Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister but, like Senator Norris, I do not envy her her job. It is not an easy task at this time.

I will concentrate on a couple of matters and one of them is the effect on employers. Will the Minister put my mind at rest regarding the sick pay scheme, to ensure we are not increasing the cost to employers?

The other point I wish to raise is an anomaly or, perhaps, an error. The allowance for married couples is double the allowance for two single people. In all cases, including income tax, it is recognised by the State that a couple allowance is exactly double that of the single allowance.

I would like the Minister to put my mind at rest in regard to the over 70s couple medical card eligibility criteria. It is proposed to reduce the over 70s couple allowance to less than double that of the single allowance, that is, for a single person it is €500 and for a couple it is €900 instead of €1,000. It is clear that if the over 70s couple medical card eligibility criteria was in line with other parts of our legislation, the allowance for the couple should be €1,000. I believe this is a discrimination against married couples or civil partners aged over 70. To be clear, if the eligibility criteria for a couple was, as custom and practice has it, double that of a single person, namely, €1,000 for a couple, a couple would retain their medical card. However, as it is proposed in budget 2014, with the discriminatory allowance of €900, which is less than double the amount of a single allowance, a couple would lose it. I ask the Minister to put my mind at rest on that because I do not believe it is fair. There should be equality. I would be glad if the Minister could address that issue because it appears to be one where an amendment could be considered to rectify that anomaly.

We must make it clear that it is sensible for people to work. The Minister has put a great effort into that and referred to it a number of times but over the weekend an article in theIrish Independentstated: "While the Government bats around statistics saying that the vast majority of people are better off working, the Economic and Social Research Institute notes that 8% of the unemployed would lose money by getting a job [that is not what the Minister said, at least it did not sound like that], meaning the reality is that thousands of householders are disincentivised to work". To put that starkly, the Irish Independentfound that a family could be €4,000 a year better off on social welfare than it would be with one parent working full-time in a minimum wage job. That is an amazing finding to consider. It arises because it includes jobseeker's allowance with additional payments for a spouse or partner and children, child benefit, fuel allowance, back-to-school allowance and rent supplement. Will the Minister comment on that? Does the Government not accept that if all the associated benefits that go with being unemployed are added up, there is a big difference between that figure and the salary of a low-paid job? I am glad the Government is moving towards making rent supplements based on financial need but if we then remove medical cards from those who move to work - they will now only get them for one year instead of three - we could be shifting the entire problem and not setting the conditions for people who want to get back to work.

As I mentioned previously on several occasions, and the point is worth repeating, it was highlighted recently that one in every seven people on social welfare has never worked a single day in their lives. Other reports show that one in three people offered a place on the back-to-work scheme failed to show up for interview. That is a huge factor. The benefit was recently called unemployment allowance until the Minister changed it. However, how can one be unemployed if one has never been employed? To me, one must have been employed to be unemployed. The Government says that it will follow the model of not giving benefit to a person who refuses a job or training, as happens in countries such as the Netherlands or Germany, but will that ever happen? It would be political dynamite to alienate so many thousands of voters. However, we have to say that if a person refuses a job or training, one simply cannot go back to receiving social welfare for the next number of years. That will not be a popular thing to say and the Minister has said that the Government is moving in that direction. The figures from the Economic and Social Research Institute seem to bear that out. I would like to Minister to consider those points and respond to them.