Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, to the House. Of all departmental staff, the majority of those in the Department of Social and Family Affairs are helpful, courteous and responsive to representations from public representatives and the public. However, there have been instances, particularly in the appeals process, where some individuals have set themselves up as judge and jury. They can be abrasive to the applicants, causing them great distress.

Several years ago two social welfare offices were located in Gort, County Galway. Appeals were held in a hotel rather than in the privacy of the offices. Applicants waited in the reception area to be called publicly for their appeal hearing. This unfortunate event, embarrassing for the people concerned, should not have happened in this day and age.

The Minister inherited the savage 16 cuts from his predecessor. We were told the Government had changed its ways post-Inchydoney but the reality is only a few of these savage 16 cuts have been reversed. Most have only been partially reversed. Senator Henry mentioned one such cut, the back to education allowance, which has certainly not been reversed. As Senator Henry outlined, it was a benefit of which so many people wanted to avail. Many social welfare recipients realised they could benefit enormously from the back to education allowance. They could see in it the chance to win back an opportunity for gainful employment. It was unbelievable that a Minister saw fit to extend the waiting period to 15 months. None of us fully understands the experience of becoming unemployed or of being long-term unemployed. People genuinely wanted to get out of the vicious circle in which they found themselves but they could not do so. While the Minister has, to a degree, responded, it is important he looks at this allowance again and fully reverses his predecessor's decision.

If we consider all social welfare recipients, we will find people in the social welfare net most commonly associated with poverty. When we talk about poverty, particularly child poverty, we analyse the recent budget and ask what could have, to a great extent, eliminated child poverty. We see clearly that commitments by the Government to eliminate child poverty over a period of three or four years have not been met. The promises made have been broken, although the commitment was met in one year, namely, election year 2002. The commitments, however, were reneged on in the following two budgets. This year we were told an €18 increase was required to keep pace with inflation but there was only an increase of €10. Senator Wilson went back to 1995 and said the Opposition parties did not do this, that and the other but there is an absolute lack of awareness of the resources available at the time and of incomes relative to those of today.

In the past fortnight, most people will have received an ESB bill, including the elderly who receive a supplement of 150 units to offset their energy requirements. We are in the depths of winter and are experiencing a cold snap yet many elderly people will have received a crippling bill not long after Christmas and the introduction of the budget. Any increase they have received as a result of the increases in some pensions or otherwise has been totally eaten up by the increase in ESB charges. That is something with which perhaps Senator Wilson is not familiar. That is what it means to be in the poverty trap. While the Minister might say these people have received tremendous increases in their payments, those increases are worth very little when one takes into account all the stealth taxes.

Will the Minister introduce a national waiver for refuse charges? Elderly people in receipt of social welfare payments or on pensions who are in the poverty trap are forced to pay those charges as they have no choice. If for any reason they store refuse, they will be fined. They are in a vicious circle and it is of the utmost importance that the Minister introduce a national waiver policy. The Minister should not say, as many local authorities have, that because many of these services have been privatised, he cannot introduce such a waiver. Local authorities are using that as an excuse. If the goodwill existed in the Department to provide the resources to introduce such a waiver for elderly people, it could be done. Will the Minister introduce a waiver scheme for the elderly, particularly pensioners, the unemployed and social welfare recipients as a matter of urgency?

We are aware of the recent controversy about lone parents. Lone parents with one or two children or otherwise are most likely to be in the poverty trap. People have failed to realise that and have made negative comments. It is incumbent on the Minister to address the needs of single parents. The response of Government to date has been very poor. It is a scandal that we cannot respond in a positive way and take those people out of the poverty trap. Children, in particular, are most vulnerable. Once those children fall into the poverty trap they face other social difficulties from which they will never extricate themselves unless they are particularly lucky. Those who say single parents get themselves into that situation in order to receive social welfare benefits are far removed from reality and do not understand what life is like for single parents. We should ignore their comments and the publicity given to them by the media. We should react in a positive way. It is in the media's hands.

There seems to be an overlap between the operations of the Departments of Social and Family Affairs and Health and Children. When something is everybody's responsibility, it is nobody's responsibility. Certain supplementary welfare allowances which were administered by the health boards are now dealt with at local level by the Health Service Executive. We need to streamline the various allowances. The Government took a retrogressive step by returning responsibility for the rent allowance scheme to the local authorities. It is an example of another agency being given responsibility for a social welfare benefit. It could be referred to as decentralisation, which I do not oppose. The Combat Poverty Agency has raised some concerns about the proposed decentralisation of the agency to Monaghan. It believes that if it is based some distance outside the greater Dublin area, it will face difficulties in driving the anti-poverty agenda and eliminating poverty from society.

I hope the Minister will examine some of the savage 16 cutbacks in an attempt to make a great difference to many people. I ask him to respond in a meaningful way to his predecessor's errors, including the introduction of the cutbacks. It is a pity that his response, which has resulted from adverse publicity, has been partial.