the ESRI earlier this year into the impact of one-parent family payment reforms on the labour market outcomes for lone parents. There was a lot of criticism when these changes were brought in back in 2015 but the conclusion of the ESRI research is that the reforms led to an increase in the average hours worked by lone parents. Household income increased by between 9% and 12%. There was an increase of between 23% and 29% in earnings from employment. There are clearly many incentives to support people in employment.

One area that has not been reformed in years and is now a major barrier to people gaining employment is medical card income thresholds, which have not been increased in 17 years. In that period, both the Minister and her predecessors have increased the basic rate of social welfare by €71.20, yet medical card income thresholds have not increased. Everyone in receipt of a social welfare payment is technically over the income limit for the medical card. However, they are given on a discretionary basis to people who are on social welfare, but if people earn €1 on top of their social welfare payment, they are automatically denied the medical card. That is a basic barrier to work and I ask the Minister to consider it.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Naughten for giving me some of his time. I also thank Deputies for their contributions. There has been good engagement. There were always going to be some areas where there were differences, but there has been a broad welcome for the measures in the Bill from all sides of the House. We can never do everything we want in a single budget. There will always be more requests and things that we would like to do. We have struck a fair balance. All analyses shows that the budget is positive, particularly for the most vulnerable. The ESRI stated that the weekly welfare increases, together with the once-off measures, will mean that low-income households will be better off next year than they would if we had just increased welfare rates in line with inflation. There was another this morning from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. It states the Government has the balance right between protecting vulnerable households and avoiding adding to inflation. Any fair-minded person would say that we have got much right in the budget. I would love to do more. There are many things that we would all love to do, but we cannot do it all. We have to try to do things incrementally. We have made some important changes.

Many Deputies raised the community welfare service. The delivery of this crucial service is a priority for me and my Department. I will use this opportunity to update the House. Where people have an urgent need, we want to make sure they can get support. We had a major communications campaign to raise awareness of the additional needs payment. That campaign has worked. We know that because the numbers applying for and receiving the payments has increased. As of October 2022, more than 75,000 applications for additional needs payments have been processed and awarded. This represents a 63% increase in awarded applications compared with the same period in 2021. We have paid an estimated €46 million in additional needs payments so far this year. It is important to say that some of this increase can be attributed to the response to support families arriving from Ukraine.

Generally, where it is clear that people have an immediate need, every effort is made to ensure that they receive a payment on the same day. We all deal with community welfare officers, CWOs, through our constituency offices. When CWOs recognise that there is a clear and urgent need, they are normally good at making sure people are looked after and receive a payment as quickly as possible. Where an application is complete and the required documentation is supplied, it is processed quickly. Where there are delays, it is generally due to additional information or documentation being requested from people to support their applications. My Department has taken a number of steps to simplify and streamline the process for persons applying for additional needs payments. A major public information campaign has been run throughout the year to raise awareness of the payment. We know many people have never been to a CWO and, therefore, we established a new national helpline and phone number people can ring to get advice. There is also a full-time CWO presence in all 50 Intreo offices nationwide from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday. CWOs remain available to attend clinics. They can talk to people over the phone. When needed, they can also arrange a house visit by appointment. We are doing everything we can to facilitate and help people.

There are 412 people across all grades in the community welfare service. In light of the increased number of applications, as part of the budget, we secured agreement for approximately 74 additional to be assigned to the community welfare offices. Recruitment of additional staff has commenced and it is anticipated that they will be in place by the first quarter of 2023. In the interim, until these staff have been recruited, 30 social welfare inspectors have been temporarily reassigned to the community welfare service since the start of November to assist with claims processing. While we will not have a full picture until the end of the year, we have started to see a fall-off in applications for additional needs payments over the past few weeks. This can probably be attributed to the various lump sum payments that have been paid out in recent weeks and helped to reduce the financial pressure that many people face. If Deputies have examples of delays, I ask them to pass them on to me or my Department. I commit to looking at those specific instances that are brought to my attention.

The national minimum wage was mentioned here. It will not negatively affect a full-time worker from the point of view of PRSI.

Some Deputies said there was nothing in the budget for lone parents. That is completely wrong. The budget 2023 expenditure report notes that lone parent households stand to benefit from an annual increase in support of €1,872. Analysis using the ESRI's SWITCH model shows that, of household types, lone parents and single retired people benefit the most in proportionate terms from social welfare budget 2023 measures.

Recipients of the one-parent family payment and jobseeker's transitional payment received a double weekly payment in October and will also receive a Christmas bonus double payment in December. Like all families with children, lone parents received a double child benefit payment on 1 November. Lone parents in receipt of the fuel allowance also received a lump sum payment of €400 in November. Half of the payments of the €500 cost-of-living lump sum payment made to recipients of the working family payment in November went to lone parents. There are many lone parents on the working family payment and they were able to benefit from the €500 lump sum.

Budget 2023 also provided for a €40 increase in the weekly income threshold for the working family payment and the personal rate of working-age payments such as one-parent family payment will increase by €12 from €208 to €220 per week, also from January. As I announced last week, I intend to bring forward legislation as soon as possible to disregard child maintenance payments from the social welfare means test. That, too, will be a big help to lone parents.

Another Deputy said working families get nothing. That is a sound bite and is not true. There is a comprehensive tax package to support working families. They will benefit from the universal energy credit of €600 and from the reduction in childcare costs. Where my Department is concerned, all families will benefit from the double child benefit payment. In addition, low-income working families will also benefit from the €500 lump sum and the expansion of the working family payment.

Deputy Flaherty raised the issue of recipients of disablement benefit not receiving fuel allowance. I am pleased to say that both disablement benefit and half-rate carer's allowance will be disregarded from the means test for fuel allowance. I acknowledge the Oireachtas joint committee, which suggested this change. I was heartened to hear the widespread support from all the Deputies for the new over-70s fuel allowance scheme. This will kick in on 1 January. I am aware everybody wanted the scheme introduced today, yesterday or on the day of the budget but we must ensure the IT systems work and that when we put these measures through, we do so in a way that is safe and that payments reach the people they are meant to reach.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thank the Minister.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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If I made a mistake with the IT system, I would be in bigger trouble today. Please God, that will not happen. We were lucky we did not have any issues.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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If I let the Minister go on any longer, I will be in trouble as well because we have run over time.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Yes. I thank the Ceann Comhairle.