Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

My colleague is being reasonable, more reasonable than I would be regarding this amendment. She has brought forward an amendment that looks to the various circumstances as outlined by the Minister regarding accessing the information.

From my perspective, I have to oppose this section of the Bill because opening that dialogue regarding child benefit is an issue of serious concern. A couple of issues arise, the first of which is about family status. The briefing from the Department on that refers to a concern about the relationship between the employer and the employee being impacted. It states that the Department of Social Protection is aware of its obligations as a data controller and makes every effort to avoid breaching these obligations. That is not enough.

We have legislation that relates to family status so from the employer's perspective, an employer is not meant to inquire into or in any way treat an employee or a prospective employee differently in respect of his or her family status. In allowing an employer to open a conversation with employees on child benefit, a spouse, a partner or their children, the Minister is putting employers in an inappropriate situation whereby they are looking into to the family status of their employees and are in a dialogue with a Department in respect of the family status of one of their employees. That is dubious, and it is one of the grounds in our equality legislation. It is a serious concern.

There is a debate on whether child benefit should be tied to the question of the habitual residency condition or the status of parents. We have had debates on that at various times and the issue has not been resolved. Strong cases were made to the effect that child benefit is a payment in respect of the welfare of children. It is not a bonus for parents but rather a recognition of children. Since the children's rights referendum we have placed children's well-being and their rights at the centre of the debate and looked to practical means by which to vindicate those rights and ensure that the well-being of children is delivered as a State. Child benefit is one of the ways in which the State delivers its duty to children. Parents are the facilitators of that in that they are entrusted to effectively deliver that well-being, but the case could be made that their well-being is very different from the family income supplement and the back to work family dividend. It is a specific payment for children from the State that is entrusted to parents for them to administer to children. Bringing the employment status and so on into the mix is a serious concern.

I become concerned, and with due respect to my colleague, when I hear delays being given as an excuse. The way to get this done quickly is to sign the waiver that allows us to access the information we need. We do not want those who do not give permission for this to face a longer delay. It is a question of whether to expedite or not. We saw the case recently about car insurance, which was withdrawn, in which those seeking car insurance were told that if they signed a waiver to allow all their social media feed be accessed by the car insurance company, they would get a faster decision and a preferable rate. However, it was rightly recognised at the time that what people were actually being told was that if they did not sign those waivers the decision on their application will be slower and they will get a less preferable rate.

I do not believe it is the Department's intention but there is a danger that people will feel that if they do not give information or support access to their employers, the Department could somehow delay or make it more difficult for someone to get child benefit.Of course, there is also the option of trusting people and checking in with them at the end of the year. We do it in taxation areas and that trust is seen in some schemes. There is a huge range of areas in society in which we trust people. Then we check at the end of the year when we have the figures and if there is an anomaly it is addressed at that point.

My colleague has been very reasonable and has put forward small and constructive amendments. However, I have a deeper concern about this overall amendment.