I compliment Deputy Yates on a very constructive contribution to this debate. The Minister told us yesterday that the purpose of the Bill was to give effect to the increases which had previously been announced and to stamp out abuses. There is an obligation on the Government to ensure that social welfare recipients receive sufficient money to obtain an adequate standard of living. The Government have failed miserably in this. The social services are particularly vulnerable at a time of cutback and recession. This year, the Government failed completely to live up to the promises they made before and since they came to office. When introducing the Social Welfare Bill in 1983 the Minister told us he recognised the difficulties social welfare recipients had and, as reported at column 2091 of the Official Report of 9 March, 1983 he said:
However, I can assure Members of the House that as soon as circumstances permit, hopefully by next year's budget, it is my firm intention to secure further real improvements in social welfare payments.
At that time the Minister was giving increases of between 10 and 12 per cent to long term and short term social welfare recipients. Last year there was no improvement in the real income of social welfare recipients when the Government granted an increase of only 7 per cent. This year we are down to 6 and 6½ per cent for short term and long term recipients. That will not compensate such people for the increase in the cost of living, the removal of food subsidies, which hit them hard, and increases in VAT. Indeed, a 6 per cent increase over nine months represents an annual increase of 4½ per cent. Those payments will not become effective until July. The Government two years ago changed the date of payment of increases from the beginning of April to the beginning of July and this year it will be a fortnight later, 11 July.
The Minister told us that there was an increase for short term recipients of 25 per cent over the last three years since the Coalition took office. That must be compared with an increase of 25 per cent each year in the last three years when Fianna Fáil were in office. That is an indication of the difference in attitude to the less well off in our society, the elderly, the disabled and those unemployed, between the Coalition and Fianna Fáil. Yesterday the Minister said:
This real improvement in the purchasing power of social welfare recipients has been achieved by the Government in the face of the most severe budgetary constraints facing any Government during the life-time of the Members of the House.
If one examines that statement critically one will see that it does not stand up because an increase of 4½ per cent does not represent any real improvement over nine months. That increase will not improve the lot of anybody depending on social welfare payments. In the term of the Coalition Government from 1973 to 1977 when Deputy Cluskey was Parliamentary Secretary in charge of the Department of Social Welfare a claim like that was not made. I suggest that the Minister confer with Deputy Cluskey and ask him if he believes the Government are living up to their responsibility in catering for the needs of those who depend on social welfare payments.
We must remember that there are 234,000 people unemployed at present, an increase of 18,000 on last year's figure and 48,000 more than when the Government took office. We must remember that 70,000 of those people are under 25 years of age and that we have the highest percentage of unemployed in any EC country. The Government's discredited document Building on Reality stated that the average number unemployed would be 217,000 over the next three years. However, within a couple of months of the document being produced we were up to 234,000. The allocation in the Estimates for Social Welfare this year only allowed for 217,000 unemployed but we must cater for a figure that is 17,000 higher than that. There are just less than 100,000 people who are long term unemployed, more than 15 months in receipt of unemployment assistance.
A couple living in rural Ireland with two children will receive an increase of £4.10p per week giving them a total of £72.25p. When one takes into consideration the increases in VAT, the removal of the food subsidy and the other increases one is prompted to ask how the Minister expects such people to survive on that amount. We must also consider the increase in the cost of fuel. For the first time since the national fuel scheme was introduced the Government have inserted a new paragraph in the circular sent to health boards to exclude those on unemployment assistance and disability benefit from that scheme. Formerly community welfare officers and health boards had a discretion in the matter but the Government have decided that persons on long term unemployment assistance cannot under any circumstances receive free fuel vouchers and the discretion has been taken from health boards.
In my constituency I discussed the matter with a person on long term unemployment assistance. He told me that they have mince meat twice a week and can afford only one bag of coal per week. That lasted them three days during the winter and for the remainder of the week they did not have a fire. That man has to support a wife and four children. Their bad circumstances are a direct result of Government policies. Their shortage of fuel is as a result of the Government excluding certain categories from the national fuel scheme.
