Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I wish to refer to a number of issues during my contribution. One issue I wish to raise is An Post. I also wish to refer to the habitual residence condition. Given the Minister’s presence, I could not miss the opportunity to briefly mention the Youth Guarantee.

We are already half way through the year and the Department’s PRSI yield is more than €100 million greater than was anticipated in budget 2014. There is scope to seize upon the opportunity to use the Bill, future social welfare legislation or the forthcoming budget to provide some relief to those who have suffered in recent years due to austerity. The Minister could restore the respite care grant to the 85,000 people who are caring for a relative with a serious illness or disability.

The main issue of concern for Sinn Féin, which was discussed at length in Dáil proceedings, was the potential threat to rural post offices. The principal purpose of section 3 is to delete the reference to An Post. The section provides for changes to enable functions relating to payment of benefit or assistance and related payment services to be provided for under arrangements with selected payment service providers. We believe that removal of the reference to An Post as the named service provider could have devastating implications for the survival of local post offices. Many post offices have closed. Previous speakers mentioned how many have closed in recent years both under the previous Government and this one. In my county of Cavan the closure of post offices in rural areas is common. What hope is there for isolated rural post offices if the service is removed from them? The Department has explained the deletion was made in order to remove the privileged position of An Post in the consideration of service providers in the future. As my colleague, Deputy Ó Snodaigh, articulated, there is a belief that An Post should hold a privileged position given the important role the network of post offices plays in communities. The network in itself is critically important to the social fabric of communities in rural Ireland. Post offices are a strategic asset and the threat of further loss of services must be taken seriously.

I appreciate what has been said about procurement and European law but the fundamental point is that the situation goes beyond just competition and is about providing an essential social service to communities, especially rural communities, and equality of access. The Grant Thornton report highlighted that up to 557 out of 1,150 post offices could close if the social welfare contract is removed. We will oppose the sections in which reference to An Post as the service provider is being removed and we will propose amendments accordingly.

Perhaps I have missed the point in terms of changes to habitual residence, but could the Minister explain how the changes could affect people who may currently have an active appeal on the habitual residence condition? It might be blatantly obvious but I am keen to hear a response for information purposes.

I wish to move on to the positive discrimination provisions of the section on the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. What schemes in particular does it cover? In the Youth Guarantee implementation plan, it is mentioned on page 20 that the penalty process applied to young people will be differentiated from that applied to other jobseekers. It essentially states that because of the use of positive discrimination measures whereby opportunities under the Youth Guarantee scheme will be prioritised for young people and that other cohorts will be displaced from access to those opportunities, young people will be expected to demonstrate a higher level of engagement. The penalty rate process that is set out for young people specifies reductions to €75 and €111 concurrently. That is fairly stringent.

In talking about positive discrimination measures, it would be remiss of me not to mention the negative discrimination measures faced by young people under the current system. I refer to reduced jobseekers' rates. The system is based on a belief that cutting already reduced rates for young people is fair. It is a case of a carrot and a very big stick. I accept the Department is ring-fencing more opportunities for young people through the positive discrimination measures but unfair negative discrimination already exists in terms of reduced jobseekers' rates. I accept the Minister cannot say too much but I urge her to examine jobseeker rates for young people in the forthcoming budget.