Seanad debates

Thursday, 18 October 2012

Social Protection: Statements (Resumed)

 

11:30 am

Photo of David NorrisDavid Norris (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Was I terminated?

Photo of Paddy BurkePaddy Burke (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am sure about that. The Senator had finished.

Photo of David NorrisDavid Norris (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am terminated.

Photo of Terry BrennanTerry Brennan (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire.

Community employment schemes were mentioned. Many participants have a great sense of pride in what they do for their communities and for Tidy Towns committees and make a positive contribution. I applaud the increasing numbers of participants. I realise for certain age groups three years is the maximum period of participation, after which they return to the dole. In many instances they want to continue on the scheme. It is good to see people with a sense of pride and dignity who want to continue. It is a pity the maximum period is not longer.

Carers have been mentioned by many speakers. They are committed to helping and caring for people who cannot help themselves in their own homes. I applaud those people.

Two weeks ago I spoke to a businessman who offered a man a job. I know the businessman but not the man who was offered the job. The businessman figured that he was the man for the job he wanted done. He offered him a salary of ¤38,000 and 5% of the increase in profits that he was sure the man would make. I asked what the 5% would amount to and he said it could be anything from ¤10,000 to ¤12,000 if things got better or it could be an additional ¤15,000 per annum. This was a married man with four children who was receiving social welfare. I do not know what he was getting on social welfare but he did his figures and declined the offer of a job that was likely to earn him ¤45,000 to ¤50,000. That is reality, not fiction. I could not believe it. The businessman would not tell me who the man was but he still continues to receive unemployment payments. What percentage of people on social welfare who, when offered a job, respond and take up the job? For those who do not take up job offers, what is the procedure?

It is estimated that expenditure on illness benefit in 2012 will be ¤847 million, quite a substantial sum. The introduction of a scheme of statutory sick pay, mentioned by previous speakers, whereby employers would directly meet the cost of illness-related absences for an initial period of illness is being considered - I hope consideration is as far as that will go - in the context of the need to reform the social welfare system to bring it into line with practices in other countries in this area.

I am aware that most other European countries, including all of our major competitors, oblige employers to pay for some sick pay costs. The extent of this obligation varies considerably. For example, the period is two years in the Netherlands, 28 weeks in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, six weeks in Germany and nine days in Finland. I could go on, but I will not. A range of complex issues need to be addressed before any decision can be taken by the Government on the possible introduction of such a scheme. I believe it is the wrong time to introduce this scheme, which will cost jobs as has been stated. The Minister will be aware there are approximately 200,000 small and medium enterprises in this country, many of which are struggling to exist. Unfortunately, many too have closed down.

On the issue of absenteeism, I acknowledge the part the Government has played in reducing the dreadful absenteeism in the HSE. Absenteeism of approximately five days per worker in small businesses in Ireland, means these workers are close to the best performers across Europe. There is definite scope for further management of sick day absences in the Civil Service and public service. There is little reason to expect that requiring employers to pay sickness payments during the first four weeks of a claim will bring about a reduction in welfare dependency. The proposed scheme would have a particularly severe impact on small businesses, as most small businesses do not have a sick pay scheme in operation. It is the wrong time to consider this and perhaps we should wait to consider it when we get back to full production throughout the country. Please do not do it.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The social protection system is currently in a state of complete and utter chaos. It is overwhelmed by the economy. It is also overwhelmed by the fact the Government refused to take any decisions on levels of payment last year, so that the Labour Party could say it was keeping its promise not to cut welfare rates.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

So the Senator wants us to cut the rates.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

We cut welfare rates twice, so we are not pretending we did not do these things. We cut everything possible.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Fair play to you.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

However, what the Labour Party and Fine Gael have done instead is to knock whole swathes of people off the welfare rolls entirely, by disqualifying people on dodgy grounds with regard to applications for disability allowance and by refusing to bring people on to invalidity pension from illness benefit. At my clinic every Monday morning in Kells and every Friday morning in Duleek, I hear of refusals of payment of invalidity payments. Before this Government took office, I did not hear such complaints as they never came across my desk.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Who brought in the two-year rule for illness benefit?

Photo of Paddy BurkePaddy Burke (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Senator Byrne, without interruption.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

There is a refusal to put people on invalidity pension, where they are clearly unable to work. What should happen is that they be put on that pension, but it is not happening. Those people are being cut off the system completely in an unfair manner.

