Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Ba mhaith liom cur síos a dhéanamh ar chuid de phríomh ghnéithe an Bhille seo. I propose to outline some of the main provisions of the Bill which provides for some dramatic changes that will result in a significant development in services. The Bill provides for the full transfer of the employment services and community services programmes of FÁS from the Minister for Education and Skills to the Minister for Social Protection and for the integration of FÁS staff with the Department of Social Protection.

This process was initiated by the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2010. As Senators will recall, the Act provided for the transfer of policy and funding responsibility for the employment and community services of FÁS from the Minister for Education and Skills to my Department. The practical arrangements to support this transfer of functions are now largely in place and it is intended to commence the relevant provisions of the 2010 Act with effect from 1 January 2011. From that date, FÁS will continue to provide employment and community services as it does now but under my direction and reporting to my Department. FÁS and my Department already work closely together and considerable progress has been made on a number of measures to enhance the delivery of services to people on the live register.

The Bill provides for the transfer of the relevant staff and resources such as buildings from FÁS and their full integration with the staff and structure of my Department. FÁS will also cease to have any role in the provision of employment and community employment programmes and will focus on the provision of training services. As a result, the Bill will enable one of the most radical realignments of social welfare provision in the history of the State. The employment and community services of FÁS will not simply transfer but will be integrated fully with the Department to provide an end to end service to customers. This will allow a transformational overhaul of service provision for people of working age. As well as income support, we will focus our interventions on assisting customers to find employment and prepare themselves for entry into the labour market by accessing training, career advice and work experience and job placement.

My Department is already working closely with the senior management of FÁS and the Department of Education and Skills to develop a new service vision and model for the integrated Department. While still at an early stage of development, the main outline of this vision is clear - it will be customer centric and employment focused. The main objective will be to ensure that everyone of working age is given the support he or she needs to find employment as quickly as possible or develop the skills and aptitudes required to progress towards employment by undertaking appropriate education, training or work experience. This objective will be supported by a case management approach allowing suitably trained staff to interact on a one to one basis with individuals on developing pathways to employment with clearly defined milestones and targets.

The integration of FÁS employment and community services with my Department marks an important step away from a passive model of income support to a proactive model which is clearly focused on progressing people to participation in the workforce. Such an approach not only makes economic sense but also allows our services to be tailored to meet the individual needs of each customer and respect and enhance their dignity as individuals. The restructuring of these areas is part of the Taoiseach's plan to deal with job creation, work activation and income supports in a better and more cohesive manner. This initiative is a tangible example of public sector reform facilitated by the Croke Park agreement.

At present, to qualify for jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance the jobseeker must fulfil a number of conditions, including being available for and genuinely seeking work. To fulfil these conditions jobseekers must at regular intervals make a declaration that they are still unemployed, available for and actively seeking work. This is what is known as the certification process or "signing on" and is currently carried out by the jobseeker visiting his or her local social welfare office.

One of the provisions I am including in the Bill will be to allow certain people who receive jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance to complete the certification process by electronic means. We will change the current signing process in our local branch offices to collect signatures via a digital signature pad. We are also exploring the possibility of using electronic channels for certification, such as on-line through the Internet or by using a mobile telephone. These new channels are being introduced to enable us to carry out the certification process more efficiently while at the same time delivering better customer service and maintaining the necessary levels of control inherent in the current manual process.

The Department is engaged in a project to examine the potential to develop an additional channel for jobseekers' certification via the mobile telephone. Before committing to full-scale deployment, the mobile telephone certification solution has to be evaluated by the Department from both a business process and technical perspective to test how it will work in practice to ensure necessary levels of security and control. Deployment will not proceed unless the solution offers a sufficient level of control in line with existing processes. The project is scheduled to conduct a live trial at the end of January 2011 in which a number of customers will be invited to participate. The selection of customers to be invited has not yet been finalised.

The mobile telephone facility is intended to be made available on a risk assessment basis and will have high levels of control built in. Customers will be invited to use the channel and it will not be generally available on request. It is anticipated that cost savings will accrue from reducing the effort required to certify jobseekers at the Department's local offices. As a result, staff resources will be freed up which will enable the Department to concentrate on client, claim, payment and control issues. Furthermore, it is expected to reduce pressure on local office facilities and accommodation.

The Bill allows us, as a general facilitation, to have any activity performed by electronic as opposed to manual means. Rather than signing a form in a local office before a member of staff, jobseekers will sign a signature pad which matches their signature. This initiative is covered in the legislation. Unless we can use and experiment with electronics, we will continue to require an inordinate number of staff for signing on purposes. This involves having jobseekers sign a sheet of paper before a member of staff at a fixed time of the month.

