I would like to thank the House for the way in which they have contributed, in the main, to the debate on the Estimate for the Department of Social Welfare. It is, as I pointed out in my opening statement to the House, the first opportunity we have had of discussing the Estimate for that Department since the change of Government. I tried, in presenting the Estimate, to range over many aspects of social welfare and to try to envisage what the development of the Department of Social Welfare should be in the best interests of the people who finance the Department, as they do every other Government Department.
The Department of Social Welfare, as I said in my opening remarks, without exception, deal directly with more of our citizens than any other Department and, therefore, their development, effectiveness and efficiency mean more to the ordinary people than some other Departments. I said I was going to throw out certain thoughts about the development of the Department. I mentioned that in doing that I would be taking something of a political risk. At least one political correspondent misunderstood that. He thought I was getting into an ideological argument. I had not that in mind when I mentioned the question of political risk. I meant by political risk that I was raising issues; that, even with the full agreement of the House and the financial resources immediately available, all these developments could not take place over-night. They would have to evolve and a very considerable amount of planning, discussion and consultation would be required before the development of the Department which I envisaged could take place. If those things were now a reality, before they could be brought into being a considerable amount of time would have to pass. The risk I referred to was one of being told on next year's Estimate, or possibly long before that, that I had committed myself to doing certain things and they had not as yet been achieved.
I was reminded very much tonight, listening to Deputy Wyse, of the risk I was taking in raising some of these issues. He was very forceful in his condemnation of the Department, of me and of the Government in general for not having achieved all the reforms possible in social welfare over the last 15 months although the social injustices that remain in the country took quite a considerable time to build up. That was the risk I was referring to and I suppose that is a risk I will have to run.
In general I thought it was quite a good discussion. I would like to pay tribute to Deputy Faulkner in particular for his contribution to the discussion. One of the areas I dealt with in my opening remarks was the question of poverty. When we speak of this subject we sometimes wonder why we should speak about it so forcefully. Why should we speak about it so often and why should we devote so much of our time and attention to this problem? I think it is necessary to spend so much time on it and to repeat the statements I have made in the past—and will make in the future—on the subject because the vast majority of people, not only the Members of the House but the general public, have not got the insight into this problem that Deputy Faulkner obviously has. I was somewhat surprised at the insight he showed in his contribution on that particular aspect of my speech.
Although it has been claimed that between 20 to 24 per cent of our people are living in poverty, that figure is not believed by the vast majority of the people. I do not think it is believed by a number of Deputies. People have a mental blockage; the facts are so unpleasant and the charges against the rest of us in this society are so serious that I am afraid a lot of us do not want to acknowledge that this problem is of the magnitude it is.
I was both pleased and encouraged by Deputy Faulkner's contribution. He was concerned that in the programme to discover and combat poverty those involved in the committee set up for the purpose of investigating the problem would be investigating it at a remove. He said that in London social workers there had gone and lived in the circumtances surrounding poverty for a certain period in order to try to get a better appreciation of the difficulties experienced and the despair suffered by those born and bred and reared in poverty. He made the very telling point that it is not possible for us who are not condemned to live in these circumstances and see our children having to live in them, without any hope of relief, to fully understand the hopelessness and the despair these people must suffer. Deputy Faulkner made a very valid point and very properly brought this problem to the attention of the House.
When social workers go in with the best intention of doing good and getting a proper appreciation of the circumstances they know that they can walk out at any time they like. Any of us can do that. Living in such circumstances is for us a temporary experience. It is a voluntary exercise on our part and we simply cannot get, with the best will in the world, a proper insight into the real problem. I was very glad that Deputy Faulkner made this point. This is an aspect I am sure, that the committee will take into consideration in their investigation. Indeed, very early on in their deliberations the committee agreed that no solution could be imposed unless the people themselves were involved from the beginning right through in solving this problem. Otherwise no solution would be successful. Again, I thank Deputy Faulkner for that particular part of his contribution.
A number of issues were raised in the course of the debate. Deputy Wyse spoke about the lack of democracy we were showing in that he made certain suggestions in regard to social welfare on the Bill discussed here some two weeks ago and they were totally disregarded by me in my introductory speech on the Estimate for the Department of Social Welfare. There may be some confusion in Deputy Wyse's mind on this because the Social Welfare Bill was designed simply to make provision for the implementation of the budget and the Estimate before the House does not take into account moneys provided in that Bill.
Deputy Wyse also said he was quite convinced that the Estimate speech was ready some two or three weeks ago and that we knew all these things at that time. In fact the Estimate speech was not finished until quite late the night before I delivered it here. Since Deputy Wyse has given me this opportunity I should like publicly now to express my sincere thanks to and appreciation of the staff of the Department who were required to work late into the night to ensure Deputies would have available to them copies of the speech while it was in fact being delivered here. I can assure Deputy Wyse it was not ready two or three weeks ago and I am also sure that many members of the staff in the Department only wish it had been because that would have saved them a great deal of trouble.
I do not know if many Deputies have a full appreciation of the difficulties experienced in the Department simply because members of the public will not give sufficient information when they make claims. I am not for one moment suggesting there are not delays. Deputy Geoghegan, a former Parliamentary Secretary in the Department, pointed out a short while ago, and rightly so, that the vast majority of the claims submitted—the volume is considerable—are dealt with quickly and efficiently. There are delays, but nobody goes to his local TD or councillor if his claim has been dealt with properly and quickly. People only go when there is delay. The ones public representatives hear about are the ones that go wrong, not the vast majority that go right.
