Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House. I appreciate the time he has taken to outline the contents of this lengthy and detailed Bill. It took him 30 minutes to do so and I appreciate that he has been on his feet for a long period. However, it was worthwhile hearing him outline the details of the Bill because it is very detailed and tackles many social problems. I agree with the Minister that it is not a matter of simply giving payments to individuals. While many people must receive financial support, we must change our society to enable and facilitate people to help themselves.

For too long, many people have been dependent on social welfare payments. We must break this cycle but to do so, people must be helped financially when they need financial support. We must find better ways of encouraging people back into the workplace because it is through work that the cycle of poverty is broken. For far too long, generations of children have never witnessed their parents going out to work. Thankfully, this state of affairs is changing but circumstances have not changed for some people.

We must retain our focus on and address the needs of elderly people, homeless people and those who, for whatever reason, cannot find work, in addition to children, lone parents and unemployed people. Unfortunately, inequality and social disadvantage still blight the lives of many people, despite the country's economic growth. I accept that many households have benefited from our economic growth and that in many households, at least one adult goes out to work. However, work-poor households still comprise over 13% of the household population.

Work-rich households also experience new difficulties. These include quality of life and social well-being issues like family life, work, health, education, community life and housing. These new difficulties must be tackled and this Bill is one way of tackling many of them.

I welcome many of the social welfare and social policy provisions and reforms in this Bill, including the introduction of a standard and enhanced non-contributory pension scheme, which will bring more pensioners on to higher or full pensions. The introduction of a special earnings disregard of €100 per week, which will allow pensioners to work more without having the value of their pension affected, is very timely. As the Minister noted, people aged 65 or 66 no longer regard themselves as old. The general population is healthier and fitter than before and many people do not wish to retire at 65 or 66. This initiative is a welcome development for those people who wish to continue working.

People who wish to continue working past the age of 65 should be allowed to defer drawing down their pensions, which would provide them with an enhanced pension. I understand that this was one of the recommendations in the report by the Pensions Board. We must examine such a measure to facilitate people who wish to work past 65.

While I welcome some provisions in this Bill, I also have certain criticisms. I am disappointed that the Minister did not use this opportunity to address the financial dependency of women on men in respect of the State pension. The Minister could have introduced four measures, about which I have spoken previously. He could consider these measures between now and the next budget.

First, the qualified adult payment should be paid directly to all women. I am aware that the payment is available by choice but it should be made mandatory. We are talking about a certain category of women which will not exist in 20 or 30 years time. These women must be released from this dependency. Second, the qualified adult payment for all old age pensions should be increased to 100% of the non-contributory old age pension. Third, the 1994 homemaker disregard scheme should be changed to a homemaker's credits scheme. Fourth, these credits should be made retrospective for all women who engaged in unpaid home care work from 1973 onwards.

I am attempting to address the plight of women who were forced to stay at home due to the marriage bar and take up caring duties and who are now facing into old age with little access to State pensions. I understand the Minister has spoken about this issue and that he spoke today about the low take-up of State pensions by women. However, this is a group of women who were forced to give up work and who need special treatment. As a result of the culture of the time, they generally stayed at home to rear their children and did a very fine job. Many of these women have returned to work but we must address the plight of those who did not do so.

Women aged 65 and over have a 41% risk of falling below the 60% poverty line in comparison to 36% of men. Giving women direct access to pensions would help to move women out of poverty and increase their economic independence. The Minister has missed an opportunity to deal with these issues. People who spend time caring for young children or a disabled or elderly relative do not earn pension credits because it is unpaid work. The homemaker scheme goes some way towards acknowledging care work and helping them qualify for an old age contributory pension. However, disregards give no value for short-term payments and slightly lower yearly average than if credits were awarded.

