Dan Boyle (Green Party)

In the midst of a very despondent economic position, the Social Welfare Bill should be recognised as a significant treat in trying to meet the needs of the most impoverished in our society. This Bill proposes increases in social welfare payments that are significantly higher than the likely inflation rate next year. It gives further increases over and above the standard rate increase to identified categories, such as pensioners and carers.

There are special increases in the fuel allowance, which, in light of current crude oil prices, are more generous than was thought in the first instance. Given that we are to borrow just to meet our budget requirement in current expenditure — €4.7 billion — the ability of the Minister to secure increases for broad categories of our society is to be welcomed and this Bill is the means that helps to bring that about.

In the coming year there will be other issues that I am sure will take up the Minister's time but that will need to be resolved. These include the position of lone parents and pensions. I look forward to further debates and other legislation that will consider these issues. As a statement of intent as to where the Government is while faced with the current global economic position, the increases achieved through the Social Welfare Bill are the best possible. There should be some acknowledgement of this. Although the increases are not ideal and do not lift people completely out of the poverty in which many people find themselves, nevertheless, they represent steps in the right direction and indicate a Government approach to this issue that recognises we are in a new reality and that those who need to be protected first and most are those affected by this legislation.

I will comment on Senator Norris's contribution. I have gone on record in expressing my disappointment on the decision made on the Combat Poverty Agency, but I accept it is a Government decision that is given effect by this legislation. I would not put my concerns in the same way as Senator Norris, but the Minister, in taking this Bill through the other House and the other Stages to be faced here, might consider some of the issues being mentioned so that the new body that will operate within her Department takes on the best aspects of what the Combat Poverty Agency has represented.

We must consider rationalisation and fewer organisations. We must ensure the work done is carried out more effectively in future. I would like to see this unit within the Minister's Department having a life somewhat different from a section of the Department and a semi-State agency. It could be a new type of life form in administrative terms. It would be within her Department's budget but would have some identity that people would know the work is being done on behalf of the Minister and the Department, but that there is also other input, particularly from the social partnership process. I would like to see this unit interact with the social partners and investigate certain areas. The reports, after being made available to the Minister and the Department, could be made public.

Some indication of the name of the unit could also be helpful. There is an assumption that the office of social inclusion is taking over the Combat Poverty Agency. A new name which takes account of the Combat Poverty Agency's past would help make the transition a bit easier; a possibility would be the poverty and social inclusion unit. The ability to initiate reports through the social partnership process and make them publicly available within a set time should be given by way of ministerial indication as a possible policy direction if it is not included in the Bill.

I am not sure if the following issues form part of the Bill or the process we should be discussing here. The Minister and her officials have been discussing the idea of the transition involving people who work with the Combat Poverty Agency. I have become aware of concerns about issues such as transfer of undertakings and people being maintained in the work they were engaged in. Indications on this will help the transition go well also. It will not be possible to achieve a complete fit and some savings will be made with certain grades where work is already being done within the Department. The expertise that has developed in the Combat Poverty Agency, particularly with regard to research, should be used to its full extent by the new unit.

I look forward to the other aspects of social welfare legislation that will come forward in the new year. Sadly, there are growing numbers of unemployed, although the Government has made some allowances for those additional numbers. The Minister is also providing for staffing needs within her Department to cope with these numbers. We need a medium-term plan that will recognise the sad reality that unemployment will increase to a level that we have not seen for several years and we need the means for dealing with that.

In another recent debate I floated the idea that we should perhaps look beyond the standard and straightforward social welfare payment of the jobseeker's benefit or allowance. Perhaps there should be optional and top-up payments. Many of us who grew up in the 1980s realise the soullessness that accompanied unemployment and these extra payments could deal with meeting education and training needs or recognise work being done in the community. An optional top-up could be provided for people engaged in other work while unemployed.

We must think outside the box and more creatively about the sad reality that is ongoing unemployment. We must, first, offer people hope that there are paths to employment and, second, recognise their potential from their experience and ability in contributing to society and the economy in general. In supporting the Bill, I ask the Minister to consider how the policy direction of the Department might need to be moulded in the year ahead to face the current economic position, which many of us had not expected, at least not in the severity of its depth. I am confident that, given the Department's ingenuity and the goodwill that exists for its ability to shape humane policies, we will see new and radical approaches.