Lisa McDonald (Fianna Fail)

People have been using Christmas bonuses, child care allowances and the early child care supplement for purposes for which they were not intended. Social welfare benefits should be used for the purposes for which they were intended and not the way they are sometimes used, as the Senator is well aware.

Unfortunately, there are people who will be under pressure at Christmas. Last year the Minister brought in a widely welcomed money advice and budgeting service, MABS, advertising scheme. That may need to be widened this year to assist people under pressure who, instead of turning to loan sharks, will be able to get the support required to plan for Christmas which is, as Senator Prendergast said, a time when because of advertising and so on, they can go off on a tangent and spend too much money. We must guard against that. The Minister made an effort in that regard last year and I would welcome a similar measure this year.

I welcome the fact that the early child care supplement scheme has been abolished. It did not provide for incentivising mothers to go back to work. The provision of a preschool place for every child of four or five years of age will give them some form of equality in entering the primary school system. My concern is that the current establishments will not be in a position to provide for that in 2010. We need to examine the private sector to determine what is available in that regard. The community child care schemes are run very well and some of the private establishments, unfortunately, have had to close recently. We must examine the issue of placements, etc. I am aware the Minister for children is examining that issue but it will be a matter for this Minister in terms of providing the funding, etc.

This measure must be used to incentivise mothers to retrain. If we examine that, and this is the point Senator Bacik was making, it will achieve the desired purpose. There are those with two or three children and providing a preschool crèche place for a child of four when the mother is at home with two or three other children will not assist in that area. That is something we can build on for the future but this measure is an excellent first step. When the early child care supplement was introduced I would have preferred to see the provision of a preschool place for children than the way it was done initially.

At some stage, and I accept it is not in the social welfare brief, we must examine the question of giving tax incentives to parents who are paying crèche fees, but that is a matter for another day.

I welcome the reduction in rent supplement. I listened to some of the debate on landlords not reducing rent but the market dictates the level of the rent. If a landlord does not reduce the rent tenants should threaten to move. I have advised people in my constituency to do that and it has worked. With the amount of money being provided few people will not want to assist in bringing down rent that typically was €700 a month or, as is the case in my own constituency, €600 a week. That has happened across the board. The landlords who are not co-operating must be told by their tenants that they are moving to another area.

On that, we have a major bank of empty houses and apartments throughout the country. We must examine house ownership because it is my experience that people who have a house provided by the county council tend to have pride in their own back garden and keeping it maintained but that is not always the case among those on rent supplement. If these house banks are available, we need to adopt an imaginative approach as to how we can provide a long-term housing solution in respect of perhaps letting tenant purchase schemes be applied to the private sector. That would take some of the housing out of the big bank that is, unfortunately, accruing.

I note Senator Quinn's letter in the Irish Independent on the incentive to work. This is an important area that needs to be looked at - persons on €40,000 a year who are under pressure.