Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is a pity but I wish to acknowledge what the Senator has raised on the floor of the House.

Senator Lawlor is right in that we do have an extra €700 million. I wish I had that money to spend on new initiatives this year but we did not. It goes to show the increasing demographic profile that we have, which belies what Senator Gavan has just said. To be respectful, we have a huge, rapidly ageing population. It is ageing in a healthier way and people are living much longer lives. That is what is putting an extra need on the fact that the social welfare budget and bill is now at a staggering €21.2 billion. People often talk about the social welfare Department as not being an economic one. I have never had the responsibility of €21.2 billion in my life before, as I have had in the last few years. It is the largest economic portfolio that this State has. We have a responsibility to all of those people to ensure that we can provide for them as they grow older and live to a greater and healthier age. That is why the Social Insurance Fund has to be shored up by the next number of years, to ensure that the ratio between pensioners and the workers who support those pension payments changes dramatically. We will probably go to 2.9 workers for five pensioners by 2030. We have to look to the Social Insurance Fund, how we shore it up and make changes, and how we calculate our State pension going forward. This is what the total contributions model is going to do, when I bring the memo to Cabinet after Christmas.

The Senator is right in that I do not have any responsibility for the Higher Education Authority, HEA, training fund. We just do the collecting and pass it over to the Department of Education and Skills, which has the responsibility of determining where it goes. In addition, the senior Accounting Officer in the Department of Education and Skills is the Accounting Officer for the governance of and fiduciary responsibility for how we spend that money. A report should issue from Comptroller and Auditor General each year. I am surprised there was so much money left in it last year because I would not have €300 million left in my budget at the end of a year. I would have it well spent. If one looks at the Comptroller and Auditor General's report at the end of the year, one will see exactly where the money is being spent.

I considered the Springboard scheme earlier on this year because one or two particularly heart-rending cases came to my attention. I was able to find a way around with one of those cases. The problem is that if one moves the nine months requirement to six months, one is still creating a cliff edge. What one cannot have is an attractiveness for a person to come onto the social welfare system just to come off it again to go into full-time education that is provided by the State. I am trying to find a balance. A review is currently going on as to where that balance actually lies. What I will not do is just move the goalposts from where it is at the moment, which is 234 days, to 200 days. All that does literally is to move the cliff from one point to the other. I will come back to the Senator on that review.

The Senator is absolutely right that apart from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, we are the biggest funder of public transport in this country. Yet, in the two and a half to three years that I have been in this role, the organisation that I would have met the most, if anyone was to check my diary over the last number of years, is Bus Éireann. This is simply because of the amount of complaints that come to me about scheduling, rescheduling, and the behaviour of people on buses. There are a number of issues. I believe there is a genuine desire and willingness on the part of the people running Bus Éireann and in particular, CI Dublin Bus, to provide state-of-the-art public services. When one is comparing Ireland with Japan, one is not comparing apples with apples but we have an ambition to get there. The investment of €1 billion in our rail network that was announced last week shows the kind of direction that this Government wants to take with public services.

Finally, in response to Senator Gavan, I understand his campaign. I do not necessarily agree with the premise behind it and the information that he has. I am not the person and this is not the Bill that is responsible for pausing legislation that had its inception in 2007, when the then Minister, Martin Cullen, had a memo agreed at Cabinet to introduce the changes that were brought in by law in 2011. This was after a very large public consultation had been conducted by the then Minister, Mary Hanafin.SIPTU seemed to be of the belief that there was no public consultation and it played an enormous role in feeding into that public consultation. That legislation gave rise to the changes in 2014, 2021 and 2028. The reason for that want and recognition as far back as 2008 was because the Social Insurance Fund will run out of money unless we do something drastic. One of those changes is my responsibility insofar as the new calculation of the State pension is concerned, and we are moving to the new total contributions model next year. If we do not, the Social Insurance Fund will run into deficit in a short number of years. If we were to do what is suggested by SIPTU and pause the button next year, I would have to find in my Department a net €215 million for each year in which one wants to stand still, just to plug that hole. Not to be disrespectful to anybody who is of the opinion that this is relatively easy to do, given that the Department's budget, as I said to Senator Lawlor a moment ago, is increasing at a rate of €700 million a year - it will be more next year - simply because of the increase of demographics on the people who we serve, I do not know where we are supposed to get the extra €215 million. If it is to come out of the pot we already have, what cuts would one make and from whom would one take the €215 million? It is not a simple conversation but it is perhaps a conversation that needs to be had. Sinn Féin will have it. That party will make it a big issue during the election, and that is fine. However, the conversation must be had in the context of that.