The increases extended to carers are welcome. However, just 24,000 out of 150,000 carers receive either carer's benefit or carer's allowance. The work carers do cannot be measured. We must abolish means testing for carers. The Minister said this would cost €140 million, but that is a small sum to address the problem. We must not take for granted the contribution made by carers. Work done by carers — women are predominantly the carers — has always been taken for granted. This results in lost earning opportunities and pension entitlements, making them, once again, financially dependent when they, in turn, reach retirement age.

The Minister must do more for carers and ensure that their work is recognised. Work done by carers brings considerable savings to the Exchequer. The 150,000 carers provide up to three million hours caring each week, resulting in savings to the Exchequer of approximately €2 billion each year. These figures were provided by the Carers Association in 2005.

I thank the Minister for ensuring that child minders looking after up to three children in their own homes, subject to a maximum income of €10,000, can make PRSI contributions of €250 per annum. This is worthwhile and it will ensure that another group of women will not fall into the poverty trap when they retire or need to claim other benefits such as maternity benefit or widow's pension. The National Women's Council of Ireland brought this matter to the attention of us all. We raised it with the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan, when he was in the House recently. This is a welcome initiative.

The increases in child benefit are welcome. These have improved greatly over the years, and rightly so. However, we must consider that, on average, it costs €213 a month to raise a child, which excludes child care. The early child care supplement of €1,000 works out at €19.20 a week. This is less than 10% of the average national child care cost per month. While it is an early child care supplement and while I acknowledge one must start somewhere and we did not expect that everything would be done in the first year, it does nothing to help women who have children over the age of six, women at work who still have child care costs, including after school costs and caring for children during holiday periods and when they are sick. As we cannot forget parents who have children in these age groups, much more needs to be done in the child care area. I recognise that the Minister indicated more will be done. It is necessary.

The measures in the Bill in regard to lone parents will help to address the social exclusion and poverty experienced by many people. At present, 80,000 lone parents receive income support through the one-parent family payment. The Bill includes changes that will allow lone parents an opportunity to earn up to €375 a week, and still receive a payment. This should remove the disincentive for many lone parents to access employment. In addition, lone parents working more than 19 hours per week may also be eligible for the family income supplement. I congratulate the Minister on the campaign to highlight the family income supplement, which I have seen on TV and read about it the newspapers. I acknowledge the Minister is making a great effort to bring it to the attention of many people because there was a very low take-up on the payment. I hope this will result in many more people applying for the payment.

I attended the launch yesterday of the discussion paper entitled Proposals for Supporting Lone Parents. I look forward to contributing in the future to a debate on the issue. There are many interesting proposals in the discussion paper which should address many of the problems facing lone parents and enable them to get back into the workplace. I thank many of the NGOs who do trojan work. These include organisations such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Combat Poverty Agency, the Carers Association and many others who go about their work quietly. They do wonderful work for many people who need their services.

While the pension provisions in the Bill are necessary, they will do nothing to instil confidence in people to join pension schemes. That problem will still exist. Unless legislation is introduced to provide protection for pension schemes, people will not join them. I have asked the Leader to organise a debate on the report recently published by the Pensions Board. While it is an enormous book, it includes very few recommendations that will adequately tackle the issue. We hear almost on a daily basis about companies changing the defined benefit schemes to defined contribution schemes. I congratulate the National Union of Journalists which managed to win its case last week and persuade employers not to change their pension schemes. I am pleased it had the power to do so. I hope other people will take note of this and ensure that their employers do not treat them in the shabby way many employers have treated their employees.

The Pensions Board is failing many people by not being tougher on employers and the pensions industry to ensure that people's pensions will be secured. A protection scheme should be brought forward. The board has indicated this may be done. I hope it will happen. Providing the Pensions Board with €500,000 to run a campaign to encourage more people to join a pension scheme is a waste of money. It is not about joining pension schemes, it is about protecting people's pensions. The measures in the Bill to deal with pensions do nothing for individuals. However, I do not oppose them because they are necessary minor adjustments to the Act.