I am introducing a provision in the Bill which requires that from 1 January 2011, before rent supplement can be awarded to new claimants, the landlord's tax reference number must be supplied to the Health Service Executive. Landlords of existing claimants will be requested to supply their tax reference number at the time of their next rent supplement review. The Government wants to ensure that where tenants are in receipt of the State's rent supplement, the landlords of the premises in question are fully tax compliant. If landlords are tax compliant, they should not have any difficulty providing a tax reference number.

The new rent supplement provisions also provide that a landlord will be obliged to provide his or her tax reference number or confirmation that he or she does not have a tax reference number in respect of each tenancy for which a rent supplement is payable.

As I indicated, where rent supplement is in payment immediately before 1 January 2011 and that supplement continues to be claimed immediately after that date in respect of the same tenancy and where the landlord has not supplied his or her tax reference number before 1 January 2011, rent supplements will continue to be paid until the review date for the supplement. At that stage, the Health Service Executive will request the landlord to supply his or her tax reference number. To avoid unnecessary hardship the Bill also allows for the further continuation of the rent supplement beyond this date to allow a reasonable time for the landlord to respond to the HSE's request to provide his or her tax registration number and avoid tenants being penalised by having to break an existing tenancy agreement. A rent supplement cannot be paid beyond 31 March 2012 in any case where the landlord has failed to provide his or her tax reference number. The Bill also makes it an offence where a landlord fails to provide the information requested.

While the Department is already involved in data matching, clearly it is much easier to data match when tax reference numbers are available.

The Bill also provides for changes to social welfare legislation arising from the provisions of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010 and for the transfer of the community welfare service of the Health Service Executive, which currently administers the supplementary welfare allowance on my behalf, to the Department of Social Protection.

Section 12 provides for the introduction of a partial capacity scheme. The purpose of introducing such a scheme is to begin to address a critical limitation of the current social welfare code which categorises people with long-term illnesses or disabilities as either "fit for work" or "unfit for work". The focus within the welfare system on incapacity rather than capacity carries negative consequences for people with disabilities and their families who may be trapped unnecessarily in welfare dependency. The Bill also provides for the status of persons engaged in work experience pursuant to certain placements under the skills development and internship programme for the unemployed.

The Pensions Act is being amended to provide pension scheme trustees with an option of purchasing sovereign annuities which will have the effect of reducing their pensioner liabilities under the minimum funding standard. The National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, will issue long-term bonds with a period appropriate to cover the funding needs of a typical pension fund. These bonds will be available for purchase by investors and the insurance industry who may issue annuities based on Irish yields, so-called sovereign annuities, which can be bought by pension schemes to match their pension liabilities. The nominated bonds underpinning these annuity policies can also be bought by investors or by pension scheme trustees who wish to pay pensions directly from the pensions fund. This gives an alternative to the existing situation whereby most pension funds invest in German bonds at a very low yield or in high risk equities. This scheme will give a higher yield bond, the Irish sovereign bond, and money invested in such bonds will be retained in the country. This solves the problem we have in regard to underfunding of pension schemes and also provides a potential solution in regard to raising funding for the State. It is a win-win situation. I hope the industry, which suggested this measure, will purchase the bonds when they become available in January.

The skills development and internship programme is an enterprise-led initiative aimed at those who are unemployed for at least three months. Participants on the programme will receive a 12 month placement with host organisations and will undertake a significant education and training component. The Government has made provision for up to 5,000 places to be supported under this programme. We received a great number of queries from people asking why we would not allow those in receipt of social welfare payments to work in private companies or with large community or voluntary bodies and at the same time continue to receive their social welfare payment, with perhaps a top-up payment from the body or company in question to cover the cost of getting to work. It appeared to be very simple but required a change in the law which is introduced in this legislation and deals with three sets of challenges. The first of these is that under social welfare law a person is means tested if he or she received a payment. The second relates to tax law, the third to labour law. The amendments being introduced deal with all these issues and in effect will allow the employer to pay €150 to FÁS, with €100 of that sum to be paid to the intern. In addition, we have defined for the first time who is an intern. These measures mean that interns will be able to work in private companies. We hope that many of those engaged in this way will be young people who will subsequently obtain full-time employment having proved their worth in a work situation. There will be training attached to the measure which will be operated between the Departments of Social Protection and Education and Skills.

