Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try to cover as much as I can in the time that I have. Senator Horkan started by mentioning poverty and social exclusion. The way the Government and I see it is that poverty and social exclusion need to be tackled on three fronts. The first front is jobs. No welfare payment can compete with a well-paid job. That is why we need more well-paid jobs to get people from welfare into work as much as possible. The second front is services. If people did not have to pay so much for their health care and child care, they would not need as much in benefits or salary. We need to bear that in mind. The third front is benefits and transfers. When we talk about poverty and social exclusion, we need to see the solution in jobs, services and transfers, and not just in any one of those things.

Senator Horkan encouraged a strong focus on pensioners. I will certainly do my best in that regard in the forthcoming budget. Others mentioned carers and people with disabilities as well. Interestingly enough, when we look at the statistics - I am starting to become a bit of a statistics nerd in this Department - if one takes the poorest 10% in Irish society, the lowest decile, virtually none are pensioners. They are almost all people with disabilities, carers and those on lower incomes than pensioners. That is not to say that we should do nothing for pensioners, but it is something that needs to be borne in mind.

Senator Butler mentioned the self-employed. We will be debating that next week. He also mentioned pharmacists and we are doing a review of that at the moment. I hope to be able to make a decision on that in the next couple of months with a view to reversing some of the changes that were made to pharmacists under the previous Government, of which I was a member. I am not going to run away from those decisions but the opportunity now arises to reverse some of those changes.

Senator Higgins mentioned a number of things, including the role of social transfers in protecting social cohesion during the crisis. I totally agree with that point and my forbearer, the former Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, made the point many times that had it not been for our strong welfare system, we may have had the kind of upheaval and civic unrest that occurred in other countries. It did not occur here for a number of reasons but I think a strong social protection system was a part of that. I can assure the Senator that we intend for the Department of Social Protection to take a central role in gender and equality-proofing budgets.

Direct provision is a matter for the Minister for Justice and Equality. The habitual residence rules are largely European-based. However, I take the point the Senator made about child benefit, particularly for those who are in Ireland for a long period of time and are still in direct provision. On the issue of under-25s, most countries do pay a lower rate of jobseeker's benefit to those who are under 25 years of age for many good reasons. I do not think it is a good idea to give an 18-year old or a 19-year old €188 a week. However, I believe a valid point was made about those who were on schemes or training. That is something that I intend to take a look at as well.

Senator Richmond asked a question that I have asked as well. How come so many people are successful in their appeals? If so many appeals are upheld, there must be a problem with the underlying system. That is something that I intend to study in more detail. However, I point out that there are only about 25,000 appeals out of 2 million customers. Therefore, the appeals rate itself is low and perhaps that is linked to the success rate. I am also trying to figure out how many of those appeals are successful because of new information. I have been told anecdotally that people are sometimes told to withhold information from the Department for their appeal. I encourage people not to do that. The Department should be given all the information up front if possible. The Senator raised the issue of paternity leave. It is absolutely our intention to have a campaign of awareness around paternity leave.

Senator Devine mentioned the Social Justice Ireland report. I ask the Senator to study it further. It is important to point out that the report is based on 2014 statistics and not 2015 or 2016, for which the statistics do not yet exist. When it states that there are 750,000 people below the poverty line, that is not correct. That includes people who are at risk of poverty. By definition, if one is at risk of poverty, one is not in poverty. It is just like if one is at risk of losing one's job, it does mean that one still has a job even if one is at risk of losing it. It is not the case that poverty rates are rising. They fell in 2014. We do not have the figures yet for 2015 but we expect that they have fallen again.

With regard to Senator Byrne's points on community employment, CE, we are certainly looking at reforming CE, Tús and Gateway. During the recession, the numbers of schemes increased dramatically. Obviously now the economy is recovering. The numbers are likely to fall. In the numbers falling, there might be scope to relax the rules around younger people and older people in particular. We are at the point at which there are many people who, for various reasons, might not be suited to the normal world of work, if one likes, and I believe CE will probably focus more on that.

On class K contributions, it is proposed to legislate for that in the social welfare Bill at the end of the year. That will come before November or December. The Local Authority Members' Association, LAMA, and the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, are doing a survey at the moment and, essentially, councillors are being presented with two options: either to move under class S, which is similar to the self-employed, under which they would continue to pay the 4%, receive some but not all benefits and receive any benefits extended to the self-employed, or not to pay it at all. What I cannot allow is councillors picking or choosing their class. We would all love to be able to pick or choose what taxes or what class of PRSI we pay. I cannot allow that, but what I will give to councillors is fair treatment. I cannot give special treatment and I do not think that anybody in the House would want me to do so.

On the carer's allowance issue mentioned by Senator Reilly, I know that there is a big delay there. It is a big problem. There is a delay of about 19 weeks now in processing applications. More staff have been hired. They need to be trained and there is a particular skill set they need to understand carer's allowance. It is something I am aware of and am working on. Over the summer, I will visit the section that deals with that area. I point out, though, that if somebody is judged to be entitled to carer's allowance, he or she is backdated in full to the point at which he or she applied.

I should probably sit down with Senator Humphreys at some stage. I sat down with Deputy Burton for an hour or two. Senator Humphreys and I might do the same. The Senator seems to have some good ideas. We might follow that up with a proper one-to-one meeting. The bogus self-employed report is not in yet but I am looking forward to seeing it. I acknowledge the Senator's interest in personal micro-credit and his role in making it happen. It has been a success. I do not think the Central Bank is as concerned as it was. If the Central Bank is concerned about people not paying back their loans, it is not people on social welfare who do not pay back their loans; it is other people who did not pay back their loans. It is intended to extend that to credit unions across the State and if possible to extend it to working people on low incomes as well for exactly the reasons the Senator stated.

I will have a chat with Senator Humphreys again about the over-60s pilot scheme. I am not aware of that but I will become aware of it now that he has mentioned it. I think it is for people over 62 years, if I am right in saying that.