Nicky McFadden (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House. I appreciate the serious times in which we are and acknowledge that action, however belatedly, is being taken. I am greatly disappointed by the manner in which this legislation is being rushed through both Houses. I listened intently to the debate in the Dáil yesterday and ask the Minister directly the reason Members of this House were not invited to yesterday morning's briefing by the Department. This subject is new to me and I find the legislation relating to pensions to be highly complex. I would have appreciated time to enable me to get my head around it and to have consulted with the various partners and those whom this issue ultimately will affect. I fail to discern the reason for this non-invitation, which shows absolute disrespect for Members of this House, and am greatly disappointed by it.

I perceive the manner in which the budget affects people on social welfare as the poor being obliged to pay for the mistakes of the high rollers. This is how I consider the non-payment of the Christmas bonus. I have been knocking on doors and canvassing and it probably is the single most cynical, cowardly and hurtful measure. It is what people such as grandparents use to buy toys for their grandchildren or what hard-pressed mothers use to pay an ESB bill at Christmas. It will force people back to moneylenders. It is paid at the end of the year when people might use the €200 to get themselves on an even keel and to start the new year afresh. The bonus certainly was not used for luxuries.

I refer to the idea of taxing those below the minimum wage. When one considers that 30% of those who already are in poverty have a job, bringing such people into the tax net and imposing a levy on them will make matters even worse. It is so hard for them and every second week, members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs discuss issues such as people trying to keep warm, to keep food on the table or to pay ESB bills. However, the Government has turned around and in not one budget but two, has added further to their heartache. People will go hungry in Ireland and this is evident from the food queues. I understand that one day approximately three weeks ago, 340 people queued for food and I shudder to think how many more people now are queuing for basics such as bread and milk. It is not the case that inflation will decline as people are unable to pay for basic necessities for their families, such as education, health and transport.

I wish to touch on a few of the points outlined by the Minister and will table amendments to some of them on later Stages. Cutting by half, or by €100, the jobseeker's allowance for young people is quite extraordinary. I understand the Minister's motivation and overheard her interview on "News at One" about people coming across the Border, fraud etc. I realise she was obliged to take action but to reduce the allowance by €100 in one fell swoop is difficult to bear.

While I do not wish to sound fanatical or dramatic, I believe people will go hungry. This is not about luxuries but about how young people will try to sustain themselves because they will not survive. In addition, in the last budget the Minister removed child benefit for those who are in college and are over 18 and this sector is being hit quite hard. While I welcome the 25,000 places in training and education, it will not be enough to deal with this group of vulnerable young people. The Minister stated she did not wish to create a welfare culture or to give such people a taste of welfare. While I agree with the Minister that some families exist in which the third generation is in receipt of welfare, cutting the allowance by €100 in one fell swoop will not achieve what the Minister sets out to do.

As for rent supplement, fewer and fewer houses are being supplied by my local authority. Consequently, far more people depend on the private sector and on private landlords. While there are a great number of private houses available for rent, landlords certainly are not trying to accommodate the unfortunate person whose rent allowance has been reduced. As the Minister is aware, the landlords' purpose is to pay their mortgages and to try to support their investments. In this context, €11 is a huge amount of money. I also am aware of people who already must supplement their rent allowance because their landlords have set the rent at such extraordinarily high levels, as the ceiling is so low. The Minister is attacking the vulnerable and not the landlord. As the landlord still will get his or her money at the end of the day, I do not believe this was the right way to have gone about this issue. Moreover, organisations such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul have been inundated while trying to help people to pay rent supplement top-ups and this certainly will continue because of this measure. I acknowledge the highly positive rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and believe it shows a way we must go, that is, a differential rent should be put in place by the local authorities that could accommodate those who find themselves without houses.

The early child care and preschool measures are welcome. How will parents pay for crèches? This has not been addressed. Perhaps the Minister can comment on this.

There was discussion of enterprise schemes on the radio this morning. The Minister said people would start looking for jobs if the payment of €100 was reduced but there are no jobs. We must be cognisant of this. How can one get a job if there is none? We must consider the successful schemes in the 1980s. Some community employment schemes were successful, some were not. In this way we can figure out what works and what does not. This was suggested on "Morning Ireland" and we can hark back to that time because it is not such a long time since we were in recession.

The back to work allowance will apply for two years rather than four years. This is not long enough and does not allow people to establish a business. According to ESRI figures released this morning, it does not look like we will get out of this dreadful recession in the short term. Two years is not long enough for a business to become established when banks are not very free with credit. This period is not sufficient to allow people to get off their feet. These start a business and back to work schemes were successful in the 1980s and we still see the fruits of those in businesses that are still thriving as a result of these measures in the 1980s.

The first I heard of the pension measures was on Sunday night. Even in infancy as an Oireachtas Member, I know the idea that something can be mooted on Sunday evening without briefings or discussions with partners is not the way to do business. We suddenly have serious legislation, some of which is positive, that will affect our country for a long time to come. Why did the Minister decide on three years rather than one year? We have read about Bord na Móna, ESB, SR Technics and Waterford Crystal, companies that are solvent but whose pension funds have dried up. People have no recourse. How will they be accommodated?

What galls me and makes me angry is that Mr. Fingleton's pension stands at €27.6 million. How will the Minister affect the likes of him, CEOs and people who have ripped off our country? It is a disgrace that they call themselves Irish when people who have worked for semi-State companies such as ESB or Bord na Móna or solvent companies like SR Technics for 30 years may have no benefit at the end. I acknowledge the necessity to take action on pensions but the Minister is not hitting the high rollers. This is based on a brief examination of the Bill over the past 24 hours. I ask the Minister to explain this in more detail.

I will table amendments and elaborate on these later.