It ought to be said at the outset that this is a difficult Social Welfare Bill for any Minister to introduce in the sense that because of the state of our public finances and of the great recession in which we find ourselves, it has not been possible to make some of the financial improvements to the social welfare code that many of us would wish to have made. However, it is difficult for one to sit here and witness the crocodile tears shed by Deputy O'Hanlon for what he refers to as the failure of the Government to make the type of improvements that were made by previous administrations. The Deputy referred specifically to improvements incorporated in the Social Welfare Act, 1982. That Act included some significant changes in the social welfare code but effectively these improvements were the same as those prepared by the previous Coalition prior to the General Election of February 1982.
It must be made clear that the responsibility for the state of the economy, for the current budget deficit, for the massive recession in which we find ourselves and for the gigantic increase in the numbers out of work rests firmly on the shoulders of the Fianna Fáil Administration who were in office between the period 1977 to 1981. We should not mince words in talking about this. The profligate and irresponsible economic policy, if it could be described as such since it was more significant from our point of view of the absence of policy, followed during those years lies at the root of our present difficulties.
Any measures this Government must take in a period of deepening recession and of increasing unemployment are dictated by the failure of that previous Fianna Fáil administration. I have come in here constantly and pleaded with Members not only of the Opposition but of my own party to deal with issues in a constructive way instead of merely trying to score party political points but the fact remains that our present difficulties derive from the failure of the Fianna Fáil administration I have referred to. These difficulties were exacerbated by the failure of the Government who were in office from February 1982 to November 1982.
There is imposed on this Government the duty, in the interest of all of us, of restoring our finances to some sort of sensible order and of tackling the major problems which confront us. We have an absolute duty to ensure that we do not make notional improvements in our social welfare code and produce what can be described at best as happy money — in other words, money improvements which on the surface look real but turn out to be meaningless, either because through Government policy inflation rapidly increases or this country rapidly heads into a state of bankruptcy and our currency becomes worthless. We have a duty to restore economic credulity to Government policy. We also have a duty to ensure that those who are badly affected by the present recession are fully and properly protected. That financial protection must be related to the state of the economy, the public finances and what they can bear.
Deputy O'Hanlon referred to increases over a period of three years in the region of 25 per cent per annum in social welfare payments. The reason for those increases is obvious to anyone following the country's economic progress over the years. Firstly, during the initial period 1977 to 1978 some of the social welfare payments fell behind the rate of inflation.
Not all of these increases commenced in April. It was the practice of the previous Fianna Fáil Government to increase social welfare payments from the beginning of July rather than the beginning of April, so there is nothing new in that practice. The increases, in real terms, did nothing other than maintain the value of social welfare payments.
With reports produced, one can examine present social welfare payments in the context of those made at the start of the seventies and see that with the rate of inflation since then, basically, they maintain living standards. There have been no real improvements, but it is part of the party political argy-bargy of this House for different Governments, parties and Ministers to try to convince the general public, themselves and, indeed, the media, that they are making real increases. There have been innovations, new welfare benefits, a providing for people in different areas who were not formerly protected by the social welfare code; but, in real terms, the rate of payments has not greatly increased in the context of the general economy over and above what people received many years ago.
It is not enough for Members of the Opposition to criticise the Bill before the House and the Minister for not providing all sorts of additional payments for people in different areas, or for curtailing in certain cases social welfare payments, without providing coherent or constructive suggestions as to how the financial savings which are part and parcel of the provisions contained in this Bill can otherwise be attained. This party political point-scoring and nonsensical political approach has been seen here over the years from all sides of the House. It does no credit to the Members. We have now gone beyond the stage where Members can simply criticise legislation which has a financial content, which not merely provides finance to assist people in need but which is financed by the taxpayers. It ill behoves any Member to criticise the effect of such legislation on the recipients without also looking at the position of those who are paying for that legislation. If legislation is part and parcel of Government policy to keep the current budget deficit at a permissible level and if particular aspects of that legislation are open to criticism — in particular aspects which can effect some form of economies — it is not sufficient for any Member to criticise them simpliciter. There is a duty on the public representative to indicate what alternative options are available to the Government of the day. It is no use washing one's hands of the problem, saying “This is an interesting issue. Here is a Minister who might be criticised. We might be able to get at the Government, so we will criticise it. No doubt we will get great press publicity and many people will congratulate us for our criticism.” Negative criticism is a discredited approach which has got this country into its present mess. Constructive criticism, suggesting alternative options, alternative ways of tackling problems, is well worth making and can form the basis for constructive debate and, indeed, the implementation of policy.
