Michael Mullins (Fine Gael)

I join other Senators in welcoming the Minister and Bill to the House. The legislation is designed to make the adjustments required as a result of the economic position in which we find ourselves. It also seeks to be fair to people who are dependent on social welfare. The most important sentiment expressed in a press statement issued by the Minister is that getting people back to work is one of the key challenges facing us. The Government must focus its energies on enabling people to return to work and reducing the number of those dependent on social welfare.

As previous speakers have said, the Minister has a huge budget. I see the Minister, Deputy Burton, as a reforming Minister. There is an opportunity to re-engineer the whole social welfare system. Given the number of schemes, there is probably an element of duplication. In the coming years I would like the Minister to look at the various schemes with a view to making them more efficient and make significant savings by targeting them in a more direct way towards the people who need them.

Many Senators have referred to the incentive to work. We must provide a real incentive to people to return to the workplace and make a positive contribution to society. That is what every person wants. Restoring the minimum wage to €8.65 is a first step as is the lowering of the PRSI rate. Hopefully those will have a positive impact on employment and will ensure that people who, up to now, may not have considered looking for a job will be given the incentive to do so. We all have anecdotal evidence and we know from our work as politicians that many people ask whether it is worth their while to go out to work. They ask if they will lose the medical card and other benefits if they take up a job. We must remove that disincentive and get people into the workforce.

The issue of social welfare fraud has been raised by many people. In this day and age, with modern technology, we must have in place a system where there can be no abuses of social welfare and double claiming. We have all heard of people claiming allowances for more children than they have. A story was relayed to me some time ago by a lady who registered births in my home town. At one stage she received applications from 14 different people for a copy of a birth certificate. Those certificates were not requested for the purpose of framing. Certainly there are major abuses in social welfare and they must be tackled. The Minister has an opportunity to do that. As suggested by Senator Kelly, it may appear to the Minister to be a little over the top but perhaps the fingerprint route is the way to proceed.

There has been much discussion about raising the retirement age. The Minister is correct when she says that people are living longer. While none of us likes to see the pension age increased, hopefully when the economic situation improves in a few years time we can review the issue again.

In regard to the clawing back of moneys that have been claimed illegally, the Minister said she does not intend to take the moneys overpaid out of other payments to which people may be entitled. I do not know how the Minister proposes to get it back from some, unless it is done that way.