Applications for carer's allowance are being delayed. In some cases, people being cared for are dying during the application process, which is shocking. I have come across such cases. Applications for disability allowance are also being delayed. Yes, the Government can say it has not cut the disability allowance, but it should point out that tens of thousands of people have either been refused the allowance or their payments have been delayed. These people are getting nothing and are being sacrificed on the altar of a political promise not to cut welfare. However, it has been cut and the lives of those affected have been devastated. These are an unorganised silent group, but I know they come to the clinics of all parties. Social welfare queries and delays in the social welfare system are one of the big issues for everybody meeting constituents.

Appeals to the social welfare appeals office always took a long time, but improvements had begun to take place. However, those improvements now seem to have disappeared. One thing I can say about the social welfare appeals office is that it is independent and is not dependent on the whims of the Minister, Deputy Burton, or the Government. It seems to be making decisions strictly in accordance with the legislation, which is what it should do, but the Department of Social Protection is not doing the same. I have seen several examples of this in my constituency office. It is disgraceful the way the welfare system is being run.

The Department mantra is "we did not cut welfare", but it did. It cut the household benefits package, affecting the most vulnerable people in society. The fuel allowance has also been cut. People must be particularly vulnerable to get those allowances. A couple was on to me just before I came to the House to speak and told me they have just ¤120 a week pension between the two of them. I doubt they will get the fuel allowance as I believe the limit is ¤100. Even if they did qualify for the fuel allowance, they would be affected, because the Minister has reduced the season for fuel allowance by a number of weeks. That is a significant cut in the income of such people over the year. People who save up to buy a tank of oil have been hit particularly hard, because they depend on saving that allowance up to have a lump sum to enable them buy oil. Instead of making such cuts, the Department should be honest with the people and tell them that the country is struggling and we need to cut our cloth to meet our measure.

Fianna Fáil did that when in office, although nobody liked doing it.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

We are doing it too.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Nobody liked making cuts, but we did it in a fair way

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

It is on the record I voted for that.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

We are not denying that.

Photo of Terry BrennanTerry Brennan (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Senator Byrne, without interruption.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

What is happening is that the Government parties are saying there were no cuts.

Photo of Marie MoloneyMarie Moloney (Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

We said there are no cuts to core payments.

Photo of Terry BrennanTerry Brennan (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Senator Byrne, without interruption, le bhur dtoil.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

There is no legal, political or any other definition of a core payment. Deputy Burton is not able to give such a definition when questioned. However, I can tell the House that for an elderly lady in Kells who is saving up for a tank of oil, the fuel allowance is very much a core payment. The Minister would be better off being straight and honest with the people. It would be better for her to say that the Department was cutting tens of thousands of people off from welfare entirely, that it was cutting their payments to zero, at the altar of political expediency. That is the honest truth of what is happening.

At the election, the promise was "Cross our hearts, hope to die, we will not cut child benefit ", because every little hurts. That was the priority then that was to be advertised in the papers. Now we have leaks about what is to happen and these are frightening families all over Ireland. This is not a question of welfare policy or money, but a question of political honesty and integrity. The Government parties were prepared to make these promises to vulnerable people who were struggling, and then at the altar of political convenience say "Sorry, we cannot do it". The programme the Government is following is the exact same programme Fianna Fáil brought in with the IMF before the election. The projections are exactly the same. The Labour Party had the figures at the time, but it just went out and lied to the people.

Photo of Aideen HaydenAideen Hayden (Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I would like to remind Senator Byrne that the reason we have a creaking social welfare system in this country - it is like the layers of an onion - is because Fianna Fáil, in government for the guts of 15 years, made an absolute mess of it. I welcome the Minister to the House.

I would like to address the issue of rent supplement. I want to give a sharp warning to Government against imposing any further cuts to rent supplement payments in the forthcoming budget. The cuts to the rent supplement imposed last year have left vulnerable people in grave situations. I do not exaggerate here, but a cohort of people has been completely pushed out of the housing market and is now homeless as a direct consequence of the rent supplement cuts last year. Others have been left at high risk of becoming homeless and unless they are protected in the forthcoming budget I foresee a significant increase in the problem of homelessness.