I hope that we will not discuss this measure simply in terms of Members on the Government side saying that it is a fine Bill which one ought to support and Members of the Opposition saying that it is a terrible Bill which one ought to oppose, all feeling that they have done their duty. We have a far greater duty than that, and it is in the area of constructive suggestions in the context of constructive policy.
Deputy O'Hanlon said — and I am paraphrasing his remarks — that by making this additional money available for unemployment benefit assistance the Government are giving up on the problem of unemployment. That is a part of the party political battle engaged in in this House, an Abbey Theatre approach to political issues. We make funny comments in the hope that somebody outside the House will give us a round of applause for them. The problem of unemployment faces everyone in this country. It was not tackled credibly by the previous administration who laid the foundation for that problem. Senator O'Donoghue, well before I was involved in party politics, said that unemployment would be solved by him and would no longer exist. The Fianna Fáil administration, during the period 1977 to 1981, laid the foundations for an unemployment problem of a nature not experienced here during my lifetime.
This problem is so serious that it will not be solved overnight and for Members to suggest that it will is being totally unrealistic and irresponsible. The problem has a major structural base to which the party opposite contributed, and they could offer no credible policy for tackling it. In the Estimates published prior to the November election, Fianna Fáil provided during the course of 1983 for an unemployment rate of 177,000, basing the financial allocation for the Department of Social Welfare on that number. Deputy O'Hanlon criticised the Minister for providing additional funds for unemployment benefit and allowances. When that Estimate was fixed, we had reached in 1982 the rate anticipated for 1983. Deputy O'Hanlon referred to the fact that there are now 188,000 on the live register, as it is called. There are 10,000 more in March of 1983 than the Fianna Fáil Government estimated would be the overall figure for the entire year of 1983.
This Government, in existence since November 1982, have not created 188,000 unemployed. The suggestion implicit in some of Deputy O'Hanlon's remarks that that was the case is another illustration of the nonsensical arguments engaged in in this House. We need a constructive approach. It is recognised by everybody outside this House which party laid the foundations, by their policies in Government, of the present rate of unemployment. But that problem will not be tackled if we simply engage in mutual recriminations in this House. I hope Deputies opposite will not start engaging in the type of fiction that our present problem has been created or caused by the present Government. That is nonsense; they know it is nonsense. Presumably they hope that if they say it often enough somebody somewhere might believe them. In the course of his remarks the Minister indicated that in 1982 the total expenditure in respect of the payment of unemployment allowances and benefits came to £381 million. In 1983 it is calculated that we will be spending approximately £473 million in this area. These are enormous sums of money. The amount that will be spent this year will be equal to half the current budget deficit.
We must start looking anew at the manner in which we deal with unemployment, at the manner in which we deal with unemployment allowances and benefits, at the manner in which we tackle these problems. Whilst we had rates of unemployment far lower than obtain at present it became accepted — as it has in other areas of the social welfare code — that the way to deal with the problem was to provide social welfare allowances or benefits to provide assistance for those people unfortunate enough to find themselves unemployed, to ensure that they and their families maintained some standard of living, albeit not reflecting the standard of living they would expect were they in employment. In other words, it is generally accepted that we simply hand out funds. We are now reaching the stage at which the level of funding being paid out requires an innovative approach in dealing with this whole area. In talking about funds being handed out I would not like what I am saying to be taken wrongly. All of those in receipt of unemployment benefit are people who, by their contributions over the years, have contributed to the creation of funds to permit these benefits to be paid out; they have contributed through the taxation system to these benefits and they are entitled to them as of right. I do not think anybody should take a different view.
In the context of a country whose basic infrastructure is not fully or properly developed, in the context of a country that does not have sufficient funds fully and properly to fund local authorities and the basic structural services that are required to attract employment, the time has come for innovation. We need to ascertain whether there is some way that the 188,000 unemployed and the £473 million that will be paid in this area this year can be marshalled in the interests of improving our structural base and in the interests of the people themselves.