We were told the family income supplement would be introduced in November last. It was backdated to September because of pressure as a result of the removal of food subsidies. However, that supplement does not do anything for the unemployed, the self-employed or any social welfare recipients, irrespective of their income. They did not benefit from the decision to backdate the supplement to September 1984. We have been told that a lot of new schemes will be introduced to alleviate unemployment, for instance, the social employment scheme which will cost almost £30 million. I tabled a question to the Minister for Labour on Tuesday, 12 March last, No. 707, asking if a person who is unemployed and was not allowed unemployment assistance would qualify for the social employment scheme. I wanted to know if a person living at home on a farm or in a shop and excluded from unemployment assistance would benefit from the new scheme if they were unemployed for 12 or 18 months. I was told that they would not be permitted to participate in that scheme. Another interesting fact emerged in the reply to my question. The Minister stated:
In deciding the conditions for eligibility, the Government were also influenced by the consideration that almost two-thirds of the gross cost of the scheme will come back to the Exchequer through savings in unemployment payments and additional tax revenue.
We were not given that information when we were told that the Government would be spending £30 million on this scheme. If the name of the scheme, a social employment scheme, means anything surely it should be available to all who are unemployed. If there is a condition that a person must be unemployed for 12 months then so be it, but the scheme should apply to everybody who is unemployed. It is wrong that a person who is not signing on the register or in receipt of unemployment assistance cannot benefit from that scheme. The position of a person who decided not to go to the labour exchange or to put a drain on the Exchequer is that they are excluded from participation in the scheme. If the word "social" is to be used in the name of any scheme there should be a social element in it and it should apply to everybody who is unemployed.
Deputy Yates referred to the assessment of married woman for unemployment assistance. While I do not object to a social welfare officer asking anybody, man or woman, who will mind the children while they are at work, I believe he should accept the answer given if it is reasonable. That applies in particular to married women. If a married woman tells a social welfare officer that her mother, or mother-in-law, or neighbour will mind the children, the officer should accept that and the person should not be turned down, having provided evidence that somebody is available to look after the children.
There has been no increase in children's allowances for the current year, which is not surprising. One of the features of the Government's social policy is discrimination against children. This is their third budget and only last year there was an increase of 7 per cent. There is nothing this year, no double allowance for child dependants at autumn or Christmas, as the former Government had given. The VAT increases will be particularly hard on parents buying clothes for their children. There is also removal of food subsidies and the imposition of charges for schools buses. In the application of the family income supplement there has been no increase for families with more than five children and it is the larger families which are the poorest in our society.
Section 6 of the Bill increases the ceiling for payment of PRSI from £13,000 to £13,800. There is an increase in the rate of payment by employers. That also happened last year. All these are an increase in tax for both employer and worker. While the Minister can boast at not having increased the rate of payment for the employee, nevertheless he has increased the rate of contribution that the employee will have to make. It does not matter to the worker whether it is an increase in the rate of payment or in the ceiling for payment. The whole thrust of Government policy should be to ensure that the employer will not have to pay more by way of taxation now than formerly, because of the number of employers going out of business, many because of the Government's taxation policies.
Section 5 increases by £6 the amount of earnings disregarded in calculating pay related benefits. Since this Government came into office the figure has gone up from £32 to £49 this year, an increase of £17. If you take account of the fact that the waiting time for payment of pay-related benefits was increased from two to three weeks two years ago, and the rate reduced from 40 per cent to 25 per cent, that creates much hardship for persons particularly those fathers of large families who suddenly become ill. These people find themselves in hospital at a time when they are most vulnerable. Their incomes are cut down to a level which makes them incapable of meeting their commitments.
