Margaret Cox (Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and substitute the following:

—commends the Government on the progress that has been made in introducing a personal pension entitlement for pensioner spouses currently in receipt of the qualified adult allowance;

—notes the introduction in October 2002 of the option for new pension claimants to have the qualified adult portion of their pension paid directly to their spouse or partner and commends the Government on its plans to review the administrative and legislative implications of enhancing these arrangements to ensure that more qualified adults can receive a direct payment;

—commends the Government on the measures it has implemented to extend the levels of social protection and enhance the social inclusion aspects of the social insurance system;

—notes that child benefit is the main social welfare support paid in respect of children, that this is in most cases paid directly to the primary carer and commends the Government for the very significant progress made in improving this payment in recent years; and

—notes that couples to whom the home carer tax credit applies have benefitted from all the increases in personal and PAYE tax credits in the years since its introduction".

I welcome the Minister to the House. I propose to address a couple of social welfare related issues referred to in the motion and amendment, focusing specifically on child benefit. There is no doubt the Government is delivering the largest ever sustained increase in social welfare services. Social welfare benefits and vital supports have increased by three times the rate of inflation and since 1997 all the main social welfare benefits have increased by at least twice the rate of inflation.

As the Minister has stated on numerous occasions, including when he appeared before the House after last year's budget, Ireland spends more than €12 billion on welfare entitlements, double the figure spent just four years ago. This means that for every €3 of taxpayers' money spent by the State in 2004, €1 was allocated directly to child support. The rate of child benefit, which makes a significant difference in the lives of 550,000 people on lower social welfare rates, has increased fourfold in just over ten years.

The Government decision to increase rates for a single payment which goes straight to the heart of the issue of child care and addresses child poverty is a tremendous achievement and a reflection of its caring focus on children. In recent years, the increases in child benefit rates have helped address the unresolved issue of child care, on which the Minister is aware of my views. Having fulfilled its primary purpose, however, it is now time to consider child benefit anew. We must ask what was its original objective, what has been achieved and what still needs to be done to address the issue of child care. Is it time to introduce a different child benefit or an additional child care cost payment? Should a new benefit be made payable on the basis of the number of children in a family? Perhaps we should consider taxing any such additional child care payment and stop increasing child benefit once the forthcoming increases to which the Government committed itself in the programme for Government are made in the budget.

We should consider introducing a payment model focused on individual children. It could, for example, be set at a certain level for a child's early years, reduced from the ages of four to 13 years while the child is at primary school and perhaps further reduced during second level and stopped at university-going age. An alternative would be to stop payment once a child leaves national school. This model is fair because the payment would be universal. While it should not be means tested, those on high salaries who do not need it as much as others could have the payment taxed. In addition, tax credits or equivalents could be given for vouched child care expenses. In this way, those who choose to stay at home will receive a universal, non-means tested child care payment focused on the individual child and have the cost of child care addressed. The hard part is that for any child care payment to make a difference, it must be equivalent to 25% of the cost per month, which is approximately €150 per child. If we provided that in the next budget or even started the process, building up to its full implementation in the budget after next, we would be taking the single most fundamental and radical initiative on the issue.

There is also the question of disregarding income. The Minister for Social and Family Affairs will recall that we talked to him about the importance of building into the social welfare system a disregard for income earned by stay-at-home child carers. Those men and women — mostly the latter — constitute an untaxed economy of looking after children. They provide a valuable social service by caring for two, three or four children in their own home to earn a weekly income that in many cases is not declared for taxation purposes. That income should be disregarded. Taking the social welfare and taxation systems together, we can use this opportunity to make radical differences in how we address child care and its cost, which, as has been said many times here, in some households is more than what is spent on the mortgage. That is not sustainable and cannot work.

Within the same ambit, I would like to deal with paid maternity leave, which is capped at a maximum of €249 per week. For many people, particularly those paid a great deal more, that €249 reflects nothing of the cost of living in their household. They have mortgages to pay and costs associated with insurance, VHI, car loans and other general living expenses. If a woman takes maternity leave and receives no top-up from her employer, something not all companies can afford, the family suffers a significant loss in the money it takes home to pay its monthly bills.

I am not pleading that we increase that money for those 18 weeks. Instead, I am asking that the Minister for Social and Family Affairs consider extending the number of paid maternity weeks from the current 18. I am happy to accept its rising in two-week stages from 18 to 26 weeks as part of an overall child care strategy. In such a manner, between two and four years from now, paid maternity benefit would be available to women for 26 rather than 18 weeks. In conjunction with that, we could introduce paid parental leave. We have carer's benefit and leave, and we addressed taking time off from work to look after people with disabilities or special needs and old or sick relatives. We must pay for carer's leave. We should plan that, by the end of 2008, we will have a full 52-week year of paid maternity and parental leave, the latter to be taken by either the mother or the father. In that way, if people so chose, they could spend the first year of every baby's life at home. If we could do that and make our contribution, it would be the most radical thing ever done in the history of the State.

I have very little time left, but regarding the Department of Social and Family Affairs, an MRBI customer survey in 2001 showed that 90% were satisfied with the information they had received from it and the services provided. The Minister ought to be proud of that level of satisfaction. It has been my experience that the information and assistance provided by the Department of Social and Family Affairs to those with whom it has dealt are something of which it should be proud and with which it should continue to follow through. I wish I had more time, but I wanted to acknowledge that.