We have a rental market in which there continues to be strong demand. Last year in this House, the Minister for Social Protection expressed her concern about the impact of rent supplement on rents and argued that rent supplements were keeping rents artificially high. However, the fact is that in urban areas in particular, rents are rising. We have a situation where people who have been locked out of access to mortgages and are not in a position to house themselves privately are looking to the private rental sector for accommodation. On top of that, because of the cuts to rent supplement, we have a growing number of people on rent supplement who are unable to find anything approaching good quality accommodation in the rental market. In my own area of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, the rent supplement limits are simply unrealistic compared to market rates. The market rent in my area for bedsit accommodation is ¤674 but the rent supplement limit is ¤475. As a result of this, people are dipping into scarce social welfare payments in order to make top ups to put a roof over their heads. Realism must be brought to bear on this situation.

Threshold, the national housing organisation, has observed the low affordability of rental properties in Cork and a recent survey conducted by that organisation found that less than 10% of landlords with rental accommodation were accepting tenants at the lower rent supplement limits. There has been a culture of cuts and reducing rent supplement limits over the past number of years, not just by this Government, but the previous Administration also. In fact, the last Government introduced severe cuts to the rent supplement budget and as a result, many people are now confined to sub-standard bedsit accommodation.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The budget has been cut further by the current Government and the limits are now below market rents.

Photo of Aideen HaydenAideen Hayden (Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I fully accept that the limits were cut further by this Government and I argued against those cuts last year and will continue to do so.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Senator. In fact, I agree with every point she has made.

Photo of Aideen HaydenAideen Hayden (Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

However, the real cuts to the rent supplement budget were made by Senator Byrne's party in government. That is the bottom line and there is no point in crying crocodile tears about it now.

I congratulate this Government for agreeing to transfer the rent supplement payment to local authorities and I urge the Minister for Social Protection to ensure this is done as soon as possible. Rent supplement is a housing payment, not an income support and it should not be treated as such. The sooner it is in the hands of the local authorities, the better and there is no better woman than Deputy Joan Burton to do that.

I urge the Minister to ensure there are no further cuts to the rent supplement budget next year because it is not realistic in the current housing market. I ask her to review the reductions that were made last year, particularly regarding their impact on single people, one-parent families and parents with part-time access to their children, who are particularly disadvantaged by the housing market. I also ask her to review the rental limits on a geographical basis because there are certain areas where the limits are having a very serious impact. Finally, I ask once again that she transfer the payment of rent supplements to the local authorities as a matter of urgency.

Photo of Kathryn ReillyKathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Perry, to the House and regret that the Minister for Social Protection had to leave as there are a number of issues I wished to bring to her attention. I have called for a debate on youth unemployment in this House and was hoping to address that issue with her today. The Minister mentioned earlier that there are between 70 and 80 programmes under the aegis of her Department but I will only be able to refer to a number of these in the limited time available to me. In her speech the Minister referred to the Irish Presidency of the European Union and her plans to advance the EU youth guarantee. In the last week, however, the financial transaction tax has been linked by the Austrian and French Governments to the proposed EU youth guarantee, which raises a lot of concerns, given that the Irish Government has said it will not sign up to the proposed financial transaction tax. I am concerned about where the EU youth guarantee will go, especially in the context of our very high youth unemployment rate, if it is linked to the financial transaction tax.

The Minister also referred to community employment, CE, schemes in her speech. Yesterday, I met members of the troika, with whom I raised the issue of youth unemployment. They told me that they had encouraged the Government to look into measures to tackle unemployment and long-term unemployment in particular. They said they encouraged the Government to provide services around upskilling and training, especially for those who were previously employed the construction sector. In that context, the community employment schemes have massive potential. The original purpose of the CE schemes was to counteract the drift into long-term unemployment. They were targeted at those who are over 25 and were focused on the older, low-skilled job seeker. Perhaps something could be done to include those under 25 in the schemes now, given that we have so many young unemployed people, many of whom have been on the live register for long periods of time. What can be done to modernise the CE schemes to include young people and to make them relevant to them? The CE schemes could provide them with the skills, training and experience they need while also enabling them to enhance their communities.

My party has raised the issue of poverty-proofing on numerous occasions. More must be done to make sure that all our legislation is poverty-proofed and that measures taken by Government do not disproportionately affect those on low and middle incomes. We must ensure that cuts and tax increases are not driving people further into poverty. During the debate on the Local Government (Household Charge) Bill, we proposed an amendment based on the criteria used by the ESRI to measure poverty, so that we can know that measures being implemented through legislation are not pushing people further into poverty. I await the Minister's response on that issue when she returns to the House.

