Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank her for her address. The rate of post office closures slowed down recently. The development of a banking service through the post office, in particular, the payment of higher interest on savings should have been considered. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte, told the House that there had been pressure from the banks not to allow that. We prevented the growth of the post office in order to help the banks into which we have put €64 billion.

We all welcome the reduction in the numbers on the live register. The Minister said that during the boom many people were given invalidity and disability payments, which was a way to disguise unemployment to a degree. Does she have programmes to reduce that? Disability or invalidity does not always preclude a person from every kind of work. The person in question might be unsuited only for a particular type of work. Is there some scope to change that register of social welfare payments because it unnecessarily ranks people as unsuitable for work, when there are many kinds of work they might be able to do.

There is a problem in the extension of social welfare benefits to the self-employed because the contribution for employees is 4% and for employers it is 10.75%. What will be the rate for the self-employed? If it is only 4% and there is no employer contribution, the fund will have to be topped up from somewhere. A certain amount of caution is needed. While it might be desirable to extend the benefits, doing so without having commensurate contributions will put the burden back onto the Exchequer.

The numbers for recovery were 40% for fraud and 37% client error, which left 23%. The Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, asked if the Department paid money inadvertently to a person could it be treated differently from money that was given as a result of fraud? If it inadvertently gave money to a person who was very badly off the Department might look upon it more kindly. I think that is what FLAC said. It may be that the kind of error the Minister seeks to correct is not always of the one type. She has our support in dealing with the 40% but some of the 23% may be genuine errors made by people on very low incomes who might otherwise face a serious problem.

In terms of the measure the Minister mentioned on prisons, is she certain that if we reduce social welfare to the families of people in prison that we would not create real difficulties for those who have already suffered the loss of somebody who has been incarcerated? Has the Minister considered how the change might apply? The criminal is already punished by being in prison, but if we reduce social welfare one could ask whether the family would suffer more. After all, they are innocent parties. One could ask whether it would be suggested that this is a case of double jeopardy.

The Minister referred to the requirements for defined benefit schemes to notify people. That is most important. This is an area in which the Minister has had an interest for a long time. Some of the trustees have not been keeping people up to date. Some standard PRSAs with a lump sum worth more than €100,000 can have administration charges as high as €81,000. Is there any way we could protect people who have been saving for their old age from horrendous administration fees? I welcome the measures outlined in the Bill. Sometimes trustees have to take their duties more seriously. We are currently seeking that directors of private companies should take responsibility for what those companies do and not just sit looking out the window at board meetings. If trustees run up massive debts – sometimes it seems to be almost a competition, for example, that X, Y or Z pension fund is €800 million and, hurrah, one wins a gold medal for that - they have responsibilities and I hope the Minister will call them to account. Having criticised other people for wasting money, I do not wish to waste time or exceed the allowance of time.