Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senators for fine, thoughtful contributions to the Social Welfare Bill and a constructive debate, which I found useful. The Senators offered some good pointers for the future. I will think about Senator Terry's remarks about Clanbrassil Street and although it does not fall within the remit of my Department, I will bring the request to the attention of the relevant Department.

I will ensure the legislation is clear about qualified adults, mainly women, being paid in their own right and directly. It is intended to make the payment directly unless the recipient writes to the Department and asks for it to be paid in some other way. We must retain that option for those who take the trouble to write to the Department about it, but the default option is direct payment.

Senator Terry and I have many debates on pensions. The Government has made great progress on this issue which is on the national agenda and was at the top of the partnership talks. The Green Paper is not an exercise in long-fingering. I am firmly committed to publishing it in March. It will cover occupational and State pensions, averaging and all the issues related to eligibility and so on. I will ensure it does not dodge those issues but lays them out strongly because there are stark choices, which other countries, including the United Kingdom, have had to make recently.

I take the Senator's point about compulsory, being compulsorily required and the protection involved. I continue to try to ensure the Pensions Board has the strength and statutory clout to root out any bad behaviour, about which Senator Terry is concerned. The main weapon I have is to ensure it has the necessary clout. I note her other points about the importance of child care.

I thank Senator Cox for her words on the budget overall. She spoke about the so-called coping classes, the people who often get squeezed between welfare and the top tier. Everybody on a minimum wage has been taken out of the tax net. Nobody earning below the average industrial wage, which is between €32,000 and €33,000 per annum will pay more than the 20% rate and that group is no longer in the 41% rate. That will be a significant change for that middle band of income earners and should help considerably.

The Senator mentioned the child benefit and child dependant allowances. Having listened to what has been said in this and the other House and to organisations such as St. Vincent de Paul and so on, the National Economic and Social Council has worked on a second tier of child payment. I decided that instead of spreading child benefit across the board to 1 million children, we would select the 300,000 of those in families on welfare and put an additional €60 million into that bottom third.

To an extent there are two tiers of child benefit. The top two thirds receive child benefit while the bottom third receives child benefit and the child dependant allowance. In this budget those two can amount to an increase of €32 per week. The top two-thirds of children receive an increase of €10 per month.

That is the start of a second tier which will make a strong impact on child poverty and enable us in future to focus on a two-tier child benefit system. If we were to start the child benefit system again with a clean sheet, we would do so in that way. We would have universal payments but would tilt the bottom third upwards.

Senator Cox is right in what she said about the back to school and clothing and footwear allowances. She mentioned a sum of €285 for older children. That is not intended to meet the bill but as a contribution, as are most welfare payments. Nobody suggests that any welfare income meets all requirements. I know from my family and other families in my constituency how difficult it is in August, September and October to round up the necessary money. The Senator gave a good list of prices for runners, anoraks, jumpers and so on. It is a long list but this is intended as a contribution.

We have doubled the sum in two years, increasing it by 50% again this year. The new child dependency payment, the new back to school allowance, and raising the threshold for the family income supplement to €186 per week reflect serious attention to child poverty. It is not unreasonable in the 21st century to expect that we can eliminate it completely. That is why I rail against the measures of relative poverty about which Senator McCarthy spoke. They are a distraction because they are academic measures. I do not support the constant measurement of relative poverty. It is fine for someone who wants to write a thesis. According to official figures in the past seven to ten years we have taken 100,000 children out of poverty. We now need to root out the remaining few thousands who remain in poverty. I would like to do that.

I thank Senators for their contributions on pensions. We have a distance to travel in this area but I believe the budget is a significant one in this regard.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs is the largest spending Department in the State and accounts for €1 in every €3 of Government spending. As I stated on my first day in this House as Minister for Social and Family Affairs, I am not a believer in the ATM definition of welfare whereby we just pay money. I have always been committed and determined that we would improve incomes and the money available, but in the context of reform to ensure every cent we spend helps people to get to a better place. It is an active model of welfare as opposed to a passive one. We move people to better places so they can build better lives for themselves. I am pleased that philosophy is at the heart of the Social Welfare Bill. I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach and Senators for their consideration of it.