: This Social Welfare Bill confronts every Deputy in this House with a far-reaching decision, a clear-cut policy decision which will directly affect the weekly household budgets and the standard of living of thousands of lower income families. It is neither emotional nor an exaggeration to say that the standard of the meals, clothing, heating and other comforts provided in thousands of homes will be actually lowered if this Bill is passed.
The vote we are about to take is not about accepting or not accepting the realities of our present economic situation or acknowledging that the country faces economic and financial difficulties. There is no argument about the existence of these difficulties. Instead the decision we are about to take is concerned with the manner in which those difficulties should be tackled, where the savings and cutbacks are going to be made and, above all, who will be affected by them. Basically what we will decide shortly is whether a disproportionate share of the burden will be placed on the shoulders of the poorest and weakest sections of our community.
We in Fianna Fáil are putting it clearly to the House, and particularly to the Labour Party, that this Bill should be rejected because it breaches a principle to which all parties in this House have until this day fully subscribed. That principle is to the effect that there is an obligation on the State to protect the poorer and weaker sections of our community and not in any way deliberately to disimprove their position. This Bill directly and deliberately flouts that basic principle, not inadvertently, unintentionally or as a side effect, but clearly and directly. It proposes, in a calculated manner — by specific percentages and definite amounts of money — to reduce the living standards of pensioners, widows, the unemployed and people on a three-day week.
We believe this Bill must be rejected on seven separate and distinct but related grounds. I shall spell them out concisely so that not alone will every Deputy know what he is voting for if he votes for this Bill but, equally important, so that the public will know and that in particular the constituents of Deputies Toddy O'Sullivan, Eileen Desmond, Séamus Pattison, Seán Tracey, Frank McLoughlin and yourself, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, will know exactly how their Deputies voted in Dáil Éireann this evening on these specific issues I am about to enumerate. By the way, it is interesting that none of the Deputies to whom I am addressing myself are at present in the House but perhaps they are listening on the monitors and will take note of what I say.
There are seven reasons for rejecting this Bill. Those seven reasons are: first, because the increase in the general social welfare rates provided in the Bill are completely inadequate in present circumstances; secondly, because those increases will come into operation only from July and not, as heretofore, from April; thirdly, the Bill will reduce the amount of pay-related benefit payable to an unemployed man or woman by 15 per cent; fourthly, the waiting period of an unemployed man or woman before becoming entitled to receive pay-related benefit is being extended from two weeks to three weeks; fifthly, those who are compelled, through no fault of their own, to work a three-day week will have pay-related benefit removed completely while they are on a three-day week; sixthly, because it is proposed that PAYE employees will now pay PRSI on incomes up to £13,000 while benefits will be restricted to incomes of up to £11,000; seventhly, because this Bill will abolish the notional system of assessment for small western farmers for social welfare purposes, a system which has enormously benefited the whole community structure of life in the west. Those are seven good reasons for rejecting this Bill. Taken together they amount to a penal imposition that no amount of waffling in this House can conceal on the lower income section of our community, the section least able to bear that imposition.
Let me say a word about those general increases in social welfare rates. There is absolutely no doubt, it is a mathematical certainty that the rates now proposed will actually reduce the income and standard of living of every single person in receipt of social welfare benefit. They are stated to be 10 per cent and 12 per cent. In fact they amount to only 7½ per cent and 9 per cent because, by a mean little device, they are not going to be paid until the end of June or beginning of July next. Therefore, if one spreads them over the whole of the year, from April 1983 to December 1983, they work out at 7½ per cent and 9 per cent, and that against a rate of inflation which will certainly be 12 per cent and probably more. Therefore it is an inescapable mathematical certainty that everybody in receipt of social welfare benefits, and relying on them, in 1983 will have his standard of living positively reduced by the provisions of this Social Welfare Bill.
When we were preparing the Estimates and working towards the budget we had in mind always somewhere in the region of 15 per cent as an increase appropriate to social welfare recipients this year. Instead of that these increased rates work out at 7½ per cent and 9 per cent.
There is one thing I should like to point out to this House about these rates. The Government's devaluation of the punt will add 2 per cent to the rate of inflation. The Taoiseach has tried to claim that the Government had planned that devaluation for many months. Does that mean, therefore, that at the time of the budget the Government were planning devaluation, which would add 2 per cent to our rate of inflation, and concealed that fact from this House and from the general public when putting the budget through the House, in fact ignored that 2 per cent and clearly set down inadequate rates of increases for social welfare recipients because of that 2 per cent, apart from any other consideration? The Taoiseach and the Government cannot have it both ways. Either they knew at the time of the budget that there was going to be devaluation and ignored the 2 per cent inflation rise that that would cause or, alternatively, at the time of the budget they had no idea — which I think is the true position — they were going to devalue.
For instance, let me ask Deputy Toddy O'Sullivan directly if he is going to stand for this sort of treatment being meted out to the people in his constituency, the pensioners, the unemployed and all those other categories? Is he going to come into this House this evening and positively vote to lower the living standards of those people in Gurranebraher, Knocknaheeny, Farranree and the people he represents in Cork? Or is Deputy Eileen Desmond, a former Minister for Health and Social Welfare, going to come in here — knowing exactly what is involved — and vote for this positive, specific lowering of the standards of living of that vulnerable section of our community? Might I ask you — I am sorry, I see the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is no longer in the Chair — I would like to ask Deputy John Ryan because when I started to speak he was in the Chair, is he going to vote——
