Noel Coonan (Tipperary North, Fine Gael)
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Question 117: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the position regarding the proposed reforms of the social welfare payments as agreed in the National action plan on social inclusion; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32293/07]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Combating poverty and building an inclusive society are key priorities for the Government. The National Action Plan for Social Inclusion (NAPinclusion), launched in February 2007, and the social inclusion commitments in the National Development Plan were drawn up in consultation with the social partners and after a wide ranging consultation process with other stakeholders. The NAPinclusion adopts a lifecycle stage approach, in line with Towards 2016, with specific, measurable goals set for each group: children; people of working age; older people and people with disabilities; and their communities. It sets out a demanding and detailed programme of action to meet these goals and targets during the period 2007-2016.

The overall goal in the NAPinclusion is to reduce the number of those experiencing consistent poverty to between 2 per cent and 4 per cent by 2012, with the aim of eliminating consistent poverty by 2016. Income support payments are central to achieving this objective. Priority goals in the NAPinclusion relate to income support payments for children, for people of working age and for older people.

Considerable investment has been made in income support for children in recent years. This year alone, the Government provided some €240 million for a range of measures to combat child poverty. These included significant increases in Child Benefit, a new single high rate Qualified Child Allowance, improvements in the Family Income Supplement, the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance and the school meals programme, and higher earnings thresholds for One Parent Family Payments. Improvements in child and family support payments have again been prioritised in the Programme for Government for the coming years.

Children growing up in low income or jobless households are the most vulnerable to poverty. Employment is the best route out of poverty and in line with the NAPinclusion further improvements in support for lone parents are planned. These include a new case management approach to assist them in getting into employment, or to take up training to provide them with better skills, and a new social assistance payment, being developed by my department, to facilitate lone parents achieving financial independence through employment.

The Government is committed to maintaining the basic rates of welfare payments in line with the targets in the NAPinclusion. This can be seen in the level of increase in social welfare expenditure which is up from € 5.7 billion in 1997 to over €15 billion in 2007.

Removing disincentives and barriers to taking up employment are important policy considerations in this regard. A new Social and Economic Participation Programme to be introduced by my Department will focus on active engagement with people that are furthest from the labour market with the objective of supporting 50,000 people including lone parents and long term unemployed people over the next few years. People with disabilities are a particular priority and the immediate objective, working with FAS and other relevant agencies, is to have an additional 7,000 people with a disability who do not have difficulty in retaining a job, in employment by 2010.

Support for carers and increasing the State Pension rate are ongoing priorities for the Government in implementing the NAPinclusion. Further improvements in eligibility for the Carers Allowance are planned in the Programme for Government. The basic State Pension is now €200 a week and the Government is committed to increasing it further to €300 over the next few years.

The NAPinclusion 2007 -2016 builds on the considerable progress achieved in the past decade in tackling poverty and reducing the number of people experiencing material deprivation in Ireland. Sustained investment by the Government in anti-poverty measures is yielding significant results. The latest results from the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions, released last week, indicate that the rate of consistent poverty in the population in 2006 was 6.5 per cent having reduced from 8.2% in 2003. Most notably the rate of consistent poverty among older people has come down to 2.2% in 2006. The first annual Social Inclusion Report 2006-2007 prepared by the Office for Social Inclusion of my department and published in mid November shows that this progress is continuing and that the social inclusion targets are on track.

My plan, in working with Government to deliver the programme over the coming years, is to build on the significant and visible progress already made in reducing poverty and material deprivation and to deliver real improvements in living standards and well-being for the most vulnerable in our society.