Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. Fianna Fáil welcomes and supports this Bill, which is designed to give legislative effect to a range of social welfare measures that were announced in September. The cost-of-living budget helps families to cope with the ultimate impact of huge rising prices and inflation across Europe. There is no trickle-down side to this budget; it is direct and substantial aid, with those most in need seeing the biggest benefit. The single biggest measure, costing nearly €900 million, is a permanent increase in the social welfare payments of €12, the largest ever increase in these payments and part of the largest ever social welfare protection package. Fianna Fáil rejects the Sinn Féin idea of giving less to pensioners. They deserve our support and must continue to have the support, as always, of Fianna Fáil, but we oppose the idea that they should be treated unequally. This increase will apply to all people who are in receipt of the principal social welfare payments. This budget will see more people qualifying for the working family payment and the qualified child allowance and the fuel allowance are being increased. So too are payments to carers and to people on community employment schemes. This is on top of other benefits and once-off inflationary measures.

Budget 2023 was one of the largest social welfare interventions in the history of the State. It supported pensioners, carers, people with disabilities and those on low incomes. There was a suite of immediate financial supports that many families saw across the sphere. Up to 81,000 new households will benefit from a major expansion of the fuel allowance scheme. There was: a double payment of the child benefit payment in November; a €500 cost-of-living payment for people receiving the carer support grant; and a €500 cost-of-living disability support grant to be paid to all people receiving a disability payment. Households in receipt of the working family payment received a €500 lump sum and across the board, there were increases in weekly payments of €12 from January 2023. The social protection budget, the largest in the history of the State, will assist families with the cost of living through a mix of lump sum supports and increases to weekly payments.

This is the most generous budget we have seen in a long time. I am proud to live in a country where we have a generous social welfare safety net for people. You can look across the water or if you look at people living in the United States, they face bankruptcy day in, day out, especially when they encounter the health system there. I am proud of our social welfare system, therefore. We can always do more and there are so many areas where we can do so. For instance, there is a new regime for the jobseeker's payment in that there will be a transitioned payment. We need to look at the basic social welfare rate generally and see if it can be increased to an amount closer to a living wage, like we saw during Covid, as a back-to-work type scheme. It is hard for people to live off the basic minimum wage when they are in a scenario where they are legitimately looking for a job. There were also issues with the foster carers and that might have been resolved but perhaps the Minister has some information on it. They were not included in the budget to the extent that they perhaps should have been. I concur with my colleagues on filling in the domiciliary care form. It is a minefield and it is difficult for people, when they have a clear-cut diagnosis, that they have to go through so many loopholes, have a psychology report and have a GP report. Maybe there could be a way to streamline it.

I also concur with my colleague, Senator Craughwell, on class K contributions. It was a big issue in the last Seanad and when the Tánaiste was Minister for Social Protection, he sat in this Chamber and listened to our deliberations on class K contributions. It has affected a lot of our former colleagues. As Senator Craughwell pointed out, it is a big issue and a clear one, in that people are paying for an insurance product they will never get the benefit of. As politicians, especially during that time, we kept ourselves down and put ourselves last. No one has any sympathy for us and I do not expect anyone to have sympathy for us but our former colleagues - and we will all be former Senators and Deputies one day - deserve equality. They do not deserve any more or better but they deserve at least the basic minimum. I thank the Minister for coming and I support the Bill.