I have not yet met anybody who wants to be unemployed. There is a great myth abroad that some people deliberately render themselves unemployed so that they can reap the benefits. There is certainly a problem and I shall come to that in the context of some of the short-term benefits that are taken up but, in general, nobody has ever said to me, "I would like to be unemployed for the next six months so that I can get benefit". That does not happen. The vast majority of people want employment for the sake of their self-respect, they want to feel they are contributing to their community, they prefer to earn money for work done than to receive money through a social welfare system, even though they are entitled to such moneys through their own and their families' contributions made over the years, through taxation and social welfare, when in employment.
The problem we have also is that there are many people unemployed who want employment in particular areas only. In some of those areas there may be no employment opportunities, not merely this year but for a number of years. Unemployment does not affect only the younger section of our community, though this is a major problem in the under 25 age group. Unemployment is now affecting the community right across the board. It affects many in the 40 to 50 age group who, having been made redundant, or whose employers have gone into liquidation, feel desperate, feel there are no opportunities available to them, certainly not in the short-term, of getting employment again.
We need to get across to many people who are unemployed the desirability of widening their horizons in the context of the type of work they may be willing to undertake. There is a need, through constructive discussion with the social partners, the trade unions and employers, to ascertain whether a means can be found whereby many of those people at present in receipt of unemployment benefits and allowances could contribute in some way, through employment, to the State and to the improvement of our basic infrastructure, or indeed contribute through their own work in some other areas. The time has come for us to reconsider our approaches in these areas.
Lest anybody take me wrongly I am not suggesting — and no doubt somebody might caricature what I am saying into this — that people should get unemployment benefit only if they go out and do what was done in the Famine, dig roads, or lay roads in parts of rural Ireland where there is no traffic anyway. I am not suggesting that. The point I am trying to make is that I feel there are many people at present unemployed who are entitled to their benefits but who would welcome the opportunity — in return for the allowances and benefits they are receiving — to make some contribution to the community, to the State, or to tackling the major problems confronting us. I do not believe people can be required compulsorily to make such contribution. If some forms of work schemes were devised, if there was some form of incentive to partake in such schemes, there could be major benefits for the State. Indeed, in the interim period while we are tackling the unemployment problem, the contribution that could be made in this area could itself make a unique and important contribution in coming to terms with our difficulties. I do not believe the answer will emerge by increasing annually the sums of money we pay out. I believe many people now would start to take the view that there should be some way in which the time of many people could be employed — people at present in receipt of unemployment benefits and allowances — thereby making some contribution. I believe many people would welcome such an opportunity.
However, this type of approach would not work without the co-operation of the trade unions and employers, indeed without the State sector looking at itself very seriously to ascertain in what way contributions of this nature could be made. I believe many unemployed people would welcome an opportunity to do something other than find themselves at home, with no job and no prospect of a job.
There is need for innovation in other areas also. There are at present people receiving unemployment allowances and benefits, some of whom would wish, having found it impossible to obtain employment to start up small businesses or become self-employed. They often find themselves in what can be described as a Catch-22 situation. They know that while they are making themselves available for employment they will receive their benefits or allowances and they know that if they start to work even as self-employed persons, they will have to advise the Department of Social Welfare and the Department will cut their allowances or benefits because they are no longer available for employment. If they succeed in establishing a business in which either they work themselves or at some future date become employers, they will not benefit because they will no longer be entitled to payments from the Department. The Department will no longer have a liability, and those people will become taxpayers again, as will the people they employ.
Many people who are unemployed are starting to take up work as self-employed people but because they are unsure of the financial consequences of what they are doing do not tell the Department, and quite understandably they continue to draw social welfare allowances or benefits for periods because if they did not do so they could not support themselves or their families. In doing that they are of course in breach of the social welfare code and they are liable to prosecution by the Department who seek to reclaim some social welfare money paid to them from the time they started their businesses. Therefore, this provision provides a disincentive for unemployed people to take up jobs of their own as self-employed persons, because is there any point in risking the possibility of not succeeding in business and risking loss of social welfare payments, causing starvation to themselves and their families over a period of months?
