Margaret Cox (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, to the House. I will start with the suggestion that Fianna Fáil has adopted a new image and has apparently made a miraculous conversion to giving to the people. In the context of total spending on welfare, which has more than doubled since 1997, it is a joke to make such a suggestion. If the Government had suddenly found its feet this year and started giving money to everyone through the social welfare budget, it would be fair to criticise us and say that the decision was perhaps only for perception or image.

However, that is not what this party and Government are about. Fianna Fáil is the republican party, and part of that ethos concerns looking after and providing for those in need. We must ensure that we create a system and economy that are sustainable and will allow us to continue giving and looking after people not able to catch up with those doing very well. I speak of the most vulnerable, such as children who live in poverty. The Fianna Fáil republican image and ethos concern the creation of an environment that allows those children living in poverty to get the education and jobs that they need to get out of it. That way, they do not continue in a rat trap circle of poverty where they know nothing else and, if they have children themselves, the same is true of them. That is not what the Government is about. I am delighted to be able to reject completely the idea that it did not care about people before and that the social welfare budget, representing the largest sum ever spent on the sector — an increase of 8.8% up to €12.25 billion — is merely part of the new image of Fianna Fáil. It is not; it is what we are about.

I congratulate the Minister who was recently appointed to the Department of Social and Family Affairs. If we had examined his bona fides before his appointment we would have recognised that he is probably one of the few Ministers to have saved the lives of ten, 20 or even 30 Irish people in his previous job, by introducing penalty points. He showed a determination in his attitude to that issue that, if replicated in the Department of Social and Family Affairs, will lead to another budget and Social Welfare Bill next year with which we can be happy. It will continue to look to the future and provide for those who most need help.

I will move on to some of the specifics. One of the great things about a budget like the one recently announced includes having the money to pay for it and put it into services. This gives us the opportunity to see what we can do next, given that we were unable to do it all on this occasion.

What are the issues about which we need to be concerned? I wish to focus on child benefit, to which the Minister and Senator Terry referred. The rate of child benefit payable in respect of four children is €637 per month. That payment is generally paid directly to the mother and is directly focused on the cost of looking after the children. It is a benefit that needs to be protected and retained. We need to ensure that it continues to increase. My view on child benefit is probably different from that of the Minister. I do not believe it is the way to deal with the cost of child care for parents who are working. That is a mistake we are making. Continuing to increase child benefit for that reason is a mistake. We need to do something different.

If one has four children of varying ages where they need child care, they may be in part-time care, or a full-time carer, a child minder, may come to one's house to look after them. One's children are the most important part of one's life and the reason one gets up in the morning to go out to make a living to provide for them. If one pays a child minder an appropriate wage of between €16,000 and €20,000 and employer's PRSI on top of that, which is another 10%, one spends €23,000 per annum of one's income in respect of which tax has been deducted on child care.

If one is employing a person to look after one's children, that person should be paid a proper wage, covered by the social welfare system and be able to build up stamps to provide for his or her future. If a person is caring for three or four children in his or her own home, perhaps some disregard could be introduced. Children are the central part of our country, society and culture. Perhaps we could decide to do something different in respect of the cost of child care. In this context, child benefit is not the answer. It is not dealing with the real issues, including the cost of child care. We discussed this issue previously here. Some people pay more in child care expenses than their mortgage repayment. That means something is wrong. I plead with the Minister to bring the message back to Cabinet that child benefit is important. It does a wonderful job and is succeeding in its objective, but it is not the answer to providing a solution to the cost of child care.

Another issue I wish to raise, which was discussed during the debate on pensions, is that of the treatment of women's pension rights. We need to continue to make improvements in that area. I will leave it at that.

The rule that a recipient can receive only one payment from the Department of Social and Family Affairs is becoming more of an issue. A person in receipt of widow's or widower's pension, which represents that person's only income, who is looking after an older person, a near relative, a mother-in-law or father-in-law cannot qualify for the carer's allowance. If that person's partner was still alive and in receipt of a pension, an income disregard of approximately €250 per week would apply and that carer would qualify for carer's allowance.