Sections 15 to 26 of the Bill provide for the changes to social welfare legislation arising from the provisions of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010. These changes will mean the social welfare code will recognise same sex couples, both those who have opted to register a civil partnership and those who are cohabiting, in the same way that it currently recognises opposite sex married and cohabiting couples. Recognition of same sex couples for those in receipt of social welfare payments will have positive and negative impacts on the couples concerned depending on their circumstances.

The Bill also provides for the payment of contributions by public office holders. By definition, office holders are not bound by the arrangements of a contract of service as they are not employees. Furthermore, social insurance legislation had provided that the income derived from such office-holding was not liable to a class S social insurance contribution. However, in accordance with the solidarity principle of the social insurance fund it has now been decided by Government that office holders should contribute to the social insurance system at a rate of 4%. When people say Senators and Deputies did not take a cut in salary they ignore the introduction of this 4% deduction which was not deducted heretofore. It is only fair to introduce this provision and the deduction will be taken from the beginning of the individual's salary structure. It will entail a reduction in income and no benefits will accrue from this payment which was decided upon in the interest of solidarity. There is another reason for the introduction of this measure. If we had excluded office holders, leaving them as the only group not paying employee PRSI at 4%, there would have been an anomaly in the system. Self-employed people will now join employees in paying 4%. Civil servants who began work before 1995 will pay 4%. If there had been a little bonus for office holders there would have been considerable public outrage. Even though we will receive no benefit by paying the 4% and civil servants who commenced work before 1995 will not receive any significant benefit, people would have believed that yet again politicians had looked after their own interest. We will now pay but will not receive benefit. There would have been equal outrage if we had established the payment and offered, for example, entitlements to contributory pensions. People would say we already had a good arrangement with our Senator's or Deputy's pension and therefore it was thought this was the right way to proceed. We can debate this matter further on Committee Stage.

The Bill includes provisions to provide for the transfer of community welfare service staff, as civil servants, to my Department and, where relevant, the transfer of buildings to the Commissioners of Public Works. The policy reason for the transfer is to enhance the quality of services provided to the public. My Department is committed to developing and implementing a case management approach with a focus on the individual and the development of a tailored plan for each person. Such an approach produces better outcomes than the traditional transaction focused delivery of scheme services. The Department of Social Protection vision is one in which skilled and knowledgeable case managers will work with individuals in need to ensure they not only receive the appropriate income supports but are also helped to find a way in which they can participate to the fullest extent possible in the community, economy and workforce. The transfer of the community welfare service to the Department of Social Protection will strengthen the Department's capacity in that regard and will facilitate the achievement of that vision. Community welfare officers, CWOs, pay money from my Department in the main and it will be much better to have them within the Department. Directions issued henceforth will be to our own staff which will be a more coherent way of working.

In addition, we will bring in all the employment workers from FÁS and, although it is not mentioned in my script, we will bring redundancy payments within the Department. Fine Gael, in particular, argued there should be a single paymaster and a common means testing for many of these schemes. We are getting there. It is very significant. I have been in the Department for nine months and now three measures are to be introduced. Since 2006 there has been discussion about the deployment of CWOs. They move to my Department on 1 January on secondment, in nine months the final industrial relations issues will be resolved and they will become full civil servants. This is a long time coming but we can now see the end of the road. I thank the CWOs and the staff of my Department because change of this type can be difficult, with the different IR arrangements involved and so on. These are three different examples of the Croke Park agreement working for real at a time when it was said nothing was happening.

I now outline the main provisions of the Bill. Section 3 clarifies the provisions for the calculation of the duration of payment of illness benefit claims. This is tactical and is not a major amendment. Section 4 provides for the use of electronic means of making and capturing the declarations of unemployment that are required for the purposes of claiming jobseeker's benefit and jobseeker's allowance. That covers any electronic means such as signature pads although much of the focus has been directed at the mobile telephone provision. Section 5 clarifies the calculation of entitlement to jobseeker's allowance where weekly means comprise earnings from insurable employment.

In determining a week of unemployment - three days of unemployment, consecutive or not, in any six consecutive days - the practice is to include a day only once in any computation where that day is part of a week of unemployment in respect of which jobseeker's allowance is paid. This section, which amends section 141 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, ensures the Act is not ambiguous in applying this practice. It is quite technical and I am assured it is perfect and resolves an anomaly that has arisen.

Section 6 provides that the reduction in the basic rate of supplementary welfare allowance from 4 January 2010 for people under 25 years will not, of itself, lead to any reduction in rent or mortgage interest supplements payable to people getting other social welfare payments. This is also a technical provision.