We need to have another look at this. We must ensure, of course, that the social welfare code will not be abused, but we must also ensure it is not a disincentive to the creation of jobs, a disincentive to employment and to thousands of people who are unemployed but who might otherwise take the initiative themselves to provide jobs for themselves, thus refusing to continue to rely on the possibility that the private sector or the State at some stage will provide them with jobs. The Minister and the Government should examine seriously this area to see if some modifications could be made to our social welfare code to permit a person who is unemployed to advise the Department that he intends to start his own business. Many such people start in a small way, operating out of their homes, possibly as decorators, window cleaners or providing secretarial services or a telephone service for businessmen who do not have such a service. Many people might set up small businesses, some of which mushroom and some of which do not. Such people should not feel that if they take the initiative they will have the option of knowing that if they continue to draw social welfare benefits they might be prosecuted, or if they refuse to do so and they do not draw social welfare benefits they will be left without funds of any kind.
There should be a procedure whereby an unemployed person who wishes to start on his own could notify the Department of his intention, to do it honestly and openly, and be given a period of grace from the Department during which time he would continue to receive a benefit or an allowance, say for a period of three months during which time his business could be monitored by the Department. At the end of the period such a person would have the duty again to notify the Department and advise the Department whether he meant to terminate his self-employment and continue to receive the benefit or allowance, or whether he wishes to continue the business because it was proving successful. I do not foresee any major difficulty in doing this. It would remove the disincentive that exists which prevents many people unemployed from taking the initiative.
We have a growing black economy, part of which is composed of people in receipt of social welfare benefits who are also in employment in some way or another. The area I have been talking about is part of that back economy. I am sure we all have in our constituencies people who are receiving unemployment benefit and who at the same time are trying to establish jobs as self-employed people. A system like that which I have been suggesting would provide incentives to unemployed people to become self-employed and in the long-term it would save money for the Department. Many of those people would much prefer to deal with their financial circumstances in an honest way with the Department. I believe such a scheme could work. It is part of the new approach we should begin to look at. We should begin to look at our unemployment benefits and allowances not simply as cash hand-outs. There should be a more sophisticated view of the situation. It is something that could be welcomed and could create employment.
The Minister referred to a provision in the Bill which was criticised by Deputy O'Hanlon, although I suspect he agrees with him. I refer to benefits for short-time work. In certain circumstances, due to the way in which PRSI and unemployment benefit schemes are administered, people in employment in some sectors of the economy would often be better off working three days a week and then taking benefits for two days. This has been said by many people inside and outside the House. It is something that needs to be tackled and I welcome the fact that the Minister is tackling it in the Bill. It is causing a major problem of absenteeism in some industries. In some sectors of the economy, by habit or by tradition we have built up in the last two or three years the practice of workers regularly appearing at work for only three days a week and taking unemployment payments for the other two days. They do that because at the end of the year they would have a larger sum of money in their pockets than if they had gone to work every day or made themselves available for work. It is a real problem because in some areas of employment people will not work unless they are permitted to behave in this way. We are talking about a small minority of the work force. Let us not exaggerate. It is not suggested it is happening on a widespread scale, but it is a significant minority of the work force.
It is happening in particular in certain industries. In recent weeks we heard a great deal about the difficulties being experienced by the construction industry. They are very real difficulties, and nobody should suggest otherwise. Despite the difficulties in the construction industry, despite the fact that a number of workers who used to be employed in that industry are unemployed at present, many small building firms find it impossible to employ workers unless they employ them in certain ways. There are no specialist workers available to carry out certain jobs in the construction industry unless the employers agree to employ them for three days only so that they can collect benefit for the other two days. I have come across a number of instances of employers who require skilled workers but cannot get them unless they are willing to collude with them in providing some form of short-time work when the employer wants a full week's work done on the job.
We have another problem which is not particular to the construction industry but is applicable generally to some of the small builders within the construction industry. It is impossible for them to get skilled workers in certain areas unless they pay cash through the black economy. This is one of the great ironies in the context of the unemployment problem we have. We actually have workers with particular skills in certain areas of the economy who are not willing to work on a proper basis, to receive their wages, pay their taxes and make their social welfare contributions. The incentive for them to behave in this way in the context of short-term benefits is provided by the fact that you can get a larger sum of money in your hand by working part-time than by working full-time. To the extent that this Bill will tackle this problem I welcome it and the provisions contained in it.
