Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I am pleased to speak on this important issue, which I presume will affect many more people in the future. I welcome the Minister, Deputy Hanafin. I am not sure whether it is her first occasion to attend in her capacity as Minister for Social and Family Affairs. I appreciate that she will face many challenges, budgetary and other, in the next 12 months. I look forward to hearing more from her about her departmental brief. She has started positively. The Department is large from a budgetary perspective and the Minister has a lot of money to spend but most of it is committed in advance and there is not much discretion in regard to it. However, I hope the Minister will bring new thinking and a fresh approach to some schemes and her policies in general.

The Minister, Deputy Hanafin, is more aware than I that streamlining of programmes needs to be carried out. The Minister's predecessors did an excellent job in various ways. The former Minister, Deputy Michael Woods, did much to streamline systems and expedite payments with computerisation. Such former Ministers as Mr. Proinsias de Rossa, MEP, and the late Mr. Séamus Brennan brought fresh thinking to the Department as well. However, further policy initiatives are required and I look forward to the Minister's help to see progress in that regard.

We are all aware of the excellent work the money advice and budgeting service, MABS, does. I listened with interest to the remarks of the previous speaker on moneylending. We have heard much comment on this matter in recent months. Moneylenders see an ideal opportunity now to take more people under their destructive wings and extract significant financial penalties through high interest rates from vulnerable people. The issue of legal moneylenders and the sizeable interest rates they can charge needs to be addressed from a legislative perspective.

Last week the Oireachtas was transfixed by the banking crisis. We will come back again and again to the need for further regulations in commercial banking. The Minister and the Government must examine the issue of moneylending and loan sharks and question not just their morality but their legality. It should be illegal to allow people charge interest rates of 40%, 50%, 60%, 70% and 100% which is happening legally at present. Tackling this and making it illegal gets to the core of the problem.

These people fill a void or vacuum. We must respond to that and put schemes and assistance in place. MABS and the local community welfare officer, along with his or her office, has a very constructive role to play in this regard. However, efforts must be more hands on.

From the State's perspective the community welfare officer is the person of last resort. A person who fails to get a social welfare payment and who needs money urgently is, on many occasions, helped out by the community welfare officer. This scheme must be expanded even to the extent of allowing the State, through the community welfare officer, make modest, short-term loans available to people who need, for example, €500 or €1,000. The possibility should be examined. I would rather such a scheme were operated and financed by the State than by illegal moneylenders. I hope the Minister will consider this suggestion.

The Minister made a statement during the summer or early autumn about using education services to assist people to learn more about and take more responsibility for their personal finances, which is important. The reasons for the existence of MABS and the necessity of its service stem from the failure of all of us to take full responsibility for our financial affairs. The place to start addressing this failure is the schooling system. The Minister spoke of the possibility of using transition year or the junior certificate cycle in schools to instruct pupils on matters relating to their financial affairs and responsibilities. Such initiatives are positive in the long run. The community welfare officer, MABS and the credit unions are available to solve problems that have already reached a degree of seriousness. We must ensure we assist and help people in future to take care to put their finances on a more solid footing.

It is never too early to start this process. When most Members of the House were children there were such schemes as the Post Office savings stamp scheme, which was encouraged in every national school in the country. Such thinking seems to have disappeared somewhat and for this reason I was impressed by the Minister's announcement that she would examine assisting and advising school pupils on financial responsibility, which is important from a long-term perspective.

We all acknowledge the success of MABS. Its work is excellent, its services are needed and it operates effectively on a modest budget. The volunteerism behind MABS and its interaction with the credit unions and community welfare officers are helpful. The service is probably not marketed as fully as possible. Many people come to constituency politicians to discuss financial difficulties and when MABS is mentioned, such people may not have heard of the service. Therefore, more work is required in that regard. A balance is required between large-scale advertising À la FÁS and what the Minister can afford within the departmental budget. More profiling of the service would be helpful.

The Minister, Deputy Hanafin, should examine the issue of the legality of moneylending and try to put some restrictions on what may be charged. Will she consider my suggestion and not deem it entirely off the wall of making it possible for community welfare officers to make short-term, refundable finance available to people for school books and such events as first holy communions and confirmations? This would help people who do not have access to the more streamlined system. Will the Minister continue to consider and realise the proposal to advise, instruct and teach people responsibility for their finances in second level schools?