Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 57: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if he has received a copy of the NESC report, The Developmental Welfare State; his views on its conclusion that addressing Ireland's social problems has not been met with the same vigour as addressing economic issues over the past 20 years; his further views on whether many of Ireland's social problems are worsening despite economic success; the efforts he is making to address this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23017/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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The National Economic and Social Council was established to consider strategic issues relating to the efficient development of the economy, the achievement of social justice and the development of a strategic framework for the conduct of relations and negotiation of agreements between the Government and the social partners. The council is chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach and contains representatives of trade unions, employers, farmers' organisations, NGOs, key Government Departments and independent experts. The Secretary General of my Department is a member of the council and the NESC in its acknowledgements paid particular tribute to the contribution of my Department to the drafting of the report.

The NESC's report, entitled The Developmental Welfare State, examines the evolution of the Irish welfare state, considers the serious social deficits that remain despite Ireland's economic progress and proposes a framework in which these deficits might be addressed, necessarily over an extended period. As with many NESC reports in the past, it addresses major issues of strategic importance as a contribution to debate on those issues. I envisage that the report will bring a similar level of debate to the social policy area as it has to economic development.

In the shorter term, the report will inform the forthcoming discussions that will feed into the NESC's next strategy statement which may in turn influence thinking on a successor social partnership agreement to Sustaining Progress. NESC identifies as a key challenge the need for Ireland to devise a system of social protection in its widest sense rather than focusing on social welfare payments. NESC suggests that the welfare system should be seen as consisting of three overlapping elements: tax and welfare transfers, the provision of services; initiatives, such as the national disability strategy, which are more activist in addressing social problems.

The report makes a number of observations about income supports and, in particular, addresses the need to support people in moving back to employment while providing adequate support for those who cannot. While many of the recommendations in this regard resonate with efforts to make the social welfare system more active since the early 1990s, the NESC model allows these efforts to be seen in a more integrated fashion and strengthens the arguments for intensifying them.

The term "activist measures" encompasses a range of initiatives, including active labour market programmes such as the back to work allowance, the "special projects" developed and supported by the Department's social and family support service, programmes to tackle educational disadvantage, such as the school completion, school meals and back to education programmes, and locally driven projects that seek to tackle various aspects of social exclusion.

I have no doubt that the NESC report will be influential in the coming years in the development of policy relating to social welfare and social development in general.