Mary Henry (Independent)

I very much welcome the Minister to the House and I am particularly glad she is in the Ministry she is in. In other forums, I have found her very sympathetic to the fact that the family is not just the nuclear unit we have been used to for a long time, but she takes a much broader view on the whole issue, which is extremely important.

The Government motion is a good one, because there have been dramatic improvements in social welfare payments in recent years. More spectacularly, there have been improvements in services and information from her Department and its clients. I have complimented the staff from that Department many times when they have come to this House about the dramatic improvement in acting as though the citizens of this country had rights rather than thinking they were giving them some sort of largesse, which was not their own money except for a small proportion from tax. I very much welcome the improved attitude regarding the treatment of those who have to come before people with social welfare problems. As a doctor, naturally I would be well aware of the very shabby way people were treated in the past, as though they barely had a right to ask for their dues at all. I welcome what the Minister and her predecessors in the Department have done.

I am sorry that the amendment is true. There has been a huge increase in relative poverty in the last six years and it seems to affect a hard core of people. Poverty levels are measured on different scales but there is a hard core of people whose lot we do not seem to have been able to improve, even though in some cases they perhaps could claim for more.