Phil Prendergast (Labour)

I welcome the Minister to the House, although I concur with Senator Norris about her speech, which is quite difficult to read. I do not have a problem with my eyesight but it is difficult to follow the text.

The Bill is framed in the context of rapidly rising numbers seeking assistance to make ends meet. This factor is a sad reality for many people every day. Public representatives are getting constant calls from people who are in a desperate state. The Bill represents the Government's plan for addressing lengthening dole queues, spiralling domestic debt and ever increasing rates of eviction and home repossession. People are facing an awful situation and they feel hopeless.

The legislation is the Government's financial blueprint for living on low pay or a State pension, and for coping with disability and illness. Like so much of this Government's approach to the financial crisis, however, it is inadequate, incoherent and short-sighted. For some, it will be the Government's road map to poverty because the payment increases next year are meagre. Certain people will see their payments reduced and in some cases removed altogether.

While inflation is falling now and is likely to be lower next year, last year's social welfare increases were swallowed up by inflation in the main spending areas for those on low incomes. Food inflation will be well ahead of what is likely to be an annual rate of close to 4% — if there is any food left that we can eat — and energy inflation will be almost treble that. Increases this year will not allow low-income households to make up the ground they lost last year.

This Bill cannot be viewed in isolation. It must be considered in the context of other provisions in the Finance Bill, which will cut real incomes for pensioners, working lone parents and lone parents with dependants over 18. It is likely to force people to seek welfare assistance that they might otherwise not have needed.

Thousands are in danger of slipping into poverty as a consequence of the measures contained in the Bill before us. Those in such danger face an array of problems. Some have serious debts, including those who paid enormous sums for relatively modest homes. They incurred these costs because of the Government's failure to control the property boom. Such people will now have to wait for up to eight weeks for assistance, if they get any. While the Government was quick to respond to the needs of banks that lent so irresponsibly, it has not been so quick about putting in place a scheme to protect people from repossession. It is awful when one cannot offer any solace to people who attend constituency clinics with such problems. While Christmas is just a day, it is an emotive time. Nonetheless, we must look beyond Christmas to the realities of the new year. Normally at the start of a new year there is an element of hope and people often make resolutions to give up something. These people have nothing left to give up, however.

The money advice and budgeting service, MABS, has recorded a 30% increase in clients. Meanwhile, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is stretched to the limit in some parts of the country. Not only are we likely to see a spike in home repossessions and evictions, but those managing to keep a roof over their heads are having gas and electricity cut off. I do not think I am alone in encountering such problems at my clinics.

The failure to put in place a proper scheme to avert evictions and repossessions will be paid for by the social welfare system. Had the Government treated vulnerable people with the same urgency as the banks, the Minister could afford to be less austere. She cannot fail to be aware of the impending problems, however. By shifting 115 staff into social welfare offices and setting up a unit in her Department to process the backlog of claims, there is an acknowledgement that the issue is pertinent.

Last week, the Minister spoke of the Government's work in combating poverty. She heralded the CSO figures showing a reduction in the numbers living in consistent poverty as a policy triumph, but that is incorrect. The percentage of people at risk of poverty is virtually unchanged at 16%. Older people are at an increased risk, up 4.3%, while older people living alone are now 5% more likely to fall into poverty, according to the CSO. Children make up almost 40% of those in consistent poverty.

While the Government has a strategic goal of reducing consistent poverty to between 2% and 4% by 2012, this Bill means it is now a goal without a strategy. It would seem that the Government is hoping to cover up this fact. I cannot understand why the agency established to advise the Department on poverty is now to come under its direct control. It can sometimes be difficult to ascertain all aspects of issues that affect us, and it is a good idea, therefore, to have an independent body to clarify matters that we may overlook because there is so much happening. The Combat Poverty Agency provided a real acknowledgement of shortfalls, and the system could be tweaked to make people's lives better. It was a terrific agency and I am sorry to see it being subsumed like this into the Office of Social Inclusion. Perhaps the Minister can tell us why these agencies were separate in the first place, if merging them will make no difference to their work. I would like the Minister to answer that point. In addition, she might spell out in detail how the agency's work will be continued under her direct supervision. It appears the independence of the agency's work in publicly identifying the extent and nature of poverty, and in increasing public awareness of the problem, will come to an end. It appears to be rather convenient when taken in the context of this Bill. The Minister has not allayed the suspicion of my colleague Deputy Róisín Shortall that the agency is, in effect, being abolished.