There is one other problem in this area and one particular firm got publicity over the past few days. Due to economic difficulties a firm have been forced to operate a three-day week. When the viability of the firm has improved and larger orders have been made available to enable them to return to a five-day week, the workers they wish to bring back to a five-day week look for compensation due to the fact that they would lose out by working a five-day week because of a reduction in their net take-home pay by virtue of the fact that they would no longer receive unemployment benefit. That system cannot be upheld, and I hope the provisions in this Bill will tackle that problem and prevent this type of abuse of the social welfare code.
I should like to refer to another area of unemployment benefit and redundancy payments which the Minister should tackle. This area needs to be tackled if workers who find themselves unemployed are to receive protection under our social welfare legislation. Vast numbers of workers on the PAYE system have their tax and social welfare contributions deducted from their wages on a weekly or monthly basis by their employers. The employer is under a statutory obligation to deduct these moneys and pay them to the State. The employee has a statutory duty to permit the employer to behave in this way. The employee is entitled to presume that the employer will deal with such funds deducted from his gross salary in the way he is obliged to deal with them by statute. The employee is entitled to presume that the moneys are being handed over by the employer to the State.
The employee on whose behalf the employer deducts this money is entitled to presume that, if through no fault of his own, he becomes unemployed because the firm employing him goes into liquidation, or redundancy arises, the deductions from his weekly or monthly wages have been properly made and entitle him to receive benefits and redundancy payments for which the deductions are supposed to cater. I am afraid that is not always the position. A disturbing number of employees find upon losing their jobs that moneys deducted from their gross wages by employers have not been paid to the State. They discover that their social welfare contributions have not been paid to the State. Having been in employment for many years, they discover that, rather than being entitled to unemployment benefit and pay-related benefit, all they can get is the reduced unemployment allowance.
This problem needs to be tackled seriously. In the Bill the Minister is changing some of the provisions in the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1981, which relate to this area. He is changing the criminal penalties and the statutory provisions for prosecution. In itself the prosecution of the employer will provide no great help or assistance to the unemployed person seeking to support his wife and children unless he is assured of getting the benefits to which he is entitled.
There is a variety of different provisions in the 1981 Act, some of which will be amended by this Bill, which seek to ensure that the employee who becomes unemployed will receive payment. The reality is that they do not work properly. They do not appear to be properly supervised. They certainly do not provide employees with the type of protection to which they are entitled in the light of the fact that these moneys are deducted at source by the employers. There is no way in which they can monitor regularly what the employers are doing with these moneys to ensure they are going to the State, unless the employee is to contact the Department of Social Welfare regularly, or inspect his employer's books, or ask the employer to show him the cheque he is passing on to the Department, which of course would be a nonsense.
There are a number of statutory provisions relating to this area, some of which are totally unrealistic from the point of view of an employee who finds himself redundant or unemployed. If an employer has defaulted on making payments to the Department of Social Welfare, the employee can sue the employer through the courts for a simple contract debt and try to recover the money. I do not think we have too many people in the 188,000 unemployed who feel they have sufficient funds available to them to employ lawyers, solicitors, senior counsel and possibly junior counsel, to sue an employer for moneys of this nature if they discover the employer has not handed over the money. This is a legal mechanism which is unrealistic. It does not provide any assistance in real terms for an employee who finds himself unemployed or redundant and who needs immediate funding to support himself, his wife and his children.
