Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

A number of other developments in the Department are ongoing. A group is examining child and family supports which hopes to commence an examination of the position of self-employed people when it comes to social protection. As Members probably know, self-employed people are entitled to pay a contribution of only 4% which entitles them to the old age and widow-widower pensions. Self-employed people are quite interested in becoming contributors and having their entitlement to other benefits examined. We will have to examine this carefully and consider the cost involved. Self-employed people would have to pay a greatly increased contribution. I know many self-employed people who may have been employed previously would like to move to this system. I have asked the working group on the integration of tax and social welfare to commence examining it shortly as a matter of priority.

I have also spoken about measures to tackle, reduce and eliminate social welfare fraud. The majority of people who claim social welfare are honest and claim no more or no less than their entitlements. Some people are abusing the system, however, and in terms of the social contract and the social support and understanding of social welfare, it is very important that those paying PRSI, PAYE and tax have confidence that the money they contribute to the social insurance system is spent in a way that is directed at and supports the people who need it.

The fraud initiative I announced in September seeks to target specifically at-risk areas and together with the Garda, Customs and Excise, the Revenue Commissioners and the taxi regulator, we have run joint initiatives called "feet on the street" to check people in the taxi industry are registered properly for tax and social insurance. We have also initiated an ambitious programme of visiting employers to see that all the employees are fully registered for tax and PRSI, and this has been welcomed by many legitimate employers who are in competition with people who are partially or wholly in the black economy. We have received a very positive response from employers throughout the country to this.

Social welfare inspectors visit people in their own homes to check that people are properly in receipt of the benefits or allowances they receive. It is a very big reform agenda. I stress again that the Department is spending more than €20 billion of citizen's contributions in tax and PRSI and it is important we get value for that. We have an ambitious target of building a welfare state of which we can be proud, that is friendly to business, that is absolutely supportive of both employees and employers, that gives value for money and, in particular, is supportive of older people when they retire. In regard to people of working age, say, those between the ages of 18 to 20 up to the time they retire, it is important we have a range of measures in place in order that, if they become unemployed or unable to participate, they are encouraged to develop their economic capacity, be economically independent and take up options in education, training and work experience. This means we will be conscious that social welfare is a hand-up, not just a handout, and that, ultimately, as the economy recovers, and it will recover, they can then get a job and become financially independent for themselves and for their families.

This is the goal to which most people aspire. When children are in school, this is what they expect - that they are going to be somebody, whether working in a shop, as a fireman or a policeman, as a scientist or otherwise. If primary schoolchildren are asked what they want to be when they grow up, most of all they want to work and be financially independent for themselves and for their families. That should be the aim of a modern welfare state - to be supportive, enabling and empowering of people to be full participants in our society.