I have been concerned about this since I went into the Department and any time a complaint reaches my office, be it from a TD, a councillor or a member of the public, about what would seem to be undue delay I have asked for an investigation to be made and a report submitted to me as to why the delay occurred. I want to put it on the record now that, out of every ten complaints I receive, eight have been directly attributable to the claimants. Not only have we have been given wrong numbers, which is a very easy thing to do, but I have come across cases where people have submitted wrong names. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it is true. People have applied giving a wrong name. I am not talking about "Mary Jane" or "Mary Anne". I am talking about a wrong surname. If the claim does not go through in the normal time a Deputy is contacted. The only cases Deputies hear about are the ones that go wrong.
I am not saying that to indicate in any way that I and the officials in the Department are satisfied or happy with the present situation. Quite frankly, I am not happy about it. It is true, as has been stated here during the course of the debate, that, if something goes wrong with a claim for social welfare, it can inflict severe hardship on an individual or, indeed, on a whole family. So long as there is one delay which can inflict that kind of hardship, we would not be justified in allowing that situation to continue.
I have wondered about this for a considerable period of time and I am convinced that, unless a considerable amount of money is spent on modernising the Department of Social Welfare, it will not be possible to eliminate delays. The volume of new claims coming into the Department was estimated, approximately 12 months ago, at over 10,000 per week. With the introduction of new schemes such as the lowering of pension age, or the lowering of the means test limit, the work of the Department is increased very substantially.
I pointed out in my opening remarks on this Estimate that I was far from satisfied with the working conditions of the staff of the Department of Social Welfare. They are far from ideal and with the advances made—and undoubtedly there have been considerable advances in the last two budgets—the situation is aggravated so far as the working conditions of the staff are concerned. If that goes on it must, inevitably, affect their efficiency. Unless we are prepared to spend a considerable amount of money in modernising our methods of handling claims, we will have to live with that problem for some time to come.
It might be in the best interests of recipients of social welfare to divert money, which possibly could be used to provide new benefits and new schemes, in order to ensure that this standard of efficiency is attained, a standard of efficiency to which our people who are depending on social welfare payments are entitled. I should like to hear a discussion on the merits or demerits of doing that.
A number of issues were raised by Deputies and unfortunately some of them were not too well informed about what actually has been going on in the field of social welfare over the past number of years. We had a statement here tonight by Deputy Hussey to the effect that no new schemes — a categorical statement: no new schemes—had been introduced in social welfare since the introduction of free travel and free electricity. How can we hope to have a discussion in the House on the whole range of social welfare administration and developments when we have an elected Member who is so far removed from the realities of the situation that he will make a statement like that?
I have no objection to Fianna Fáil Deputies pointing out, and rightly pointing out, that considerable advances in many areas were made over the period in which they were responsible for social welfare. Deputy Wyse had a whole litany of things which had not been achieved over the past 15 months, as if these things had developed over the past 15 months only, and no one ever heard of these complaints before. Most of them were due, in fact, to a strict observance by the staff in the Department, and by deciding officers and appeals officers, of legislation framed, introduced and voted through this House by the Fianna Fáil Party with the help of Deputy Wyse.
I appreciate fully, as I have said on a number of occasions, that there is a tremendous amount of scope in the field of social welfare. Without wishing to score political points I think it will be generally acknowledged that over the past 16 years —maybe not that long but undoubtedly over the past eight or ten years —of Fianna Fáil Party Administration, social welfare was the Cinderella and, when the Minister for Finance was formulating his budget, social welfare requirements came very, very low on his list of priorities.
I am not saying that purely politically and I am not speculating on it because the figures are there. We know how much. It is a matter of public record how much money was allocated and it is not a question of no thought having been put into it or no work being done. The same people, exactly the same people, are in the Department of Social Welfare as were there under the Fianna Fáil Government. Therefore, it was not the skill that was lacking or the thought or the know-how. What was lacking was the political will to do these things. Something else that was lacking was the sense of urgency to tackle these problems.
As far as I can gather social welfare did not appear to be a very attractive proposition as far as vote catching was concerned to some Members, obviously the majority, of the Fianna Fáil Party. Everything else is the same in the Department of Social Welfare as it was when Fianna Fáil were in control and the only thing lacking was the political will to tackle these problems. That lack of political will, that lack of activity in this area has built up a vast amount of work to be done in that whole field before we can approach what would be to my mind an acceptable social welfare system for this country.
I tried to outline to some extent what I saw the future holding in the field of social welfare, what I thought should be the developments in that area. I stated that in order to try and stimulate discussion on what are very vital matters to a very large section of our people. The number of our people who have absolutely no social security coverage is considerable. As far as the self-employed are concerned it runs somewhere in the neighbourhood of 31 per cent.
How our social security system is financed is a matter that will have to be looked at very critically. How we spend the money that is now available to us also has to be looked at very critically because when you have the problems that we have and the limited resources that we have we must ensure that those resources are used to relieve the people who are in real need. I was encouraged by the debate, particularly by the contribution of Deputy Faulkner, but I do not think the discussion in this area will end here tonight. Quite a considerable number of people, not Members of this House but people who have shown over the last number of years that they are vitally concerned about some of the social injustices in our society, people who have devoted a considerable amount of their time and undoubted talents with no compensation in a monetary way, will examine certain specific aspects of this whole area of social welfare and social security.
In my view these people have made a very considerable contribution towards whatever progress we have made up to now. I believe that the extent of their contribution has been no way exhausted or realised and that they will continue to contribute to the evolution of our social welfare system. In my view it is necessary not only that we debate these questions in the House but, as elected representatives, that we stimulate discussion outside the House and create an awareness among all our people that this is our concern, our concern as a society, and that it will require our combined efforts to overcome some of the many social injustices which are present in our society. If they are ignored or are not properly tackled, they can do tremendous harm to our society as a whole. That type of discussion has started and it will continue. In my view it will make a very real contribution towards the eventual establishment of a truly comprehensive social security system that will cater for the needs of our people.