Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

During last week's recess, a serious issue arose in the Department of Employment Affairs Social Protection as a result of which those who were meant to be in receipt of illness benefit either did not receive it at all or only received partial payments. The Minister updated the country on the "News at One" and stated it was a technical issue related to a transitional arrangement while the Department moved to a new system. Ultimately, recipients or potential recipients were the ones who were negatively affected. People had mortgages to pay and direct debits which were failing. They had to meet credit union and other loan repayments and their credit ratings were going to be affected. It was not acceptable. People make PAYE contributions and may, through no fault of their own, fall ill and require illness benefit. When they needed it, however, it was unavailable. It is a disgrace. I am appalled that people had to go through this at their time of need. We do not know exactly how many people were affected and whether it was 5,000 or 50,000 but while the Minister made a statement to the Dáil, she should come to the House to explain exactly what happened in relation to this malfunction. There was meant to be a dedicated phone line but this was not open and people had to wait on hold for hours, notwithstanding the fact that they were sick. At one stage, Government spokespeople directed people to the supplementary welfare officer, which is completely unfair. When one is sick, one should hardly have to go to someone to beg for money, especially when it concerns a payment to which one is entitled.

There has been a recent rise in convictions of people who have been out on bail, some in relation to sexual offences. We need to strengthen our bail laws given the massive increase in the number of people committing offences while on bail. It poses a serious risk to the public when people are at large who have huge numbers of previous convictions. Individuals appear to breach bail conditions without sanction and there is no enforcement. We need to introduce legislation as directed by my colleague, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, to ensure we have strong bail laws. At the moment, we do not seem to have any.

There are 100,000 people on trolleys in hospitals nationally. There are 10,000 people aged over 75 waiting over 24 hours on hospital trolleys.