Section 7 provides for a new condition for the rent supplement payable under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme which requires that, from 1 January 2011, before a claim for rent supplement can be awarded, the landlord's tax reference number must be supplied to the Health Service Executive. As certain landlords will not have such a tax reference number, for example, non-resident landlords, confirmation from the landlord to that effect is required to be supplied in those cases. This section also provides that a landlord will be obliged to provide his or her tax reference number or confirmation that he or she does not have a tax reference number in respect of each tenancy for which a rent supplement is payable.

Section 8 clarifies the position on the information to be provided by or in respect of a customer registering for a personal public service number. It is a technical matter in respect of the requirement of photographs. Public service numbers are required for newborn babies and dead people at times and it is not so easy to get a photograph in such circumstances. Section 262(3) of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act currently requires that a photograph and signature be submitted for any customer registering for a personal public service number. However, it is not practical to collect these items in all cases. For example, it is not practical where the customer is non-resident or deceased, and in probate cases. We give public service numbers to newborn babies. It is a challenge. Deputy Ring was very insistent on this matter but I told him there was a challenge and he accepted that.

Section 8 clarifies the position by only requiring that these items be submitted when required. We will require them for every adult. Obvious issues arise, however. The circumstances of a very disabled person would have to be taken into account, for example. This section also provides that providing additional security information will become a compulsory part of the registration process for the purposes of allocating and issuing public service numbers.

Section 9 is a technical amendment to change references in the Social Welfare Consolidation Act and in other enactments from "public service card" to "public services card" to reflect the de facto position. There is a reference to "public service card" in the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001 and this section also provides for a textual amendment to change this reference to "public services card". Everyone calls the card the "public services card". Section 9 makes a number of changes to the current provisions relating to the public services card under section 263 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act and the social services payment card under section 264, including clarifying that both the social services card and the public services card can be used for the purpose of paying social welfare benefits.

Section 10 amends the rules relating to the means test for the carer's allowance scheme to exempt any foreign social security payments, up to the appropriate level of the State pension contributory, that are paid to the carer or the spouse of the carer. This section also clarifies that a general income disregard for the purpose of carer's allowance under rule 1(5) for a single carer and rule 4(3) for a couple will not apply to income from a social security payment, whether it is an Irish social welfare payment or an EU or foreign social security payment.

Section 11 provides for technical amendments to the provision in regard to the supplementary welfare allowance. Section 12 provides for the introduction of a new partial capacity benefit. Section 13 clarifies the provisions in regard to restrictions on engaging in work while in receipt of injury benefit or disablement benefit. Section 14 provides for the payment of contributions by public officeholders.

Sections 15 to 26 provide for the changes to social welfare legislation arising from the provisions of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010. It also provides a definition of "cohabitant" for the first time in respect of heterosexual and same-sex partnerships.

Section 27 provides for the status of persons engaged in work experience pursuant to certain placements. Sections 28 to 35 of the Bill provide for the full transfer of the employment services and community services programmes of FÁS to the Minister for Social Protection and the integration of FÁS staffing into the Department of Social Protection. These sections also provide for a consequential amendment to the Labour Services Act 1987. Sections 36 to 39 provide for the transfer of the community welfare service of the Health Service Executive to the Department of Social Protection.

Sections 40 to 45 provide for approval of certain policies or contracts of assurance for discharge of benefits and for amendments to the Pensions Act 1990 and the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997. I refer to the so-called sovereign annuities.

Molaim an Bille don Teach and tá mé ag súil le tuaraimí na Seanadóirí a chloisteáil maidir leis na míreanna atá ann.

The changes being made in the Bill are quite seismic. One involves the consolidation of payments and services being provided and the transfer of staff. This is a major change. The second major change concerns the sovereign annuities. This solves two problems and it is very significant that this is happening.

The third change, on which we spent a lot of time yesterday, concerns the issue of income and fulfilment in regard to people with disabilities. It is a question of facilitating them. They can choose, rather than be compelled, to work in the longer term rather than be given a one-year derogation or exemption, after which they might be lucky to get another. Under the old system, one either jumped the ditch completely and was on one's own or one fell back totally into dependency on the system. The new provision allows a permanent arrangement whereby one can retain payments and work at the same time. The Department measured the capacity in this regard.

I hope this measure will be seen in five or ten years as the bridgehead by which we will have reformed the whole approach to disability, thereby maximising it to account for the individual's requirements, potential and wishes rather than having a prescriptive approach whereby one is deemed either fit or unfit to work. Under existing arrangements, if one is deemed unfit, one cannot work even if one can do a bit of work. This is very Victorian. We are in the 21st century and need more sophistication.

I look forward to hearing the views of the Senators. I hope we can have a good and constructive debate on the Bill today and on Friday. There are many ground-breaking measures in it.