Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and wish him the best in what is his third Department in a short period. I congratulate him on being appointed to Cabinet again. I recognise the role of social welfare transfers in alleviating poverty and I welcome the small increases announced in last year's budget, including the €3 increase in the pension, the €5 increase in child benefit, the €5 increase in family income supplement thresholds and the €2.50 per week increase in the fuel allowance. However, it is apparent that considerable resources still need to be deployed to lift people out of poverty and social exclusion.

While the economic crisis is over, thousands of people are still not feeling the effects of the economic recovery. A total of 8% of the population are in consistent poverty. The target set for 2016 was a consistent poverty rate of 4%. The reality is that there is a two-tier society and a two-tier recovery, and the previous Government targeted those who had the least to give through punitive and regressive budgets. At the launch of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul's 2017 pre-budget submission, it was highlighted that it is receiving on average 2,300 calls a week in an era of apparent growth and recovery. The society highlighted that many households are struggling to pay for basic essentials such as food, heating and education.

Any small gains in the budget must also be looked at in the context of previous Fine Gael-Labour Party budgets and the harsh and punitive measures they presided over. Low-income and vulnerable groups are still exposed to poverty and social exclusion, and the measures in the last budget, while very welcome, are simply not enough. Furthermore, the cost of certain essential goods and services has risen in the past year. The small increases given in the last budget are being swallowed up by increases in the cost of living, and people dependent on social welfare see very little gain in their pockets. For example, car insurance rose by 35.5% from May 2015 to May 2016, house insurance rose by 9.9% in the same period and education costs have risen by 3.8% in that same period.

While it must be acknowledged that the increase in child benefit and pensions announced in last year's budget have resulted in improvements from 2015, many low-income households are still struggling to make ends meet and are yet to feel the benefits of any economic recovery. This underscores the fact that the Minister for Social Protection has very serious work to do with regard to tackling poverty and social exclusion. We know the Government has missed its anti-poverty targets. The national social target for poverty reduction was to reduce consistent poverty to 4% by 2016, but the consistent poverty rate is 8%, leaving a gap of four percentage points. The Government child poverty target as set out in Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures: the National Policy Framework for Children and Young People was to lift 70,000 children out of consistent poverty by 2020, but no progress has been made on the child poverty target. There is now a new figure: 97,000 children must be lifted out of consistent poverty to meet the target by 2020.

Despite claims by the previous Government that older people were protected from cuts and tax increases, the reality is that they were particularly hard hit by reductions in income and increases in taxes and charges. The number of weeks for which the fuel allowance was paid was cut, free electricity and gas units were reduced, the telephone allowance and the bereavement grant were scrapped and households were hit with the property tax, water charges and increases in prescription charges. All of these combined had a grave effect on older people, making it very difficult for many of them to get by from week to week. The national pensions framework sets a target of maintaining social welfare pension rates at 35% of average earnings. In view of this, the €3 increase in the weekly pension, while welcome, was insufficient. In its manifesto, Fianna Fáil has called for a €30 increase in the State pension and an increase in the living alone allowance to €15, to be phased in over five years in recognition of the fact that older people suffered immensely in the past number of years. While increasing the State pension, we also need to ensure that secondary benefits such as the fuel allowance and household benefits package are protected. These are vital payments to older people and can and do make life far more bearable, particularly for those solely reliant on the State pension.

We are also asking the Minister to consider amending the homemaker scheme. It is imperative to provide an income for women who spent years out of the workforce caring for children in their homes. We need to recognise and acknowledge the value of this work. The system already disregards time spent working in the home since April 1994 for the purposes of calculating yearly average contributions. We are asking the Minister to consider backdating this further.

Another issue relates to waiting times for assessment of essential social welfare payments. The waiting times are appalling and cause a great deal of stress and hardship. According to information I received through a parliamentary question, in 2016, a summary decision took 17.3 weeks and an appeal or oral hearing took 24.3 weeks. This is a total of 41.6 weeks, which is almost ten months. When one considers that these are vital payments, one can see that the time spent waiting for a decision is hugely important. The waiting time can have significant financial repercussions for applicants, putting many at risk at poverty while awaiting the outcome of a decision. The Minister needs to address this as a matter of urgency, as many of those applying for the payments are already in a distressing situation and this is only compounded by the length of time it takes for a decision to be made on a person's entitlement to a payment.

It is vital that the most vulnerable in society are not forgotten and that the State provides an adequate safety net for such people. Fianna Fáil will not support policies that continue the harsh, regressive and punitive agenda pursued by the previous Government. I thank the Minister for coming to the House and outlining his plans. We will support him in looking after the most vulnerable.