Mary Henry (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House and I also welcome his contribution. I congratulate him on the energy and imagination he put into his job. The Department of Social and Family Affairs is one of the most agreeable with which to deal. I warmly welcome the changes the Minister is proposing in this legislation.

The issue of lone parents in poverty is a difficult one. I am president of One Family and was also president of its predecessor, Cherish, for more than a decade. I realise, therefore, the difficulty in tackling the issue of lifting lone parents out of poverty. I, like the Minister, look forward to debating the proposals for supporting lone parents in the near future. It is essential that we try to tackle this issue, which is not only an Irish problem but an international one. It takes much more than one generation to lift a family up several rungs of the ladder.

I understand the reason the Minister seeks to address the issue by trying to get people back into education and back to work. That is something to which One Family has been committed for many years, albeit with moderate success. However, we still face problems such as child care. It is hard to encourage people to return to education or enter the workforce when only a modest supply of child care is available at a reasonable price. There are many issues we will have to move forward and I look forward to that debate.

People frequently comment on the amount of money given in child benefit, income support, medical cards and so on yet they see no improvement in the position. It takes quite a while to bring about an improvement in a situation and is usually inter-generational. The best thing we can do is to support those parents who desperately need support in order that their children will be able to fulfil their potential. What the Minister is trying to do in this legislation aims to achieve this and I congratulate him on that.

I am pleased the Minister has tried to recognise the plight — which is the only way I can put it — of carers. Frequently, women in their 30s or 40s, in particular, have to give up their jobs to look after elderly parents. If one is looking after children at least they get older and most of them are able to do more for themselves, but if one is looking after elderly parents, in general one's workload increases. Sometimes when carers attended some of the committees, of which I have been a member, I often wondered who was more in need of help — the carer or the person for whom the carer was caring and frequently it was the carer. I am glad they have been given more money but they need much more help in different areas, such as job security when they feel they can get back into the workforce and in dealing with problems related to private pension schemes.

I am delighted that the respite care grant has been increased. I hope that all of us who are in a position to do anything about ensuring respite care is supplied in various institutions will do our utmost to encourage that. If the respite care is not available, it is impossible for these carers to get any time off from caring. I am sure the Minister and members of his staff have listened to people on radio programmes say what one weekend a month off would mean to them. That seems so little and it is extremely difficult for them. I am glad the Minister has increased the grant.

I am pleased about everything the Minister has done for older people in view of the fact that I am getting older myself, like everybody else, and we all must think about the future. I am glad to note the provisions in this area.

I want to raise a topic which has only become apposite since many more Irish married women entered the workforce. It is the issue of the plight of the working widows of Ireland whose husbands had paid for widows' pensions for, say, 40 years in their PRSI contributions. Women who have been working outside the home have been paying PRSI and now find that when they finish working they will not get, as some of them expected, the widow's pension from their husbands' payments and their own entitlement to an old age contributory pension. This is causing great annoyance among this group. They did not exist on a large scale until recently. There are now women whose husbands paid for widows' pensions for four decades and then died shortly before reaching retirement age. These women feel they should be entitled to the widow's pension but, because they are working, not only do they not receive the widow's pension but they must continue paying PRSI towards their own pension.

The Department has been in correspondence with me and the women in question and has explained the matter quite carefully. It informed us that the social welfare system is based on income replacement, with entitlement related to defined contingencies like sickness, unemployment, old age and widowhood. Under social welfare legislation, only one social welfare payment is payable at any one time, with few exceptions. This approach is common in most social security systems around the world and is intended to ensure that resources are applied to the best advantage in meeting the income needs of people who experience the contingencies covered.

The Department then explained that three main principles underline the operation of the PRSI system. The first principle is that only one income support payment may be paid at any one time. The second principle is the contributory principle whereby those qualifying for benefits must demonstrate an ongoing and genuine attachment to the social insurance system. The woman in question has paid PRSI contributions for decades. The final principle is that of solidarity. Under this principle, contributions paid by insured persons are not actuarially linked to benefits at the individual level but can be redistributed to support other contributors.

My correspondent, who is a very well-informed woman, correctly pointed out that Ministers are in a position to draw two pensions. It is possible for former Ministers to draw pensions while they are still Members of the Dáil or Seanad. She believes that she and other working widows are being treated in a very shabby fashion. I will not discuss the examples she has given me relating to other people who are receiving payments but who are perhaps less entitled to them than working widows, who have made considerable contributions to the social insurance system both directly and through their deceased spouses.

I accept the points made by the Department in its letter; however, it is rather hard that an individual like this woman must continue to pay PRSI for a payment she will never receive. She will never receive the old age contributory pension because she receives a widow's pension. On the other hand, an individual like her might not receive the widow's pension because she is receiving the old age contributory pension. A few women who have contacted me about this issue feel that one or other spouse has been treated rather shabbily.

I am aware that the situation is new and difficult and will cost a considerable amount of money to rectify. However, we are taking money from people to go towards pensions to which they might never be entitled. Perhaps the Minister could ask one of his officials to examine the matter when he comes into the House at the next budget because I am sure that I will hear from women in this predicament in the future.