Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----I went to the gentlemen from the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance to negotiate the figure down to ¤390 million. Of course, I would have liked to have reduced it still further.

Senator Mary White spoke about the 5,000 people who received no payment besides the respite care grant. Such individuals are above the income limit for carer's allowance and half rate carer's allowance, which is ¤70,000 for a couple. Therefore, they have access to significant income. Senators have pointed to the importance of the respite care grant to them and that it is an acknowledgement by the State of the care they provide using their own financial resources. During the pre-budget debates in this House we did not spend much time on a realistic discussion of the options available.

Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill claimed that there were no cuts proposed in Fianna Fáil's pre-budget document, but savings of ¤200 million were identified in respect of fraud and abuse of the social welfare system. This year the Department of Social Protection has saved ¤625 million in that regard.

Ó Murchú, Labhrás.

Does it count for troika expenditure reduction purposes? No, it does not. It simply stops further spending. The only way it would count - this is a proposal I made - is if we could recover an increasing amount of those payments that should not have been made. This is covered in section 13 of the Bill. I proposed in the Department's budget that we try to recover at least ¤20 million this year. If we can recover more, some of the possibilities raised by others are open to us. As E. M. Forster says, everything is connected.

The Social Welfare Bill stands as one piece of the jigsaw. It is not possible to remove the respite care grant from the Bill without derailing and delaying the rest of the Bill. This may not be good news for many Members, but it is the constitutional legal fact. Although the grant is not paid until June, removing the provision would give rise to costs. As I said yesterday, the 90-day pause would cost ¤127 million, if it was a full 90-day pause. Unfortunately, that would then need to be found from the rest of the social welfare budget, unless other Departments were willing to give up something from their budgets.

A number of Senators referred to a proposal made by Senator Moloney that we should look at the number of additional places we are securing for local employment initiatives and community employment in order to expand care services. I am open to that. Many of those organisations are involved in providing and assisting with care and in community employment schemes. We propose to provide an extra 2,000 places on community employment and an extra 2,500 places on Tús. If any organisations, family or community centres around the country which provide activities related to older people, children and people with disabilities make proposals for extra places in those areas, I would be happy to consider them seriously.

In May, the Government published the carer strategy. This strategy is important because it brings together a number of themes we have had the opportunity to discuss today. Hand on heart, based on my experience of people I know who care, if a significant sum of money was found to be available tomorrow, my instinct would be to try to solve the issue of the lack of respite care places. This is a major issue for the families I know, including some of my relatives. The way it works now is that carers could phone tomorrow or the next day to make plans to get a number of days' respite for next month or the month after. Some people appear to be scandalised by the fact that some carers get a little bit of time out and use the respite care grant to go on a break. Such breaks are vital. In a family where a carer is caring for somebody with a serious disability, there are often other siblings in the house. It is when the respite care is available that the rest of the family gets some down time, whether in their own home or on a short holiday. Originally, this was the core purpose of the respite care grant.

The Department has done surveys on respite care and it knows that significant numbers of carers spend the grant on ordinary living expenses. However, that is not something that is a matter for this House. We do not ask people how exactly they spend their child benefit. We know that by and large it is spent on children and that families choose different ways to spend it. Most people seem happy that it is spent on children.