Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I propose to come back to the House next Wednesday evening, if this is in order, because I will then be able to have detailed replies on specific issues Members may wish to raise. Otherwise, my responses today would be very general.

Now that I see Professor Mirrlees in the Visitors Gallery, I would like to say that in Ireland social welfare plays an enormous stimulus role in terms of demand. Payments paid in pensions and to carers, jobseekers and almost 250,000 people who receive weekly payments relating to some kind of illness, disability or invalidity are all spent in our domestic economy and, therefore, constitute an important part of the spend in our domestic economy. The recent work by the Central Statistics Office confirms this and highlights the importance of both the public wage spend and the social welfare spend, particularly in small and large towns throughout the country. Many Seanad Members are aware of this in their own localities.

Today, I want to talk about a number of the important considerations being examined, including in the context of the forthcoming budget and the challenge that budget presents. I would emphasise that I am anxious to see that people, such as pensioners, who rely on a weekly payment for all or the bulk of their income are protected in the budget for 2013 as we did in the budget for 2012. On Monday in Sligo, the Taoiseach and I jointly opened the first office to facilitate the introduction of the new social welfare configuration. This will mean that people coming in to receive jobseeker's payment will not only apply for payment, but will be introduced to a pathway back to work. If they cannot find work in the current climate, they will be facilitated through training and education. We emphasise this is for all jobseekers, particularly those who are at risk of long-term unemployment and young people. Throughout the European Union there is a problem with regard to youth unemployment and in the context of the forthcoming Irish Presidency, I hope to be able to focus to some degree not only on employment and getting back to work, but on the supports Europe needs to put in place in the area of youth unemployment.

To return to the event in Sligo on Monday, the programme for Government gave an undertaking to introduce a better approach as to how the State engages with and supports the unemployed to get back into the workforce. The challenge set by the Government in Pathways to Work is to ensure that the creation of new jobs results in a reduction in unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment, so that individuals do not become permanently disenfranchised within society and to ensure they have financial independence for themselves and their families.

The aim of the Department with the new service is to engage with every unemployed individual to ensure that their first day out of work is also their first step on the pathway back to work. Future funding of employment programmes, particularly community employment, CE, will reinforce this objective. This requires a more focused engagement with people on CE and greater targeting of places and opportunities to further the progression of unemployed people into work. Community employment is one of a number of employment schemes managed by the Department of Social Protection. Other smaller programmes similar in many respects to community employment are: the rural social scheme; the community services programme; the jobs initiative; and Tús. All of these are valuable opportunities for individuals and communities, and communities benefit from the work and services provided through these schemes.

On several occasions here, we have discussed the issue of community employment. After community employment was transferred from 1 January 2012 to my Department, I initiated a review. Last Friday, the CE financial review was laid in the Oireachtas Library. I will not go into the background of the review, as Members here are familiar with it, but will mention that community employment is the largest single labour market activation employment programme funded by the Department. The 2012 budget for CE is approximately ¤340 million. Labour support measures overall in the social protection budget amount to just under ¤1 billion. Therefore, we are spending a significant amount of money on this programme. In that context, I would welcome the insight of Senators into what expenditure and programmes under this heading they perceive to be particularly valuable and useful and how they feel those programmes could be improved.

There are 23,300 places in community employment, including places for approximately 1,400 supervisors. There are an astonishing 1,136 CE schemes providing a wide range of social services to local communities throughout the country.

I am happy to say that contrary to much of the scaremongering that went on at the time of last year's budget, there has been no reduction in the number of places available under community employment schemes. It is important to emphasise that there has been no reduction in the employment of supervisors or in the number of places. An interesting aspect of the review was that many of those involved in it sent us a great deal of financial information - Members may have local knowledge of this - and highlighted that if more places were available, they would be in a position to do more for people who are unemployed, for their own communities and for the services supported by community employment schemes.

The community employment programme is mainly targeted at people over the age of 25 who have been unemployed for a long time and are very distant from the labour market. Those who participate in community employment schemes receive specified social welfare payments for a minimum period of a year. They include people on the live register, lone parents and people with disabilities. Participants associated with long-term disadvantage, such as ex-offenders, people with drug dependencies and people from the Traveller community, are included in these categories. Community employment is a broad and flexible programme that has been used to address many social challenges at individual or societal level, for example, by organising rehabilitative programmes or supporting communities in the provision of services. To be honest, many people with drug dependencies who enter into rehabilitation programmes are on a journey that will take several years. That journey might involve getting an opportunity to go back to education before going back to work. The reality is that the chances of a person on such a programme being able to make rapid progress into employment are not great. One of the reasons community employment is experiencing such difficulties among economic commentators is that it is pitched as a labour market jobs programme. When one looks deeply into community employment, however, one notices that it has certain ring-fenced areas in addition to its labour market area. It helps people with drug issues who are rehabilitating, as I have said. It plays an important role in providing a training pathway for people interested in personal care services, including child care. It is important to mention that such pathways take a period of time.