Under the legislation the Minister has power to prosecute the employer. This Bill is increasing those powers and making them somewhat more sophisticated to get around some of the anomalies which exist in the 1981 Act. The problem is that these powers will not necessarily help the employee. If the employer is prosecuted he can be liable on conviction to pay the total moneys deducted from the salary of his employee and he can also be liable to a term of imprisonment, but if he has spent the money that is of no help to the employee. If we expect workers in the PAYE sector to co-operate in the deduction of payments of this kind they are entitled to an assurance, if they become redundant or unemployed, that the redundancy payments, the pay-related payments or the unemployment benefit to which they have contributed will be paid to them. It is not their fault that the employer did not pass on the payments to the State. If a small group of employees become unemployed or are made redundant and apply to the Department for benefit, they can find themselves on unemployment allowance for one or two years if the Department tell them that their employer has not passed on the contributions they have made. It could happen that these workers will never receive the pay-related payments to which they are entitled. This is partly due to the fact that the Department do not, and presumably cannot, police adequately the social welfare code to ensure that contributions which are deducted are paid. We need new mechanisms and a more efficient monitoring service to ensure that employers hand over moneys on a regular basis and that we do not have the scandal of moneys not being handed over by major or minor companies for a few years. There is need for a far more sophisticated monitoring system.
The problem at the moment is that, if the Department do not prosecute, an employee who has been paying contributions for five or ten years and which have not been handed over to the State can be stuck with an unemployment allowance payment much less than the amount he would otherwise be entitled to legally. He can be left in receipt of a sum of money that makes it impossible for him to support his family adequately and to meet his financial commitments.
Section 15 of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1981, provides that a Minister may make regulations to provide for treating contributions deducted by an employer but not paid as paid for the purpose of rights and benefits where it is shown that the employee did not connive or was not negligent in the context of the failure of the employer to pass on the contributions to the Department of Social Welfare. For this provision to be activated the consent of the Minister for Finance is required, but it is my understanding that there have not been any departmental regulations to activate this section.
We should look at this matter seriously. If an employee can properly prove he was in insurable employment, that he was getting wage slips showing deductions and that through no fault of his the employer had failed to hand over money to the Department, if the Department knew they were under an obligation in the circumstances to make payments to the employee regardless of whether they had received the contributions from the employer, we would have a far more efficient operation by the Department of monitoring the receipt of social welfare deductions from employers.
It is interesting to compare the way an individual employee will be treated as against a large group of employees who find themselves in difficulties. In recent weeks there was considerable publicity and discussion regarding the position in Carrigaline where a number of employees found that deductions made had not been passed on to the Department. Under the 1981 Act — I am open to correction on this by the Minister — once the payments had not been made the employees were not entitled to receive unemployment benefit or pay-related benefit. I am not an expert on the problems that existed in Carrigaline but my understanding is that the Minister indicated that, despite the fact that payments had not been received by the Department, arrangements would be made to make the payments to which the workers were entitled. That was an exception made for a relatively large number of employees in a situation that became a matter of public controversy.
However, an individual employee or three or four employees in a small firm cannot get the same type of publicity as that given to the Carrigaline situation. They are not in a position to put the same kind of pressure on the Department of Social Welfare and I found that to be the case with regard to individual constituents of mine. An individual employee who finds himself in this situation is not treated in the same way as the workers at Carrigaline are being treated. I am not saying they should not be treated in this way, but if an employee is having his money deducted at source and if the employer is under an obligation to make the payments, there is an obligation on the Department to monitor the position and to ensure that the payments are received when due, not two or three years later, or in some cases not at all. An employee has no way of monitoring on a weekly or monthly basis whether his employer is passing on the deductions to the Department. An employee could not undertake such a task: he would probably alienate himself from his employer. Indeed, the vast majority of employers comply fully with their statutory obligations: we are talking about a small minority who do not so comply.
I ask the Minister to give serious consideration to this matter. The Department have not been as efficient as they should have been in ensuring the collection of contributions that are deducted at source by employers. As a result, the State has not received money to which it is entitled. I should like to know how much money has been deducted by employers in recent years which has not been sent to the Department. That would indicate the level of efficiency in the Department to deal with the matter.
I said in previous debates that essentially the social welfare code has developed piecemeal during the years. We tend to identify groups who are in need and to provide for them without undertaking a comprehensive examination of the social welfare code and the philosophy or basis on which it is decided that payments should or should not be made in the context of social welfare assistance. The Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1981, was a very useful and important measure in that it consolidated in one document all social welfare enactments before that date. However, it did not provide for any major or basic reforms. It is very valuable as a document for reference to the social welfare codes.
