Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House. As someone who was made redundant ten years ago after working for the same company for more than 20 years, I am probably the only Senator who signed on for unemployment benefit. I received a statutory redundancy payment of approximately £6,000, a princely sum at the time. It is not a pleasant position in which to be, as one wonders where and whether one will be employed again and whether one will be able to pay the mortgage, educate one's children and maintain one's dignity. There is a feeling of hopelessness, which almost 300,000 people will feel this Christmas.

Asking thousands of people to wait eight or ten weeks or longer for their benefits to come through is disgraceful. People pay PRSI from the first day and week of work. When they become unemployed, the least that they can expect is to have their entitlements paid without delay. The Minister may inform the House that people can get interim payments from community welfare officers, CWOs, until their social welfare benefits come through, but it looks to the unemployed person like another layer of bureaucracy and another erosion of dignity.

Recently, I read with interest that people from other Departments are being drafted in to help streamline and accelerate the process. While this is welcome, will the Minister outline the current waiting time? It differs from location to location, but two to three weeks should be the norm, not the exception, for payments to be processed. The Minister must find herself in the position in question before she can understand the mixture of emotions through which the unemployed go. Senator Ó Murchú was right, in that it is a question of humanity, dignity and respect for people when they are vulnerable.

Several years ago, it was announced that CWOs would be brought under the ambit of the Department. Has the Government abandoned its position in this regard?

I would be the first to acknowledge the generous increases of recent years in social welfare benefits, particularly those paid to old age pensioners, but an increase of €6.50 in some social welfare benefits is miserly. The basic social welfare payment will increase from €197.80 to €204.30. If someone in receipt of this is also in receipt of rent allowance, the minimum payment will increase by €5, from €13 to €18. The actual increase in such a person's social welfare payments is €1.50 per week. I have been approached by three to four people who are in that position. I do not believe the Minister is of the view that this is just and fair.

With more than 300,000 people expected to be on the live register in 2009, it is time to change the rules governing the back to education allowance. In the current climate, it would make far more sense to facilitate those who wish to return to third level education in the hope of improving their skills and employment prospects instead of their being obliged to give up or remain out of employment and claim jobseeker's allowance in order to be eligible for the back to education allowance. By doubling the budget relating to the back to education allowance and extending its availability in the short term to the unemployed and to those who earn less than €12 per hour, the numbers who might take up the opportunity to return to education could be increased by in excess of 6,000. These people would be removed from the live register as a result.

Senator McFadden referred to energy poverty. There is a relationship between incomes, poor housing, energy poverty and adverse health problems. Poorer people spend more on energy because they live in energy-inefficient homes. Due to the fact that they spend so much on their energy needs, they cannot devote as much of their scarce resources to other necessities such as food, clothing and transport. In 2004-05, those on the lowest level of income spent, on average, 13% of their disposable incomes on energy, while higher earners spent only 1.7% of this part of their incomes on energy. When the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is obliged to devote €3.4 million of its scarce resources to people struggling to provide power to their houses, it brings home the message to everyone.