Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Including everyone. That means one has to make a call - which can be appealed - on the level of support, disability, ability, capacity, call it whatever one wants in the negative or the positive, of each individual. One then tries to tailor an individual package to that person's requirements and assist him or her to obtain the maximum out of life. This is the way social welfare should be in the future. It should be a much more personal package. Some countries are moving in that direction and I want to move in that direction. It means there would not be all these traps in the system. It would be a case of helping a person to get back into employment or into a scheme, into a better space, so to speak. If a person with a disability wants to work and has some capacity to work, we will offer supports, financial and otherwise, to create the possibility of that person engaging in the workforce if that is what he or she wishes to do. We will aim to counter-balance the fact that a person with a severe disability cannot work and has no capacity to work. This will require radical reform. We have published three documents about single age payments.

Many of the problems I faced in a short time in dealing with this budget would have been avoided had we had a much more nuanced and a person-centred system. It will be a step by step process. The first step is later this week with the partial capacity scheme proposal. It will take years to get to where I would like to be but we should start down the road, no matter how long it is, to a much more person-centred social welfare system. In the time I am Minister I will continue to follow this.

There are currently approximately 20 schemes administered by the Department. It is a mathematical formula and it is black and white as to whether a person is included in the scheme. The appeals system allows for questions as to whether the person being cared for needs full-time care and attention. The answer is either yes or no and there is no half-way house. The formula is very simple. For example, a person is entitled to disability allowance if he or she does not have capacity to work for the following year because that is the definition of disability allowance. There is also the question whether a person has a capacity to work or is likely to have within the coming year. We have to move away from the use of such a formula.

As a serious Chamber of reflection, the Seanad could play a significant role in developing policy in a serious and reflective way rather than a partisan way. I think most of us would agree on the future direction.

I will repeat the point as I saw it and it is very simple. Approximately 1.5 million people are in receipt of a social welfare payment. If they are divided into three groups, pensioners receive €490 million. If one takes them out of the equation and when another third of the remaining million is taken out, then all the burden falls on the remainder. I would have been criticised, had I done this, for taking too much from people who, in their own way, are very vulnerable, are often on the margins of society and many of whom are long-term unemployed and do not have great prospects for work in the short term.

I was interested in what Senator Norris said. He said he would not cut so much. What we are facing reminds me of my co-op days. When I was running the co-op, we were always short of money and just surviving. When one was hanging in there, in the interest of the common good one became very tough. I remember having to let people go from the timber mill because otherwise the whole timber mill would go and there would be nothing to come back to. I believe I was right to make some hard decisions at the time and history has vindicated me because the person who took over the mill from me created 200 jobs where we had 30, but those 200 jobs would not be available if the mill was not in place.