The Minister also made reference to the domiciliary care allowance in her speech and to the fact that it is currently under review. I have questions regarding the criteria used to assess eligibility for this allowance, and specifically the requirement that the child needs "care and attention and/or supervision substantially in excess of another child of the same age". I am not sure if other Senators have had this experience, but I have had many people contact me who have applied for a domiciliary care allowance, whose child does need more care and supervision than other children of the same age, but they are hitting a brick wall and are being refused the allowance. Is it the case that the eligibility criteria are being examined as part of the review? The qualification criteria seem to be especially stringent and many families who are caring for children are very frustrated. The social protection system is supposed to help the most vulnerable in our society. If it is not helping them, what is the point of it? In that context, I ask that the Minister provide more details on the review and I look forward to her response on her return.

Photo of Michael MullinsMichael Mullins (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Perry to the House and I pay tribute to the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, for the work she is doing in her Department. Most Senators would agree that she is a reforming Minister and that she is trying very hard to streamline the dysfunctional system she inherited. That system certainly contributed to Fianna Fáil retaining power for two terms.

We all want to see a situation where the social welfare budget of ¤20.5 billion is targeted at the most disadvantaged in our society. We all know that there are very serious abuses within the social welfare system. Many of them have been tackled already but many have yet to be tackled. I hope that whatever savings are made in that regard will offset whatever reductions are necessary in the 2013 budget.

Senators have raised a number of important issues already but we must recognise the fantastic work that is being done within the community employment schemes.

The financial review of community employment schemes was a job well done. It proved the schemes worked and that there were opportunities for savings within the system. There are 23,500 places in the system, including 1,400 for supervisors. The schemes are providing fantastic services to local communities. They are supporting social inclusion and tackling educational disadvantage in communities.

There has been much debate on the issue of child benefit and whether we should retain the universal payment system or have targeted payments to the disadvantaged. We need further debate and discussion on that. Not everyone, particularly the very wealthy, should receive child benefit. The taxation system may be the way to address the issue.

The Minister made passing reference to the free travel pass. There is considerable abuse of this system throughout the country. The issue needs to be addressed. There should be a modest charge on the travel pass. Holders of the pass might, possibly, have to register every year to confirm their entitlement. There is anecdotal evidence that the system is being abused hand over fist, and we need to address this.

I met an employer last week who until a few weeks ago had been employing 18 people. The banks pulled the plug on his business because they would not lend him ¤150,000, despite the fact that he had orders worth ¤1 million to take him up to Christmas. He laid his staff off. They signed on and will receive redundancy payment. He and his fellow-director, however, have no income and are not entitled to any State benefit. That is not right and it must be addressed. I urge the Minister to look at this situation and to put in place a system whereby self-employed people can contribute and have something to fall back on if they go out of business.

I join with colleagues in appealing to the Minister not to carry out the proposal to place the burden of sick pay on small businesses that are already stretched. Many of them will go to the wall if we impose that additional cost on them.

I agree with Senator Hayden regarding rent supplement. It should not be cut further. I meet people in my clinics who are now living in substandard accommodation because the rent supplement has been cut. The sooner local authorities take responsibility for the rent supplement and the whole area of local authority housing is examined, the better.

The issue of fuel poverty has been raised. It is a particular problem for elderly people who are living on the old age pension. If we can make savings elsewhere the issue of fuel poverty should be addressed. Additional resources should be made available for the fuel scheme and it should be targeted at elderly people living alone.

I agree with Senator Byrne that the appeals procedure for disability and invalidity benefits takes too long. The Minister must examine the applications and appeals systems. It is not acceptable that people should have to wait six, nine or 12 months for a decision on their application for benefit.

I wish the Minister, Deputy Burton, well. She has a difficult task and a huge budget. We all support her in her efforts to put in place a system that targets the underprivileged and we want to see abuses of the system eliminated, as a matter of urgency.

Photo of Trevor Ó ClochartaighTrevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Cuirim céad fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Táim an-sásta go bhfuil mé ag fáil deis labhairt ar an ábhar fíor-thábhachtach seo.

Tá go leor ábhar i gceist leis an rannóg áirithe seo agus go leor ábhar go bhféadfaimid a phlé, ach díreoidh mé ar chuid acu sin.

Táthar ag glacadh leis go gcaithfear gearradh siar a dhéanamh ar an Roinn Coimirce Sóisíalaí. An bun-difríocht a bhéadh idir Sinn Féin agus na páirtithe eile ná nach nglacaimid-ne leis gur chóir go mbéadh sin a tarlu. Dár le Sinn Féin, tá sin ag tarlú mar gheall ar na fiacha baincéireachta atá orainn, mar go bhfuilimid ag íoc ar ais le lucht baincéireachta agus as na bannaí nár thugamar aon barrántas orthu, agus nach ndeachamar i ngleic leis an bhfadhb sin.

