Before lunch the Minister with responsibility for Women's Affairs concluded her speech in which she expressed grave concern for people in receipt of social assistance. However, she immediately went on to blame previous administrations. It is time this Government realised they are in charge and that it is up to them to try to solve the problems of the country and to help those who are in need. The Minister also said she thought more should be done but said that because of previous administrations the amount now being given to people on social assistance was not as great as it should be. Once again I say to the Government it is about time they came to terms with their situation and stopped blaming previous Governments because of their own inability to cope.
Earlier the Minister for Social Welfare stated that the real value of pensions and benefits would be maintained. Last year in the budget an increase of 12 per cent and 10 per cent was given but this year the increase is only 7 per cent and this will not come into operation until July 1984. How then can the Minister say the real value of pensions and benefits are being maintained? Does he not realise that the situation of many families since this time last year has become much worse because of the ever-increasing unemployment figure?
The Minister appeared to be making rather a big thing about public attitudes to social welfare provisions. He gave the impression that people want the resources needed for social support to be diverted to, as he said, more productive use of the economy. He should well know that it is fear in the community that is causing this problem, the fear of incapacity to meet the cost of social welfare benefits. There are now almost as many unemployed as there are in the labour force. Those of us who are working will need to find £2,156 million this year. That is the gross expenditure on social welfare. That represents £6 million per day or almost £1,000 a year for every man and woman in the labour force. Is it any wonder that the people who are in employment are worrying about their capacity to sustain and support those on social welfare?
The Minister also said that those on social welfare should not in any way be apologetic because they need support. I do not think anybody is apologetic. People are angry. They are depressed. They see themselves in the situation in which they will be on social assistance for the rest of their lives. They see no jobs. They are not apologetic. They are angry and young people are becoming more angry by the minute. Has the Minister and his colleagues talked to the people recently? How many of them have tried to find out from families what the situation is? Do they realise that in some households in this city the father is redundant and there are two or three young people under the age of 25 also unemployed and all trying to exist on social assistance? Some of those who are unemployed actually cannot get social assistance. There are parents at the moment trying to clothe, feed and keep in pocket-money children between the ages of 17 and 25 who are getting nothing at all, no money of any kind from any source. Is it any wonder these young people are depressed? Is it any wonder they are losing all hope in democracy and in this country?
Much has been said, particularly by the Fine Gael Party, about the woman in the home, and in their manifesto of 1981 they made a very big point about this. At that time they were pretending to give the woman in the home some money for herself in the form of £9.60p but that never happened. In my opinion it could never have been implemented. It was a bad idea but women got the impression they would get something. Now we have the family income supplement. We heard about this a considerable time ago but we will have to wait until the end of the year to see it implemented. One has to be earning less than £63 a week. One has to be working. One has to have so many children in order to get a certain amount of money. I wonder why this family income supplement is not being paid directly to the wife? Is it going to be paid to the husband or can the wife get that money? This is very important in my opinion. Why is it being paid to the wage earner who is normally the man? Surely it should be the woman who should be paid. She should be recognised and paid something for herself. I welcome this family income supplement, since something is better than nothing, but when are this Government going to give free dental and optical treatment to the woman in the home, to her husband and to her children? To me that would be a better approach.
I come now to the position of the widow. Apparently this family income supplement will not be paid to a widow with dependent children. A widow with three dependent children will from next July, get £80.72 per week. The widow is doing the job of both mother and father. She is entitled to support from the State and I believe she should be treated in the same way as a married couple while she is trying to house, clothe, feed, educate and generally look after her children. But she will not get any part of this family income supplement. Is she not a family? Is she not entitled to be regarded as the breadwinner of the family? Actually a widow who tries to earn a little more by doing part-time work is taxed. Widows should be entitled to do part-time work to supplement their income without being taxed.
Increased children's allowances will come into operation in August next. The vast sum in this case is exactly 20p per week extra. That is the figure if it is over a nine-month period. It will probably be over a 12-month period which will result in reducing it to 14p a week. We have 14p a week in the case of children's allowances and 8 per cent VAT on clothes. How could any Government come in here and present this House with that kind of budget? Do they take into consideration at all the very grave circumstances in which many families find themselves not because of unemployment but because of the number of teenage children living at home who cannot find jobs? Imagine the situation of a woman with her husband unemployed, a couple of teenage children and one or two younger children around 10 and 11 years of age, trying to clothe a child for confirmation. Does anybody realise how much it costs now to clothe a child for confirmation? That woman struggles to put a few pounds together, possibly from the children's allowances, to buy that confirmation outfit but now she will have to pay 8 per cent VAT as well on that outfit.
The Minister for Women's Affairs referred this morning to a flaw in the children's allowances which has now been rectified. Where the father is living abroad the allowance can now be paid to another person and that includes the mother. She mentioned the law of domicile. I was very annoyed when I heard the Minister mention the law of domicile. I admire her but she has been in Government now for 14 or 15 months. Why did she not take steps to change the law of domicile? That was one of the things she said she would do. I do not like saying this but I regard this ministry for Women's Affairs as sheer window dressing. No legislation has been brought before the House from that ministry. We have been waiting now since 1982 and nothing at all has happened.