Máire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for presenting the Social Welfare Bill. First, I echo the sentiments of Senator Boyhan on pensions for councillors, and the paucity of the reform of their terms and conditions. I also echo his call for the Minister to respond to him and say how he will speed up the changes and make them a bit more meaningful.

I remind the Seanad and the Minister of the call in the budget for the centre to hold - that Irish people were centrist and demanded centrist politics. First and foremost, I do not think the centrist politics he espouses and to which he alluded are the politics of anything like the centre which we have witnessed in this country in recent years. In the post-budget discussion and especially in the main post-budget debate, we had an amazing situation. The Minister for Finance refused to appear on "Prime Time" to debate with the Opposition. I refer to Sinn Féin's finance spokesperson, Deputy Pearse Doherty. One could ask what was the reason for that. Amazingly, despite the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, outlining that both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael share common policy objectives, come from the same background and are supported by many of the same people across the country, he would not debate with Deputy Pearse Doherty because he said Fianna Fáil was and is the main Opposition party. That is comical.

The Social Welfare Bill contains many provisions. The group that was most affected in the recession and the post-recession period are young people. They are our future. They were forced to emigrate in their thousands post 2008. Those left behind faced unprecedented unemployment levels. With no jobs to obtain, the Government made the unbelievable decision to cut their social welfare rates to €100. That was a distinct policy decision of discrimination.The Minister has done little to address this discrimination in this budget, given that those aged 18 years to 24 years were given an extra €2.70 a week and those aged 25 years were given €3.80 a week. I measure this against the €5,000 that Deputies greedily decided to accept earlier. This is a yes for inequality, and a no for leadership. This is quite simply a disgraceful decision.

The Fianna Fáil Party played its part in putting together this budget. They are every bit as culpable for this discrimination as the members of the Fine Gael Party.

It is not all bad news as I believe there are good measures in the Social Welfare Bill. These include the increase in allowance back to €193; the ending of the demeaning and insulting JobsBridge, the reintroduction of the €500 cost of education allowance; the increase in school meals provision and the provision of paternity leave and benefit.

The problem is that there are far too many bad measures that were not addressed and not seen as a priority. These are distinct policy choices that do not serve the people that need support most. Reducing the tax rate for capital acquisition tax, increasing the band for inheritance tax and reducing USC rates for those who can afford the payment the most are not centrist measures, but measures that broaden the inequality that remains rife in this country.

I will outline the bad measures that Fine Gael and their Fianna Fáil partners introduced that will make life near to impossible for lone parents next year. The reduction in the cut off age for one-parent families have left more of these vulnerable units at risk of extreme poverty. The one-parent family measures have been noted as encouraging welfare dependency, reducing household income and creating one big welfare trap that these families cannot get out of. It punishes children and in the main in one-parent families it punishes women. The centrist parties pledge to increase living alone allowance in their respective manifestos should have been a no-brainer. Why did this not happen?

Fianna Fáil in government introduced prescription charges. Fine Gael keeps them going. While both parties acknowledge fuel poverty is evident, neither fought for nor provided for any increase. Some 28% of households across the State experience fuel poverty. I want everybody to listen to the next point because I was gobsmacked when I learned that Ireland has the highest level of winter mortality in Europe with 2,800 dying of the cold each year. We need to balance this against the unequal decisions that have been made.

The €5 increase in the State pension and disability payment will be of benefit to citizens who are in poverty, however, this needs to be seen for what it is, a delayed appetiser to appease our older citizens and those with disabilities in the event of an early election, given the parlous state of the friendly Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael coalition. This increase along with the other significant inconsistencies in our pension system and disability funding fail to be addressed in this Bill.

Last Saturday at a public stall after the closure of yet another post office in my local area, an elderly lady came up and asked why the Government is giving pensioners a fiver: "What good is a fiver to us, why do they not put all the fivers into giving the people on the street a bed for the winter?" She would much prefer that. This proves to me the disconnect between the centrist parties and the ordinary people of Ireland. The ordinary people are fair, compassionate and caring and they possess a very strong social conscience.

We will not oppose the Bill and will not delay it. We would prefer if things were done differently and while we do not believe the changes introduced in the budget went far enough, we must accept that crumbs are better than no crumbs.

The Minister accepted an amendment tabled by my party colleague in the Dáil on preparing a report on the financial and social effects of the changes to the one-parent family payment since 2015. Our wish is that the report will be presented within six months. The Minister has given a commitment that it would take nine months to do but we request him to push for doing it within six months. We also asked for an annual child poverty report to be published and issued to the joint committee of which I belong. I really would want to see such a report annually. This was rejected. Why?

We asked that employees whose dismissal was found to be a case of unfair dismissal would the State support received by them refunded to the State by the employer and that upon a successful finding of unfair dismissal a statement would issue that the employer did unfairly dismiss the employee. This was rejected and I would like to know why.I would ask the Minister again to consider both of these amendments.