I want to talk about some of the educational disadvantages experienced by many new entrants to community employment and how community employment has responded to them. The highest educational achievement of 53% of new entrants to community employment is the junior certificate. Some 23% of them did not progress beyond primary level education or have no record of educational achievement. Men tend to have lower educational attainment than women. Over 37,000 components of learning were completed by community employment participants in 2011. Almost 17,000 of them were accredited by FETAC under the national framework of qualifications as minor awards. Those involved in FETAC, including some Senators, will be aware that the aim of its work is to help people to attain level 5 and 6 qualifications, which they can use to get a job. Lower-level qualifications are great from the perspective of bringing people back into the education sector. Those who employ people in areas like care services and child care have made the point that level 5 and 6 qualifications are needed in many cases. The attainment of such qualifications is a great achievement for all involved. Approximately one quarter of community employment participants are between the ages of 25 and 35 and over half of all participants are over the age of 45. This programme focuses predominantly on older, low-skilled jobseekers and requires a type of environment that supports and understands the adult learner.

Community employment has had two main objectives, both of which are absolutely important: helping the long-term unemployed to gain employment; and supporting organisations in providing services to communities. This dual mandate can lead sponsors to focus too much on service provision, often to the detriment of the progression of the jobseeker. The review has gone a long way to redress this. The primary focus of this Department for community employment participants is to assist them in gaining the skills and work experience needed to enable them to enter paid employment, while at the same time supporting the provision of local services. Some 19% of those who left community employment in 2011 went into employment, including social employment, through the community employment structure, and a further 7% went onto further education. In the current economic environment, and taking into account the qualifications profile of participants, this can be considered a positive outcome. It is not as good as I would like, but it is quite positive nonetheless, particularly for the individuals and their families. The Department of Social Protection assumed responsibility for the budget of the scheme in January of this year. When I spoke in this House on a previous occasion, I mentioned that the Department is responsible for between 50 and 60 schemes. Now that we have taken over some other schemes, we are responsible for between 70 and 80 schemes, which means the job just got bigger.

The 2012 budget made changes to participant allowances and to the materials and training budget. The subsequent financial review conducted by my Department concluded that considerable savings could be secured, but additional funds would be required in 2012 to maintain the activity, employment and opportunity levels for supervisors and participants. The materials and training budget was increased by ¤9.5 million to ¤20.5 million through the transfer of funds within my Department. Sponsors were notified of their revised grants in July. A review mechanism was set up for sponsors who wanted further examination of the costs incurred in running schemes. To date, no scheme has ceased to operate as a result of the level of funds awarded. Twelve of the 1,136 schemes have availed of the review mechanism put in place by my Department. The community employment financial review has delivered on a number of levels. When I spoke to the House at the time, I gave an undertaking that no scheme would close as a result of these cost-saving measures and that has come to pass. The financial review gave the Department a greater degree of understanding, insight and learning about the operation of sponsors at a time when new staff were taking managerial responsibility for community employment. The review identified significant efficiencies that could be achieved. A key conclusion from the review is that significant savings can be achieved in the areas of insurance, audit and bank fees without affecting the viability of schemes. The savings that would not have an impact on the viability of schemes are estimated at ¤3.5 million in a full operational year. Further savings and economies, in terms of the administration of schemes, have been identified.

It is obvious that community employment schemes date back to the 1980s, when my ministerial colleague, Deputy Quinn, was instrumental in their establishment. There is a lot of administration involved in them. I do not doubt that the review has helped to identify areas where one could achieve as much administration for less money than has been the case up to now. It was realised that the pooling of some very small community employment schemes in various towns and communities, which is now happening, would lead to better resources for the areas in question. In other words, different aspects of communities, such as Meals on Wheels, the GAA, other sports clubs and Tidy Towns, are coming together under a single umbrella. That has the potential to lead to cost savings and increased effectiveness and to give the participants in community employment schemes a better profile in the community as a whole. It is seen as a positive contribution to the community. My Department is committed to reforming community employment, for example by examining the effectiveness of the full range of employment support programmes. The outcome of this review will help to determine future policy with regard to the role and appropriate scale of activation programmes. My understanding is that the review will be made available and published in the coming weeks.

The most significant development in the support provided for family and informal carers in the last decade was the publication of the national carers strategy.

I made it a priority that carers were protected in the budget, for which the various organisations which address care issues have indicated their satisfaction. I am aware that, where somebody is caring for an elderly parent or a child with an illness, carers give their families and the person who needs the care a huge amount of service and love but, of course, it also helps society. We all know that the fact people who have issues around becoming frail in old age, or children who have a recurring consistent condition or illness, can be cared for in the environs of their own home serves to limit admissions, including nursing home institutional admissions, and is of huge value. I also know how much carers put into caring. This is why the strategy has been made a priority by Government.

We have heard from the carer organisations. They sometimes feel they are unnoticed by their communities and, most of all, by the State, and that their contribution is not acknowledged in the way it should be. Caring obviously has a huge impact on carers' lives. I am very conscious of the fact that when people are looking after an elderly parent and that parent dies, the carer, having perhaps given his or her life to looking after the parent for, say, the past three, five or seven years, is left with a huge void when that comes to an end. It is not just the simple grief of bereavement because the person's whole life has been focused around that.