We need to examine the philosophy behind which we make social welfare payments in different areas. If we did that we would find there is no real consistency behind it and that we often discriminate against one group and favour another. We do this for no other reason than that one group succesfully agitated in public for assistance and the other group either were not so successful or kept quite about their difficulties. I know it took many years to prepare this consolidation Bill due to the amount of legislation in this area but we are now two years further on. A number of social welfare Bills have been enacted since then. We should not allow ourselves to go back to the position we had pre-1981 when there was a labyrinth of social welfare Bills. The legislation had become so complicated that nobody understood the way the Bills interacted. The Minister might seriously consider providing, by way of an administrative instruction in his Department, that every five years a new consolidation Bill should go through the House. If this was done the Department officials would not face the same difficulties as they experienced in putting the 1981 Bill together. That was a very useful exercise and the officials in the Department deserve great praise for it. If it was the practice to have a consolidation Bill every five years it would not take up the time of the House unduly and would simplify the social welfare code.
To return to the point about the payments we have and the lack of any philosophy behind them, this applies particularly to the area of marital breakdown. In the seventies we had a scheme to provide financial assistance to wives who had been deserted by husbands and who were unsupported by them. This was deserted wife's allowance. In 1973 we introduced deserted wife's benefit which provided for payment of a sum slightly in excess of deserted wife's allowance to wives who were deserted by husbands who were not contributing towards their support. The benefit was payable on the basis of social insurance contributions made by the husband or wife over the years. A wife in employment can receive the benefit whereas to receive the allowance a wife cannot be in employment. She can earn a small sum of money but cannot be in general employment with a normal income.
In those days the chief bread winner was always regarded as the husband but this is no longer the case. The philosophy behind the payment of deserted wife's allowance and benefit was that a wife and mother unsupported and deserted by her husband requires a basic income to meet the family's requirements and to support herself and her children. That philosophy was correct. However, the argument equally applies to husbands who are deserted by wives and left to support young children. We have many instances of this.
During the seventies many people highlighted, including myself, discriminations against women in the legal system and the need for reform in a very wide variety of areas including the social welfare code. In tackling many of the problems which affect women, wives and mothers, we have introduced discriminations against men, husbands and fathers, which have no rationale and which create real financial difficulties for a number of people. These have not been fully recognised by Members of the House.
In 1972 the Commission for the Status of Women reported and said there was great need to tackle a large number of areas affecting women. Only a portion of those have been tackled. We could just as justifiably establish a commission for the status of men to deal with some of the discriminations which affect husbands who are deserted by their wives. I am not in favour of establishing any more commissions in this area. We all know the problems but we are not tackling them.
The position of a deserted husband left to support young children is different from that of a wife. I have come across cases where husbands were left with three or four children. His salary was adequate while his wife was also an income earner or was looking after the children at home. I do not want to be interpreted as saying that all wives should always be at home looking after their children. While the wife was at home assisting the husband or earning an income with him they were able to support themselves and their children adequately.
In the seventies we tended to believe that it was always husbands who deserted wives but in reality wives also desert husbands and leave them with young children. The husband is left with young children and wishes to maintain his home, look after the children and keep the family together. As it is a single parent family, a deserted husband like a deserted wife requires the assistance of someone else, be it a relative or friend to look after the children during the day when he is at work, or he may have to employ somebody to look after them. How many husbands find that with a wife gone, their income is such that they cannot afford to employ someone, without assistance from the State, to look after their children? When the wife's contribution is no longer there they find themselves in an impossible financial position. A number of husbands in those circumstances, if they wish to have their children living with them and do not wish to create a situation where, due to the absence of a husband and wife, their children might be placed in care, have to do one of two things. They either give up employment and rely on social welfare payments or do additional work which involves them being away from home, creates more financial problems and also affects their relationships with their children.
A husband who has to give up work to look after his children at home will receive, through the social welfare code, a far lower sum of money for his support and that of his children than a wife who is deserted by her husband and looking after the same number of children. If there is a need for a deserted wife's allowance and benefit, as I believe there is, there is equally a need for a deserted husband's allowance. I do not think anybody in this House should be in any doubt about that. There is absolutely no logic in having one without the other. It is creating discrimination and contributing to social problems. It is a problem that was tackled in this House in the early seventies before I became a Member, but only in the context of wives. It is also a problem that needs to be tackled in the context of husbands.
