Nicky McFadden (Fine Gael)

Go raibh maith agat. I welcome the Minister for Social and Family Affairs to the House and thank him for taking the time to discuss the important matters relating to the Social Welfare Bill 2008.

I welcome the increases in social welfare payments made in the 2008 budget. I am aware that the social welfare package and support services announced in the 2008 budget was €980 million. This money will undoubtedly help to make life easier for families living on social welfare. However, careful budgetary planning and implementation are necessary to ensure that social welfare benefits those most in need. Unfortunately, the Government has failed to provide support for a number of groups in society. Groups such as the working poor, lone parents and carers continue to be neglected by the State. The key issues faced by these important sectors of our community have not been addressed.

The startling fact is that almost one third of all households at risk of poverty today are headed by a person with a job. This has been stated in both Houses on a number of occasions but no effort has been made to eradicate this problem. Consequently, the problems for the so-called working poor have worsened. Every day we hear stories of marginalisation and deprivation in society. We are aware of the social implications of such neglect on our society — rising crime rates, unprovoked violent attacks, a rise in the number of people involved in criminality and gang warfare, sick people unable to afford basic medical care, the acceptance of drug abuse in society and the list can continue.

To tackle the issues of social deprivation we must first address the issue of poverty. CORI has stated that the only way to eradicate poverty is to make tax credits refundable. This would enable people on low pay to benefit from the full value of the tax credits, to which they are entitled. People in this category do not pay income tax or pay related social insurance. Consequently, they are the only people who do not benefit from budget changes. I accept that budget 2008 provided significant resources. I welcome the increases in child income supports but I have serious concerns about the real impact these changes will have in terms of tackling child poverty and of assisting the most disadvantaged in our society. In 2006, according to an EU survey on income and living conditions, 11% of all children under 14 years of age were living in consistent poverty and 20% were at risk of poverty. Effectively, these were children living in families whose income was below 60% of median income.

While there have been increases in the qualified child allowance, child benefit, back to school clothing and footwear allowance and the early child care supplement, the reality is that child income supports for children under six years of age have only increased by €5.69 per week. I ask the Minister to consider how much it costs to feed and clothe a pre-school going child. Sadly child poverty is a harsh reality for many Irish children. I am aware of children who go to bed hungry and cold, without enough fuel or warm changes of clothes and shoes. Although some attempts have been made to combat poverty there is still a long way to go to fully tackle this issue.

I turn now to the issue of rent allowance and rent supplements. The Department of Social and Family Affairs pays rent supplements to persons who rent private accommodation but are unable to afford the cost. These payments are means tested and most recipients depend on welfare payments as their main source of income. Contrary to the intentions of the scheme, rent supplement has become a de facto long-term housing support for the many households who qualify for social housing but who do not have access to it due to inadequate supply. It has been noted by Threshold that the failure to provide sufficient social housing has resulted in many households having no other option but to rely totally on the private rented sector and the inadequate subsidy that rent supplement provides.

Yesterday in my constituency clinic, I met a young girl who works one day a week and who was offered €25 per week rent allowance. She is living at home in her parents' local authority house. She shares the box room with her nine year old son. This is not a suitable situation. She is on the local authority housing list since her child was a baby and there is no prospect of her getting a house because her housing is not deemed overcrowded until her child is ten years of age. There is an inadequate supply of local authority housing. Official figures show that over 43,000 low income families are on local authority housing waiting lists because they cannot afford to buy a house. People in receipt of rent supplement earn little more that the minimum wage and cannot afford to buy a home.

An insignificant rental supplement scheme only serves to put additional pressures on already financially overstretched families, forcing them into poor, rat infested, fire traps that are damp and dirty and sometimes even lack basic necessities such as fridges and ovens. I have seen such deplorable accommodation. The top payment in Dublin for rental supplement is €130 but the rental rates for the cheapest bedsits in Dublin stand at €150 per week. The current system is insufficient because it does not and has not responded to local rental charges and does not reflect the changes in the rental market. I ask the Minister to review rental caps to ensure they reflect real market costs, so the people facing poverty are allowed to live in decent accommodation.

