Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

With regard to the changes in the family income supplement, FIS, scheme, I wholly agree that a claimant who is living apart from the other parent or the children must be required to contribute substantially towards their maintenance. This is the very least we should expect from somebody who is claiming an entitlement to FIS based on the costs involved in raising those children. At the other end of the spectrum, a difficulty arises with the FIS scheme for people who do not work 52 weeks per year, such as catering staff in schools, child care workers and so on. Such people face losing their FIS payment for several weeks at Easter, Christmas and in the summer. In fact, I have spoken to people who decided not to claim unemployment benefit during those periods because of the repercussions for their FIS entitlement. We must cater for people who, because of the nature of their employment, are unable to work for certain periods of the year.

I very much welcome the abolition of the exclusion of spouses and civil partners from self-employment social insurance. Many businesses are run by both spouses or civil partners but self-employed contributions did not extend to both parties. This is a very welcome improvement and I know many women, in particular, will be delighted with the changes, not least farmers' wives who will be delighted with it. For long enough they have been excluded from the system and have not been able to access the services, as their husbands can. They will greatly welcome this measure. When responding to the debate, the Minister might indicate if there are any developments on enhancing the self-employed contribution to include illness benefit in the services available to them.

Section 20 inserts a reference to Irish Water and a list of bodies that are authorised to use PPS numbers. Perhaps we should extend this to the register of electors. The PPS number is unique to an individual. It is the one thing, apart from fingerprints, that cannot be duplicated. If it was on the register of electors it would prevent people being registered two, three or even four times in cases. My sister was registered in four different places where she had lived. I told the council to change the register. So she got four polling cards - let me state she used only one. Keying in the PPS number to check if someone was already registered in another area might be a way forward. This may not be under the Minister's remit but that of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

I have a concern over section 14 which provides for the recovery of payments from, for example, grants, refunds and repayments of taxes. I ask the Minister to confirm that disabled person's grants and third level student grants do not come under that. It is essential for people going back to education to have their grants. If they owe money, it can be paid when they are re-educated and have a job. To take it from a third level student grant or a disabled person's grant would be detrimental to people.

I will speak on amendments on Committee Stage.