asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he has any plans to devise a scheme to allow the wife of a man drawing social assistance or other entitlement to receive, as of right, payment of 50 per cent of that entitlement where it is certified as being necessary to the wife and children by a qualified social worker or such other qualified person.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Welfare Code.
22.
I already have power under existing legislation to deal with the eventuality envisaged by the Deputy. The relevant statutory regulations allow me, where I am satisfied that the circumstances so warrant, to appoint a person other than the claimant to receive and to deal with on behalf of the claimant, the portion of any social welfare payment which is payable in respect of adult and child dependants. In many cases this can represent more than 50 per cent of the total entitlement. Representations from a social worker or other suitably qualified person would, of course, be of considerable value in enabling me to decide whether I should exercise this power in any particular case.
In the light of the foregoing, I do not think that any new provisions are called for in relation to this matter.
23.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he is aware of the serious discriminations against women in the social welfare code; if he will identify those areas of discrimination which can be ended (i) by short term action and (ii) by long term action; the nature of such action; and if he will make a general policy statement on discrimination within the area of social security generally.
As the Deputy is aware some of the wide range of social welfare services administered by my Department are available only to women, others are available to men and women on equal terms and in a few women are treated less favourably than men. Generally speaking married women are paid unemployment benefit, disability benefit and invalidity pension at a rate lower than that payable to a single man or a single woman. In addition, the duration of payment of unemployment benefit is limited to 156 days as compared with the 390 days for which it is ordinarily payable. In the case of unemployment assistance a single woman or a widow is required to have either a dependant or 52 employment contributions in the preceding four contribution years before she can qualify for unemployment assistance. A married woman applicant must not be dependent on her husband and must have at least one dependant.
Finally, single women and widows cannot qualify for the housekeeping allowance payable with disability benefit, unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance and invalidity pension to single men and widowers with dependant children.
As the Deputy is also no doubt aware very considerable progress has been made in the elimination of discrimination against women in the social welfare code since the present Government came into office and it is my hope to be able to eliminate all discrimination in this field in due course, but I regret that I am unable to commit myself to a specific timetable in regard to the elimination of all or any of the remaining instances of discrimination. In case there should be any misunderstanding in the matter I want to state here, quite unequivocally, that I do not regard discrimination in the social welfare code as in any way acceptable or defensible. I believe that all such discrimination should be removed and that everything possible should be done to make the social welfare system just and equitable in its application.
It was in that spirit that the recommendations of the Commission on the Status of Women were welcomed and accepted and that work was commenced on their implementation. Everything that has been done over the past three-and-a-half years points to the Government's determination to make real progress in these matters.
I want to see the progress that has been made continued until all elements of discrimination disappear from our social welfare code but in saying so I have to be realistic and responsible in my approach and point out that efforts to make further progress in this field must have regard to the economic circumstances of the country. In other words, the pace of progress in this area is quite simply dependent on the availability of the necessary resources. Unless there is a clear acceptance by the whole community of the cost implications of these most desirable advances in our social welfare provisions it will not be possible to make them.
I thank the parliamentary Secretary for the comprehensive reply. He is, of course, aware of the very serious unemployment situation which exists at the moment and that, in the context of that unemployment situation, severe hardship has been caused to young single women. Can the Parliamentary Secretary say when that very serious discrimination will be removed from the social welfare code?
I accept that unemployment difficulties exist at the moment. I think it is necessary to remind the Deputy that unfortunately unemployment is not a new feature of our national life. Unemployment has been in existence here since the foundation of the State, and, in fact, at the time that these provisions that discriminated against women were introduced by Fianna Fáil, there was a very large number of unemployed. Those circumstances have not changed. What has changed is that out of 15 recommendations in the field of social welfare made by the Commission on the Status of Women, 11 have been acted upon over the last three-and-a-half years by this Government.
I accept that the circumstances have changed in the context of unemployment when one considers that the Government have been in power now for almost four years and the present figures are 110,000 officially unemployed and 40,000 unofficially unemployed. The Parliamentary Secretary will agree that this serious discrimination against women should be ended as a matter of urgency. Can he give any hope in that regard?
As I stated in my original reply to the Deputy, I find it neither defensible nor acceptable, and so I am not trying to defend it. However, the Deputy has mentioned 110,000 unemployed at the moment, but we must recognise the fact that at the time this element of discrimination against women was introduced by Fianna Fáil there were approximately 80,000 unemployed and 30,000 emigrating per year because they could not find employment here. That is approximately equivalent to the 110,000 that the Deputy spoke about a few months ago. I have responsibility for trying to end discrimination against women. This Government have shown their earnestness on this commitment by the fact that they have dealt with 11 out of the 15 points that were identified by the Commission on the Status of Women. I think it is fair to say that what we have been trying to do over the last three-and-a-half years is to eliminate discrimination in all aspects of our national life, and in social welfare in this instance in particular that was introduced by Fianna Fáil.
May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary, in view of the very selective use of statistics, is it not a fact that before this Government came into office emigration had stopped; there was net immigration, and the unemployment figure stood at 65,000?
My information——
Give the facts.
I think the fact is that emigration did stop some time in the middle sixties, but as far as unemployment is concerned the figure on the live register in January, 1973, was 76,000. The most important feature of that was that, after such a long period of Fianna Fáil rule, that was an acceptable level of unemployment. Seven per cent was acceptable and the people, unfortunately, under Fianna Fáil had been conditioned to accept it at that level.
Accepting the Parliamentary Secretary's figure of 76,000, why then in the second last supplementary did he use the selective figures of 80,000 unemployed and 30,000 emigrating? Is he not postulating a situation——
I was not being selective. Deputy Andrews had quoted the figure of 110,000 unemployed and used this as an extra reason why discrimination in the area of unemployment assistance should be used. I only pointed out that at the time that this discrimination was introduced, deliberately introduced and passed in this House by Fianna Fáil, the figure for unemployed people was approximately 80,000 and at the time they passed this legislation 30,000 to 40,000 people were emigrating. Therefore, I was only pointing out that his argument in that respect did not bear much scrutiny.
In relation to the selective use of figures by the Parliamentary Secretary, he will agree that when that legislation was introduced, the social attitudes did not encourage women to go to work and in those circumstances it was reasonable to introduce the legislation then. However, such attitudes have changed now. It now appears that since the National Coalition's advent to office the figures the Parliamentary Secretary quoted of 76,000 on the live register when Fianna Fáil left office have now jumped to 110,000. The Parliamentary Secretary must be proud of the fact that the National Coalition have now placed an additional 40,000 people on the unemployment list, officially.
No. Undoubtedly, everybody on this side of the House is seriously concerned about the issue of unemployment. We had a general election in 1973 and in January of that year the number of people on the live register was 76,000 but at that time there was practically full employment in the rest of Europe and we had what was then an acceptable figure of 7 per cent unemployed. Our people were so accustomed to unemployment that they were conditioned into finding that figure of 7 per cent as an acceptable one when the rest of Europe was enjoying full employment.
It is just 25,000 less than when the last Coalition left office.
In regard to social attitudes, the only difference I find in Fianna Fáil is that they are in Opposition now.
The Parliamentary Secretary is talking like a man who will be over here any day now.