Averil Power (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House. Fianna Fáil is supporting the Bill in a general sense. I strongly support the restoration of the minimum wage. I was opposed to its reduction and made that opposition known within our party at the time but was unfortunately unable to stop it happening. Unfortunately we have tended not to pay enough attention to the working poor and we tend to talk a lot about people on welfare. The worst off can often be the people, particularly those in disadvantaged areas where most of their neighbours may be on benefits and on long-term support, who make the decision to walk out the door and go to work usually for very little more than they would get on the dole and often for less than they would get on the dole, but they still decide to do so. We need to pay more attention to those people, particularly during the current crisis.

The reduction in the minimum wage was based on a flawed analysis. There was much discussion of the wage rates in France, Spain and elsewhere. The only relevant metric is welfare and how much somebody gets paid to work versus how much he or she will be paid to stay at home. The reality is that we have a quite generous welfare system in European terms. We already have too much of a disincentive to work in the current system. While there are arguments regarding competitiveness, if somebody is better of staying at home does not go to work, the cost to the State is many multiples of any saving that employers might make. Unfortunately that point was lost in the debate for some time.

While I welcome the change being made in the Bill, I accept other business costs need to be addressed. Small businesses in particular are under major pressure. I have friends who are self-employed running small restaurants and other businesses. They are struggling and losing money, but do not want to let people go. It is heartbreaking to see people such as those who are doing their best to keep on staff, particularly loyal staff whom they have employed for a long time, and they are heartbroken at the thought of having to let them go.

We need greater emphasis across Government in addressing other costs. While I welcome the decrease in VAT, other areas need to be considered, including energy costs, professional fees and the inflexibility of the JLC system. The recommendations in the Duffy-Walsh report are good in addressing the rigidity of the system. It is good to have protection for lower-paid workers, but it needs to be sensible and the same rules should apply across the country.

I agree with the Minister's philosophy on the long-term effects of people being on welfare and she has been quite positive in this regard since she took over the job. Welfare should be seen as a short-term option for people. It is incredibly negative if it is regarded - particularly in disadvantaged areas - as a career option. I support the steps the previous Government took to discourage young people from going on the dole at a young age and remaining on it for a long time. We must nourish their ambitions and encourage them to believe they can have a role in the workplace. We must not tolerate allowing them to go to the dole office on their birthday in the belief that that is where their life ambitions lie.

I grew up in a council estate. I read with interest a profile of the Minister in the Sunday Independent a few weeks ago and I share her view on the employed working class. I have been working since I was 15, and I worked through school and college. That is my idea of working class; it implies work and I share that determination. In addition to the impact on an adult's self-esteem of having a job, going out to work every day, interacting with other people and having confidence, the best thing for a child is to be brought up in a home where somebody works. Many of my friends in the neighbourhood where I grew up lived in households where nobody worked, which limits their ambitions. In the longer term it is a limiting factor not to have anybody in their home or on their street who works. The best thing we can do is to break the cycle of intergenerational welfare dependency and encourage people to go out and work.

We all accept some people cannot work. Those who cannot work because of illness, disability or because of caring responsibilities in the home should be looked after, but anybody who is fit to work should do so and should regard it as his or her job as a citizen. While knowing the fallback of welfare is there if ever genuinely needed, the rest of the time they should contribute to the system. I agree with other speakers who talked about the need to overhaul the welfare system, which needs a radical shake-up. I believe the Minister's heart is in the right place and I hope she can get support from her Cabinet colleagues to carry out serious welfare reform.

I welcome the Bill's provision for a national internship scheme, which is largely built upon the skills development and internship programme the Fianna Fáil-led Government announced in the last budget. I am concerned that the scheme outlined in the Bill provides for less favourable terms. When we set out our programme in the previous Government, we proposed that participants would be able to work in an internship for 12 months, which has now been reduced to between six months and nine months. We had also provided for participants to get €100, which has now been halved to €50. I am concerned about that because the key thing is that it is worth people's while - particularly younger people - to take up an opportunity. It should also be for a duration that allows them to pick up really meaningful experience, which is why I believe 12 months to be appropriate.

The tús initiative had great potential to allow unemployed people to get work experience and gain skills, while also being of great benefit to community, sports and other environmental groups locally. I understand the uptake has been poor and I wonder whether the system as set up was too rigid. I hope the Minister will revisit the issue and change the mechanisms if necessary to ensure it can work because I believe it has considerable potential.

Some Members mentioned fraud. The previous Government made good progress in that area. We initiated the public service card. There were very proactive campaigns to encourage the public to report fraud and the number of anonymous reports increased dramatically. It should always have a strong emphasis because every euro taken by someone not entitled to it is a euro taken from the pot for everybody else.

In the newspaper article I mentioned, the Minister also referred to parental leave, which I hope she will progress. The matter can be cost-neutral. Other countries do not require the woman to take all the parental leave after the child is born - she takes the first month after the child is born and the rest of the leave can be taken by either parent. That would not be a cost on the Exchequer but would provide greater choice. The Minister should be able to progress the matter even in the current economic environment and I hope she will.