It is taken as a fait accompli that there will be cutbacks in the Department of Social Protection. Sinn Féin does not, necessarily, concur with that view. Our fundamental economic model is different from that of the Government and Fianna Fáil. The austerity budgets should not have been brought in as they were. Unguaranteed bondholders should not have been paid back, but that is a wider debate.

That debate does, however, relate to social welfare and is specific to some of our social welfare payments. The one thing we know about social welfare recipients is that they spend most of the money they have in their local economy. Every penny is used and spent locally. Cutbacks in social welfare have a substantial multiplier effect on local shops and businesses.

The Government's fundamental economic model, under the aegis of the troika, is the wrong one. We should be stimulating growth by creating employment, taking more people off the live register and, therefore, reducing social welfare payments. That can be done, as shown in the jobs proposal Sinn Féin has put forward which I hope Senators will read over the weekend. We need to create jobs to take people out of the social welfare scenario.

We also need to tax wealth. Sinn Féin brought forward proposals to cap Civil Service salaries of over ¤100,000 and to introduce a wealth tax of 1% and a third income tax band of 48% which would generate revenue that would alleviate the proposed cutbacks.

Kite flying by Ministers about changes to social welfare payments is also detrimental.

I agree with what Senators Hayden and Mullins said about some areas of social protection. The basic tenet of the argument, however, is that if one buys into the model of austerity and cutbacks one must cut back social protection measures.

In last year's budget, lone parents were given a very raw deal by the Minister who introduced severe cutbacks. I call on the Minister to reverse those cutbacks in the forthcoming budget. Budget 2012 removed many of the protections that were, rightly, put in place to help lone parents with the costs associated with returning to work. It reintroduced poverty traps and put in place obstacles to work, despite the rhetoric from the Government that the opposite was its objective. We were making it easier for lone parents to stay at home rather than continue in employment. Many of the groups who lobbied public representatives testified to this. I must praise Single Parents Actively Raising Kids, SPARK, who did very good lobbying on this issue. I am sure they will be lobbying again in the run-up to this year's budget.

Last year we saw cuts, including a drop in rent allowance, children's allowance for families with more than three children and reductions in back-to-school and fuel allowances. The one-parent family allowance was also removed from people on community employment schemes. I call on the Minister to look into the purse and reverse those cuts, in particular.

Senator Hayden raised the issue of homelessness. I concur with most of what she said. She is perfectly right. The cuts to rent supplement caused huge strife throughout the country. They did not reflect what was happening in the market. The fundamental model used to calculate the rent supplement was wrong. It was based on an average rent in an area and did not reflect what people were actually paying. In Galway city, for example, there were caps on rent supplement of ¤700 for a family, while most people were paying ¤800 or ¤850. People were forced to move out of their homes and communities and the cut caused considerable upheaval. I ask the Minister to revisit this matter.

The fundamental issue is that we are too reliant on private rented accommodation and we are paying too much for it.

The State should be providing more accommodation and I agree that it should be under local authority aegis. We have been talking about this for the past year and I do not see any proposals coming forward from the Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan, on the issue in the interim. I would hope to see them as a matter of urgency. Large numbers of people are on the housing lists. This issue is probably one of the most common to be raised at all our local offices as people try to get their names on the council housing or transfer lists. It is obvious there is a dearth of housing stock and this matter needs to be addressed.

The issue of poverty which was raised by Senator Reilly is very important. We should examine every Bill that comes through these Houses to ensure it is poverty-proofed. I suggest the EU model which we debated here at some length during the year. The stories we have heard this week about people having their "cornflakes day" once a week because they cannot afford a full meal, are scandalous. I agree that the cuts in fuel and other allowances should be reversed.

Tá neart eile gur mhaith linn a rá faoin ábhar seo, ach tá mé cinnte go mbeidh lá eile ag an bPaorach.

Photo of Paul BradfordPaul Bradford (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

It is becoming an annual ritual to have a debate on social welfare policy. Even though the Department has been renamed the Department of Social Protection the traditionalists among us still regard it as the Department of Social Welfare.