Furthermore, many people, including many of my constituents, find it hard to get decent accommodation because landlords do not accept rent supplements. Landlords are reluctant to accept it because it is paid in arrears rather than in advance, which is the norm for the rental sector. Individuals and families in receipt of the rental supplement are disadvantaged because they cannot pay their deposit and first month's rent up front. Landlords are most likely to accept tenants who can pay up front. In some cases the rent supplement recipients have to wait up to six weeks for their payments and, in other cases, after processing the application the tenant is refused and left in a situation where he or she owes the landlord six weeks' rent. The current rental supplement system is fair neither to the landlord nor the tenant. Are there plans to introduce changes that will allow the rent supplement to be paid in advance rather than in arrears?

The sad reality about homelessness in Ireland today is that there are between 5,000 and 6,000 people currently living on the streets. Occasionally, exceptions to rental caps are made for people who are homeless but in practice this does not happen often. As a result, people who live independently remain homeless and are vulnerable to the dangers of living on the street. The Minister should address the rules governing rental caps to allow more exceptions to be made for the homeless. There must be a review of several aspects of the rental supplement scheme to ensure that it adequately assists the people it is supposed to support. Local authorities are assuming responsibility for the long-term housing needs of people who have been on rent supplement for more than 18 months under the new rental accommodation scheme, RAS, which I welcome. There are a number of pilot programmes under the RAS where people who are homeless are moved from emergency accommodation into longer-term accommodation. One of the main problems with the rental accommodation scheme, however, is that it is extremely slow. A total of 1,000 of 33,000 qualifying recipients have transferred from rent supplement to RAS since September 2005. That is very low.

The Minister of State, Deputy Hoctor, spoke in the Seanad on 18 December last year on the Social Welfare Bill. She stated that poverty is likely to be more concentrated in larger families. The new family income thresholds, while substantially increasing all payments, concentrate additional resources on larger families. This improvement continues the refocusing of thresholds towards larger families, thereby further targeting resources at low income households. I welcome the sentiment of the Minister and the concentration of family income support on low income families. However, the Government has failed to encourage lone parents to go back to work. This budget was clearly not welfare-to-work proofed. Part-time workers, for example, stand to lose €2.40 from their family income support payment. The family is recognised as the backbone of society. It is the basic unit in society where children are taught to interact socially.

The national action plan for social inclusion recognises the importance of education for a child's development and future well-being. The current back to school allowance provides children aged between two and 11 years with a €200 allowance. Children aged between 12 and 22 receive €305. This money does not just cover school uniforms; it also covers transport, school lunches, educational trips, school bags and school books. Without adequate funding we are taking a serious risk that those who cannot afford to fund their children's education may simply not send them to school. The small increase promised in the 2008 budget amounts to 39 cent extra per week per child. This does not cover even the cost of a bus fare, which is 60 cent for a schoolchild.

The Government's existing policy on habitual residency means that children who are living in direct provision are not entitled to child benefit, but to a mere €9.60 per week. This issue has been raised many times in this House, the Lower House and at committee level. It is shocking that a First World country would allow discrimination like this to continue. It is not only morally and ethically wrong but is, I believe, illegal. I ask the Minister to change this policy so that all children can be treated the same. In the programme for Government we were promised that the State would eradicate child poverty by 2008 but this date has now been pushed back to 2012.

The Minister mentioned carers and I welcome the study to which he referred, on young carers, commissioned by the Office of the Minister of State with responsibility for children. Regarding the national carer's strategy, I welcome the fact that the Minister has appointed a working group, which he said is due to report mid-year. I ask him to specify when exactly in mid-year the report can be expected. When will the report on young carers be published? Those young people are missing out on education, holidays, social interaction and so forth.

I also welcome the fact that the means test has been removed for domiciliary care and the blind welfare allowances.