Paul Bradford (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is becoming an annual ritual to have a debate on social welfare policy. Even though the Department has been renamed the Department of Social Protection the traditionalists among us still regard it as the Department of Social Welfare.

The Minister has a very difficult job in advance of the budget. I acknowledge her efforts to date in examining a range of options in an attempt to produce realistic and viable savings in the various departmental schemes. Her annual budget is more than ¤20 billion which is a very large sum of money, more than ¤20,000 million. It is a question of how to put that money to best use to provide the social security net needed by the elderly, children, unemployed and disabled people while at the same time attempting to use as much of that money as possible to get people back to work. The Department has a variety of schemes of assistance for the elderly, the unemployed and those on invalidity pensions. The debate on the social welfare budget usually happens over one or two days but this House needs to debate with the Minister more frequently on how social welfare resources are allocated.

In advance of the current Government's first budget one year ago, there was a view that the budget would be exceptionally tough with a broad spectrum of cuts across all Departments. That did not happen and perhaps we are playing catch-up now in order to deal with some of the issues we did not seem to deal with last year. My suggestion at the time - which may have been simplistic but it had certain financial merits - was that rather than removing some schemes and taking 20% from some payments and 5% from other payments, it might be better to have a modest 2% to 4% cut across all the payments. It would have been very straightforward from an administrative point of view. It might not have been entirely fair but then nothing in politics or in life is ever fair. However, such a measure would have produced the savings of ¤500 million to ¤700 million required and in a balanced fashion. Instead, we attempted to target a smaller number of payments and a smaller number of sectors. I would like to discuss this with the Minister when she returns to the House.

I brought a group to the Dáil Visitors Gallery a few days ago. The Minister, Deputy Burton, was responding to questions on disability and disability payments. She stated that approximately 250,000 people are in receipt of either a disability, invalidity or injury benefit. These people are deemed by the Department to be in some way injured, disabled or otherwise unfit for work. I really wonder how accurate is that figure. If 250,000 people are unfit for work through injury or sickness, our streets should be full of people in wheelchairs and on crutches. This needs profound investigation. It may be that some people who are perhaps unable to work are in the wrong scheme. Others may become trapped in what becomes a vicious cycle of being injured at work or falling ill, signing on for injury benefit, suddenly getting disability benefit and ending up on an invalidity pension. We must ask whether we truly believe that 250,000 people in this country are unfit for work, disabled, injured or sick, in some fashion. I think the answer will be "No". We must then decide what to do about this situation. We must try to engage with many of these people to see if they can be taken out of the so-called disability cycle and back to productivity.

We had very useful and fruitful discussions in this House with the late former Minister, sadly deceased, Séamus Brennan, a man whom I hold in the highest esteem. He was asked on one occasion how much of the social welfare budget was being claimed - I will not use the word "fraudulently" - because none of us lives in a glasshouse or on the high moral ground. He was asked how much of the budget was being inappropriately claimed. He put forward a figure which he said was only a guesstimate of up to 15% of the budget. If only 10% of the social protection budget is being wrongly or not fully properly claimed - I am being careful with my language - that amounts to ¤2 billion and it is a lot of money. We have a significant job of work in trying to re-engage with the hundreds of thousands of people who are claiming unemployment benefit, sick benefit, injury benefit or invalidity pension. There is a need to encourage as many as possible out of the social protection scheme. If only 10% of the money is being wrongly paid out, that amounts to ¤2 billion and it is money the country cannot afford. I would love to see that money being saved and a substantial portion of it being used to further assist the hundreds of thousands of genuine claimants for child benefit, the old age pension, or whatever.

Talking about a crackdown, fraud and chasing people can be very negative but if we can assure the public that a significant portion of the money saved will be re-invested into the hands and pockets of genuine claimants who really need it, this would help our mission to save money. This is an issue that could be discussed all day but we need to talk about it much more frequently and in a much more open fashion. I do not believe that one quarter of a million people in this country are physically unfit for work. I do not believe that these people are frauds or criminals but rather they are people who have been corralled into a lifestyle by society, by lack of opportunity and by lack of education in some cases. We need to help those people as much as penalise them. Likewise, many of those in receipt of unemployment payments and jobseeker's benefit, need further help. I suggest that schemes such as the family income supplement could be used to give people a little bonus to encourage them to go back to work rather than staying on social welfare. New thinking is required.

I was amused when people thought that the Minister, Deputy Burton, had been given a second division job. In my view she has possibly the most important job in the Government. She is looking after hundreds of thousands of people and a budget of more than ¤20 billion. She needs our support and I look forward to working with her to ensure that the budget is used to the best extent possible.