Presumably, like any extension of the social welfare code, it would cost the State money. At present it is estimated that this year an estimated £15 million will be paid out through the Department of Social Welfare on deserted wife's allowance and benefit payments. I do not know whether it would require a further £15 million to meet the problems of husbands in this area. I suspect it would not because there are fewer husbands in this situation although their number is significant. It is impossible to calculate the financial cost of reforming present legislation to introduce a deserted husband's allowance because when I put a Dáil Question to the Minister for Social Welfare asking if his Department had any relevant information or statistics from which he could ascertain the number of husbands in this situation, that information did not exist. It is a problem the Department of Social Welfare has never even considered or discussed.
Some of these husbands get assistance through the supplementary welfare allowance scheme but nothing has been done by the Department to monitor this problem and to see what the cost would be if we amended the law in this area. If the Department do not tackle this problem we will continue to create major problems in a country in which the Constitution affords protection to the family although, apparently, the protection extends to mothers but not to fathers. There is no justification for that.
The position of a deserted wife or unmarried mother in receipt of a deserted wife's allowance or an unmarried mother's allowance is similar to that of the person in receipt of unemployment allowance. A wife in receipt of the deserted wife's allowance is entitled to earn a small sum of money and still receive the full allowance. If, through her employment, she increases the sum she is earning, the allowance will decrease. The problem is that many wives have employment open to them and could supplement their incomes, which they badly need to do, but are frightened to take up such employment because the work would often do nothing more than generate the same net income that they would get if they remained on deserted wife's allowance. The form of these allowances provide a disincentive to single parent families from helping themselves and prevents them from supplementing the income they get through the deserted wife's allowance or the unmarried mother's allowance.
Someone in receipt of deserted wife's allowance or unmarried mother's allowance should be entitled to earn a larger sum that is at present possible whilst also being in receipt of these allowances. If their income from both brought them into the taxation area the State would then benefit from that system. I do not think we should penalise the deserted wife or the unmarried mother in receipt of one of these allowances who asserts some independence and earns money to assist her in supporting her family. There is no logic in the inbuilt disincentive to work in the schemes that puts great pressure on deserted wives or unmarried mothers and prevents them from assisting themselves. The effect of this often is that a deserted wife or unmarried mother will not take part-time employment because they fear losing their allowances. If financial problems arise they look for additional payments through the supplementary welfare allowance scheme.
There are basic structural problems in our social welfare code and they act as disincentives in the context of unemployment. They act as disincentives in the creation and obtaining of employment and, in the context of deserted wife's allowance and unmarried mother's allowance, they inhibit wives and mothers from going out to work to increase the income of their families.
I agree with Deputy O'Hanlon's remarks in relation to the free fuel scheme. That scheme has been with us for many years and there is no logic in the way it works. People who live in the old borough or urban areas are paid on a different basis from those who live in corporation areas. There is no coherent philosophy behind the scheme. There are no statutory mechanisms behind it. It is administered partly by the Department of Social Welfare and partly by the health boards and through local authorities in the context of schemes operated through corporations. It has many discriminations attached to it and creates a great deal of injustice to many elderly people. For example, in my constituency the boundary between the city and the county runs along the centre of the road, elderly pensioners living on one side of the road are entitled to free fuel and elderly pensioners in exactly the same circumstances living on the other side of the road are not entitled to it.
Everybody who is a member of a local authority has long recognised that the scheme is inadequate, illogical and discriminatory. It should be reformed and there should be some proper statutory basis on which payments are made rather than payments in portion being made as they are at present. I hope the Minister will look at the free fuel scheme and replace it with a more logical, nationwide scheme that does not discriminate against people purely on the basis of which side of the street they happen to live.
Referring to the need to ensure that we retain the social welfare legislation in a consolidated fashion, the same should be said for the enormous number of statutory instruments that are made under our social welfare laws. I do not think anybody could ever suggest that they have a comprehensive understanding of the social welfare code. So many statutory instruments have come into force affecting it right across the board, and the vast majority which preceded the 1981 Act still remain in force under that Act. There is an urgent need to carry out the same type of work on the statutory instruments that have been made under social welfare legislation.
