Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House for a debate on an important and, perhaps, one of the toughest Bills that will go through the House. There is no doubt these are challenging times and some hard and unpalatable decisions had to be made. When we came into government the country was in one hell of a financial mess. The onus is on us to get the country back on track and get it moving again and bring back physical and economic stability to our country. There is no doubt citizens have been hurt not only be decisions taken in this budget but in previous budgets.

We are well aware of the gap between what we spend and take in in taxes. Unfortunately, this dictates that cuts have to be made in every Department. That social welfare has the highest spend at more than 40%, means that cuts have to be made in social welfare. All parties are in agreement that the deficit has to be closed but how we go about it is what we do not agree on.

Before addressing the more controversial issues I wish to refer to some of the more positive aspects of the Bill. An issue which has not been mentioned by the media and the Opposition is that the Minister did renegotiate the cutbacks in social protection from ¤540 million to ¤390 million. People may say that is not much but I dread to think where one would have got another ¤150 million savings in this year's social welfare budget. I am pleased the Minister was able to achieve that. The cuts are hard enough to bear without a further ¤150 million.

I welcome the ¤30 million in new spending on unemployment programmes and child care. I welcome specifically the 10,000 new places in the jobs activation programme and, in particular, the introduction of the 3,000 new social employment scheme places which is to be rolled out to local authorities.

This investment is consistent with the Government's priority in getting people activated, getting them back to work or undertaking education or training, which we hope will improve their chances of getting a job in the future. The plan is starting to work. Private sector employment has started to grow for the first time in four years - albeit a very small change - but at least a change in the right direction. I also welcome the roll out of the Intreo office which will reform the delivery of service for employment and income supports and will assist the unemployed with all their needs in a new, more efficient and user-friendly manner. Also very welcome is the ¤14 million which is being directed to after-school child care places, ¤2 million to the school meals programme and ¤2.5 million for area-based child poverty initiatives. I ask the Minister not to hand over the money to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs until she knows the child care provisions are to be set up. I also ask the Minister to continue to develop and enhance these facilities over the coming years as they are essential to her proposal to get those who are parenting alone back into the workforce.

The Minister has managed once again this year to maintain the basic rates of social welfare. I welcome that fact. Many will say that is not the case, but in it is. The Labour Party has always fought hard to protect the basic rates of payment and this coalition Government has made a decision to continue to do so. I acknowledge the value the Government places on the free travel and free television licence schemes. However, it reduced the number of units in the electricity and telephone allowance.

I know people will say we broke our promise not to cut child benefit. We did. There are no two ways about it. Since we made that promise things have changed that greatly affect the economy in this country. Europe has gone into recession. More people are dependent on social welfare. The demand on pensions has got higher. There are 80,000 more people in receipt of the State pension since we came into government.

I am worried about the impact the cut in child benefit will have on people. Many have got used to relying on this monthly payment to help to pay bills. While I understand this is not the reason child benefit was introduced, it is a fact of life that many, though not all, had come to rely on it. Many people say that taxing child benefit is the way forward. I know the Minister favours this. However, means testing is the best way forward as the people who most need it will retain it. If child benefit is taxed I would be worried about the middle-income earner who would end up paying at the very least 20% tax on it. That would be excessive for them. I welcome a debate on the proposals in the report of the Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare chaired by Ms Ita Mangan.

I will now deal with the cut in the respite grant for carers. Prior to and since my election to the Seanad I have worked continuously for one sector of society, namely, carers. I am constantly highlighting the valuable work of the carer in every debate possible. I even moved a motion at the Labour Party conference on carers. I met the Minister to discuss some of the issues surrounding carers. I asked her not to cut the half rate to carers as many carers were extremely worried about it. I also asked her not to reduce the disregard for carer's allowance, not to touch the domiciliary care allowance or not to make changes to the disability allowance payment. Thankfully the Minister delivered on those requests.

I did not see the cut to the respite care grant coming. I very much regret this is where the Minister had to find the funding reduction within the social welfare spend. No matter where the Minister would make the cut, it would hurt people because that is the nature of social welfare. Social welfare was put in place to help those who have no other income and depend on the State to help them. The Minister may know - I know my Labour Party colleagues know - I have written to her outlining proposals that I and my colleagues believe will benefit carers and will be cost neutral. I have discussed this at length with my Labour Party colleagues who are very much in support of the proposal. We are asking that 20% of the new job activation places would be allocated to the Carers Association throughout Ireland. This would provide 39,000 hours per week and over 2 million hours each year, which would give carers a weekly respite from caring.

I ask the Minister to give serious consideration to my other proposal for carers, namely, to extend the eligibility for carers to partake in community employment schemes, which would give them access to training and upskilling in the event of them no longer being a carer. It would also give them a break from caring and an opportunity to interact socially with other people outside the caring environment. The third request is that an interdepartmental survey on the provision of respite care be carried out to identify gaps in the provision by the HSE.

I hope she will meet her colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, and discuss it and come back to members with a satisfactory answer.

While I will be supporting the Bill, it is with a heavy heart. The reason I am doing it is that I need to be on the inside working and fighting on behalf of the carers and other recipients of social welfare. The new vulnerable in my eyes, is the low to middle-income worker. I will continue to fight to protect what they have and I will keep the pressure on the Minister and her Cabinet colleagues to ensure that no further cuts are made to carers or to people with disabilities. I will be actively pursuing our proposals with her.

I believe we must put a means test mechanism in place. We cannot continue to say that this is not possible due to administrative difficulties. If we do not start somewhere then we will never arrive at the place we want to be, where those who can afford to pay for the service pay, and those who genuinely need assistance get it. I have already called for a means testing board to be set up that will provide a one-stop shop to specifically deal with means testing and by which information can be shared among all Government bodies.