The Department is also assisting in terms of carer's allowance. There are currently approximately 51,000 people in receipt of carer's allowance and, of these, 20,000 are in receipt of half-rate carer's allowance and another social welfare payment. Two carers who are providing care on a part-time basis in an established pattern can, since 2005, be accommodated on the carer's allowance scheme, which can be of benefit. Carer's benefit is a payment for people who have made social insurance contributions and who have recently left the workforce or who are looking after somebody in need of full-time care and attention. Recipients can get carer's benefit for up to two years for each person being cared for. There are approximately 2,000 people in receipt of carer's benefit.

For a child up to the age of 17 who requires full-time care, a domiciliary care allowance of ¤309.50 per month is available. Where the care is full time and onerous, the parent or guardian may also qualify for a carer's allowance and approximately 40% of parents do so qualify. We also pay the respite care grant, which is paid regardless of the carer's means. People in receipt of carer's allowance or carer's benefit receive the respite care grant each June. Carers also receive free travel, which is very valuable, as well as access to the household benefits package.

With regard to training, carers were identified as a priority theme under the economic and social disadvantage category of the dormant accounts allocation for 2007 onwards. The focus of the carers measure is to provide training to assist carers in undertaking their role. The Department of Social Protection is the lead Department for this measure and the funding is being channelled through the Department's Vote. Pobal is administering the measure on behalf of the Department and is responsible for the ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the programme. Applications were assessed by Pobal and 12 groups were approved for funding in December 2008, although the training which commenced in September 2009 is now coming to an end. The grants range in size from the Carers Association receiving more than ¤500,000 and Caring for Carers receiving almost ¤250,000, to small projects throughout the country.

I am very conscious of the needs of carers but there is also a wide range of other groups, such as unemployed people, parents, pensioners and people with disabilities, who depend on the welfare budget for vital support. I assure the House that the Government, in the context of the very tough budgetary environment, will continue to do its utmost to protect the most vulnerable people in Irish society. I am very pleased that organisations like the IMF, which we in this country associate with cuts more than anything else, has spoken in the recent staff reports of the significance and importance of the social welfare spend. I believe the dialogue is bearing some fruit.

I am anxious to return in a couple of days, having had an opportunity to hear the issues raised by Senators. We have made enormous progress in regard to further updating IT systems in regard to applications concerning carers, domiciliary care allowance and disability. I can provide the detail on that in due course as I know it is of particular interest to a number of Members.

To go back to the launch of the new service, by the end of the year this will have been rolled out in ten different locations. The first four are in Sligo, Kings Inn Street in the centre of Dublin, Tallaght and Arklow, and there is follow-on in a number of areas around the country, including at locations like Ballymun and Finglas in Dublin and Buncrana in Donegal. This has meant a huge transformation in the Department of Social Protection. The Department had approximately 5,500 staff but, exactly one year ago, 1,000 community welfare officers from the HSE were taken into the Department and, subsequently, we took 700 FÁS employees from its employment services into the Department, as well as 1,400 CE supervisors. We also took in the local employment services through local companies, comprising another couple of hundred staff, and the Department is also handling the citizens advice service and the Money Advice and Budgeting Service.

I advise Senators the Department has recently set up a dedicated phone line based in Dublin to serve people who want advice about their mortgage or financial situation. In the current economic crisis, we have two particular problems in this country, and I say this as much for the benefit of the troika as for the benefit of the Senators. First, we have people in their 30s and 40s who went out, did the right thing, got a mortgage to provide a home for their family and now find themselves heavily indebted. I welcome the comments made by the speakers from the Central Bank and the Department of Finance that the banks have to do more. Yes, they do have to do more. They have to cut to the chase and deal with the difficulties people are having because we will get no debt settlement without realistic, sustainable agreement between the debtor and the creditor. Both sides have to come to the table and reach an agreement.

Second, we also have a situation in regard to social welfare, where the demands on the social welfare system are growing. However, we have responded, as I said, by setting up a dedicated phone line through the Citizens Information Board and the very good website keepingyourhome.ie. If people are in trouble and want advice, they can ring the dedicated phone line. If they are reaching a deal with a bank and want financial advice, not just mortgage advice, they can arrange an appointment with one of a large panel of qualified accountants throughout the country to talk to them about the deal, so whatever agreement they reach with the bank is sustainable.

This is very important. We do not want deals being done with banks which are not sustainable because, six months later, the deal will have fallen apart and the family which made the deal will end up more dispirited and in worse difficulty than if they had not made an agreement at all.

I wish to stress to Senators that the service is now available countrywide, at local level. People can talk to staff experienced in the area as well as go to the MABS services in their locality where that is available in order to build up a sense of what it is they need to do, what they can do and what the financial institution will agree to. It is in that framework that we will be able to assist people who have difficulties with mortgages. That is one issue that the Department is addressing in the current crisis. The other issue is helping people back to work and education if they cannot find a job currently.