Michael Mullins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Burton, and I welcome the Bill. I regard the Minister as a reforming Minister who appreciates that a Department that spends €20 billion per annum, or 40% of Government expenditure, must regularly review and refine the various schemes designed to assist so many of our citizens.

Many people who today rely on social welfare never expected or intended to be in that position, and we must redouble our efforts to help get those people back to work and contributing to the economy. There must be closer linkage between the Department of Social Protection and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to ensure that impediments to taking up employment opportunities are minimised. There is a debate on the issue of how we can ensure that happens.

There are some positive elements in the Bill. I welcome the progressive scheme to help lone parents return to work. We all agree that paid work is the best way out of poverty and social exclusion but it is crucial that lone parents are helped in a compassionate and supportive way to return to work in a way that best suits their family circumstances.

All of us want the Minister to take a hard line on social welfare fraud because fraudsters are taking money that is needed to support the most vulnerable in our society. I hope the improved security measures - photographs and electronic signature - is sufficient given the sophistication of today's criminals. I want a security system that is foolproof. We have the technology and the expertise to put in place a system that will crack down on this once and for all. We do not want to hear any more stories of multiple PPS numbers, multiple claims or foreigners flying in monthly to collect large sums of money, although it is possible some of those stories are exaggerated. We must get to grips with that particular problem.

In trying to crack down on that type of crime, would the Minister consider the possibility of an amnesty? In other words, if people came clean regarding their social welfare fraud could they possibly evade having a more severe penalty imposed on them? The Minister might consider that suggestion.

I welcome the Minister's decision to improve pensions governance and oversight. In recent years we all saw the carnage in private pensions schemes that were under-funded by employers and that left employees without a pension or with only a fraction of the pensions they expected on retirement. We need a wider debate on the pensions industry and pension reform, as well as a legislative response to the European Court of Justice decision in the Waterford Crystal case.

One section of society that has been very badly treated by the State in recent years is the people who are self-employed. Those are the people who created many jobs during the good times. While their employees were entitled to redundancy payments and unemployment benefit, they were entitled to nothing. That cannot be fair or equitable, and I ask the Minister to address that injustice. If we want people to be risk takers and create badly needed jobs, there must be support available if those enterprises fail.

I welcome the section that resolves the issue for the retained firefighters. It was an issue on which I campaigned because coming from a rural area I know the importance of having our retained firefighters available in emergencies. They should not be discriminated against, and I very much welcome that the Minister has addressed that issue.

I ask the Minister to examine and support Senator Healy Eames in respect of the registration of the deaths of people who died outside the country. The relatives of those people need closure. It should be a simple process to address the issue, and I genuinely believe it is within the Minister's gift to address it for once and for all.

There is a real need for efficiencies in this area. I am keen that we would pay people in a way that is safe and that we will move to a cashless system of payment but I have a concern that many of our rural post offices will suffer as a result of that. I am concerned also about people getting moneys paid into their bank accounts. I discovered recently, and business people are bringing it to my attention, that if one goes into a bank in any town, including my town, on a Saturday afternoon the chances are one will be unable to get money out of the ATM machine because the banks are not putting the facilities in place to top up those machines over the weekend. That is affecting local businesses-----