The Minister has a very difficult job in advance of the budget. I acknowledge her efforts to date in examining a range of options in an attempt to produce realistic and viable savings in the various departmental schemes. Her annual budget is more than ¤20 billion which is a very large sum of money, more than ¤20,000 million. It is a question of how to put that money to best use to provide the social security net needed by the elderly, children, unemployed and disabled people while at the same time attempting to use as much of that money as possible to get people back to work. The Department has a variety of schemes of assistance for the elderly, the unemployed and those on invalidity pensions. The debate on the social welfare budget usually happens over one or two days but this House needs to debate with the Minister more frequently on how social welfare resources are allocated.

In advance of the current Government's first budget one year ago, there was a view that the budget would be exceptionally tough with a broad spectrum of cuts across all Departments. That did not happen and perhaps we are playing catch-up now in order to deal with some of the issues we did not seem to deal with last year. My suggestion at the time - which may have been simplistic but it had certain financial merits - was that rather than removing some schemes and taking 20% from some payments and 5% from other payments, it might be better to have a modest 2% to 4% cut across all the payments. It would have been very straightforward from an administrative point of view. It might not have been entirely fair but then nothing in politics or in life is ever fair. However, such a measure would have produced the savings of ¤500 million to ¤700 million required and in a balanced fashion. Instead, we attempted to target a smaller number of payments and a smaller number of sectors. I would like to discuss this with the Minister when she returns to the House.

I brought a group to the Dáil Visitors Gallery a few days ago. The Minister, Deputy Burton, was responding to questions on disability and disability payments. She stated that approximately 250,000 people are in receipt of either a disability, invalidity or injury benefit. These people are deemed by the Department to be in some way injured, disabled or otherwise unfit for work. I really wonder how accurate is that figure. If 250,000 people are unfit for work through injury or sickness, our streets should be full of people in wheelchairs and on crutches. This needs profound investigation. It may be that some people who are perhaps unable to work are in the wrong scheme. Others may become trapped in what becomes a vicious cycle of being injured at work or falling ill, signing on for injury benefit, suddenly getting disability benefit and ending up on an invalidity pension. We must ask whether we truly believe that 250,000 people in this country are unfit for work, disabled, injured or sick, in some fashion. I think the answer will be "No". We must then decide what to do about this situation. We must try to engage with many of these people to see if they can be taken out of the so-called disability cycle and back to productivity.

We had very useful and fruitful discussions in this House with the late former Minister, sadly deceased, Séamus Brennan, a man whom I hold in the highest esteem. He was asked on one occasion how much of the social welfare budget was being claimed - I will not use the word "fraudulently" - because none of us lives in a glasshouse or on the high moral ground. He was asked how much of the budget was being inappropriately claimed. He put forward a figure which he said was only a guesstimate of up to 15% of the budget. If only 10% of the social protection budget is being wrongly or not fully properly claimed - I am being careful with my language - that amounts to ¤2 billion and it is a lot of money. We have a significant job of work in trying to re-engage with the hundreds of thousands of people who are claiming unemployment benefit, sick benefit, injury benefit or invalidity pension. There is a need to encourage as many as possible out of the social protection scheme. If only 10% of the money is being wrongly paid out, that amounts to ¤2 billion and it is money the country cannot afford. I would love to see that money being saved and a substantial portion of it being used to further assist the hundreds of thousands of genuine claimants for child benefit, the old age pension, or whatever.

Talking about a crackdown, fraud and chasing people can be very negative but if we can assure the public that a significant portion of the money saved will be re-invested into the hands and pockets of genuine claimants who really need it, this would help our mission to save money. This is an issue that could be discussed all day but we need to talk about it much more frequently and in a much more open fashion. I do not believe that one quarter of a million people in this country are physically unfit for work. I do not believe that these people are frauds or criminals but rather they are people who have been corralled into a lifestyle by society, by lack of opportunity and by lack of education in some cases. We need to help those people as much as penalise them. Likewise, many of those in receipt of unemployment payments and jobseeker's benefit, need further help. I suggest that schemes such as the family income supplement could be used to give people a little bonus to encourage them to go back to work rather than staying on social welfare. New thinking is required.

I was amused when people thought that the Minister, Deputy Burton, had been given a second division job. In my view she has possibly the most important job in the Government. She is looking after hundreds of thousands of people and a budget of more than ¤20 billion. She needs our support and I look forward to working with her to ensure that the budget is used to the best extent possible.

Debate adjourned.

Photo of Terry BrennanTerry Brennan (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

When is it proposed to sit again?

Photo of Michael MullinsMichael Mullins (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

On Tuesday next at 2.30 p.m.