It does not make sense to have in place a blanket ban that precludes widows or other recipients in receipt of a payment from the Department from receiving a second payment, particularly in the case of carers. The rule particularly disadvantages women and widows because they tend to have more caring roles such as looking after older people in their homes. If a person has been widowed, that person may not have been the chief bread winner in the family and may be totally dependent on the widow's pension. I plead with the Minister to reconsider this issue to see if something can be done in this regard.

One of the most intelligent and proactive measures introduced by the previous Government was carer's benefit and carer's leave. It provides that a person can take time off to look after a person who is ill. The carer's employment rights are maintained and he or she can be paid carer's benefit through the Department of Social and Family Affairs. However, the process involved is still bureaucratic. One has to apply for leave before one can apply for the benefit and complete the necessary forms. Generally, the people who want to apply for this benefit and leave want to do so for the short term. The person may wish to look after a person who has been diagnosed as being terminally ill and may not have many months left to live. The carer may have been working and everything may have been fine but suddenly he or she is faced with dealing with the likely death of a loved one in difficult circumstances.

The carer wants to look after this person, to take the time off, but to do so he or she must complete all the necessary forms and jump through all the hoops. We need to make the process simpler, which it would be easy to do. The Department is getting better on a weekly basis at making the system simple. Will the Minister ensure this process is reconsidered by his Department in association with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, given that one has to make an application to one Department and then apply to the other Department for the payment. Therefore, the process is complex. It should be reviewed to ensure an applicant is required to complete only one application and submit his or her PPS number. On receipt of that application, one should be advised if one is entitled to the benefit and, if one is, one will get it, following which one is automatically entitled to the leave.

The Department is great in the manner in which it deals with its clients on a daily basis. People are informed by letter of their rights. If a person's circumstances change and he or she is not claiming all the benefits to which he or she is entitled, the person will receive a letter to that effect. I had a recent case where a person in receipt of disability benefit received a letter from the Department. That person has been in receipt of that benefit for a period and it was clear that the person would not be able to return to work. The letter from the Department advised that the person might want to go on to disability pension with its advantages. That was fantastic. The person moved from a position of being in receipt of disability benefit to being in receipt of disability pension and now qualifies for free travel and a number of other benefits, including a medical card, to none of which that person was previously entitled. It was due to the proactive approach of the Department that this person was so advised.

I wish to focus on two issues. I am concerned about the issue of social welfare fraud. With all the changes that have taken place in our system during recent years, opportunities are being exploited by individuals to defraud the social welfare system. People are selling their PPS numbers. One can get a PPS number legitimately and then sell it on to somebody. Most employers tend to ask an employee for a PPS number rather than a visa number or a work permit. Fraud such as that is happening throughout the country and it needs to be stopped. If we are to have robust and fair social welfare system, it must be fair for everybody and not open exploitation and abuse. The Minister has dealt with this issue in the past and it has been dealt with by previous Ministers in this Department, but we need to make sure that people are not exploiting and abusing our social welfare system. The people who lose out in the end are the people who need to be provided for by the social welfare system.

The issue of paid parental leave is another measure I would like included in the shopping basket, so to speak. I would like some payment to be made available in the future to parents who take parental leave. Such a payment might not apply for the entire period but it should cover a portion of it. It could cover initially four weeks, then a further eight weeks and so on.

Parental leave is vital. It is an important type of leave for parents and their children. If we were to introduce an initiative that was focused on protecting children and giving them a better start in life, it would be in the area of parental leave. Many of us may have good jobs and a good income and may not notice the loss of income while on such leave because we pay the top rate of tax. When we reduce our income we would not lose that much money because we would make a saving in terms of tax. However, it would be helpful if people on lower incomes who want to take parental leave could be given payment during such leave.

The Bill is excellent. I commend the Minister on the work he has done. He has put his stamp on the Department in a short time. I look forward to seeing what will come forward in terms of such legislation in 2006 and 2007. I commend the Bill to the House.