The Minister announced that he was giving £650,000 to voluntary organisations, an increase from the £500,000 in previous years and we welcome that increase. However, that figure is not sufficiently high. We have the Department of Social Welfare running a system and the health boards running their system and voluntary organisations being called upon more and more to provide essential services that the Government are failing to provide for those in need. The Minister acknowledged that, when he listed the various services which voluntary organisations provide, particularly for the elderly in day care centres, meals on wheels, services for the handicapped, youth club facilities, day care centres for the homeless and help for unmarried mothers. These are some of the services provided by the voluntary organisations.
Voluntary organisations are being called on more and more to come to the rescue of families in difficulties, particularly those depending on social welfare payments. As a result of the curtailment and reduction of the rate of social welfare payments, their real standard of living has dropped for these people and they are dependent on the voluntary organisations. One has only to ask any local authority about the number of defaulters on repayments, people who have suddenly become unemployed through no fault of their own and are unable to meet their commitments. In my county there are now 500 defaulters in repayment of loans to Monaghan County Council. The Eastern Health Board paid £20 million in supplementary allowances last year and paid the ESB £1 million. That is a further indication of the failure of the Government to provide adequate and proper social welfare benefits and assistance for those in need.
On the administration of the services, it appears that those dependent on social welfare are more vulnerable in times of recession and cutbacks. Has any instruction gone out to the various agencies telling them to curtail the services? I should like an explanation of why the national free fuel scheme in various areas can vary. Cavan-Monaghan has a community care area with above 17,000 recipients of free fuel and Kerry, with a similar community, has 6,500 recipients. In Monaghan, the number in receipt of free fuel vouchers dropped by over 100 in the last two years. That is extraordinary in a time of recession and there must be some explanation.
The number of recipients of social welfare allowances in County Cavan has dropped from 94 two years ago to 55 in 1983, the last year for which figures were available. This is well the lowest number of any county. There must be some reason for this. The Government must examine the whole administration of these services. People should not have to go to the Ombudsman to find out the reason for being turned down for what they believe to be their right.
What particularly concerns me is that a quarter of the Minister's statement yesterday was devoted to abuse of the social welfare services. While I would very strongly condemn abuse and think that the people responsible should be severely dealt with, I am more concerned at present with service rather than control. The Minister, in effect, has told us that he is building more controls into the system. I welcome section 12 which will increase the fines for abuse but it is not control that we need now it is service. Why does it take 17 weeks to process a claim for unemployment assistance, 21 weeks on average to process ones for the deserted wife's allowance and 18 weeks for a widow's pension? These are the questions to which we should be addressing ourselves. We should ensure that people have their applications and claims dealt with expeditiously. When that is looked after, then one can build in a mechanism of control to ensure that there will be no abuse. I am all for the high fines and the other elements in the Social Welfare Bill to deal with abuses. I am afraid that building in controls at this time will make it take longer to process applications and unfortunate people will be left with no income and nothing to survive on.
It is interesting that the Minister told us yesterday that an amount of £2.3 million was involved in fraudulent claims last year. One must compare that with the scare figure given by the Taoiseach in Tullamore in November 1982, just before the last general election. He gave approximately £70 million as the figure for abuse. The Minister's figure is much more realistic.
In view of the increase in the number of applications for social welfare assistance as a result of the recession, has there been an increase in staff in the Department to administer the various schemes, or have all the increases been in the area of combating fraud? The Minister said:
I am glad to say that the Department's computerisation programme is resulting in significant administrative savings and substantially higher productivity. This was acknowledged in the 1983 Report of the Department of the Public Service...
It is all right to improve the computerisation programme, but if we still have these long delays in processing claims something is very seriously wrong. Does the embargo on appointments to the Public Service apply to the Department of Social Welfare? The family income supplement was announced with a great fanfare of trumpets and eventually it came into operation last September. We were told on a number of occasions by the Minister and the Minister for Finance that 35,000 people would benefit from that scheme. Only about 10,000 applied for it; 3,000 people benefited from it; 3,000 people were refused; and almost 4,000 applications are still waiting to be processed.
The scheme does not apply to the worst off sections of the community: the unemployed, long term recipients of social welfare, the self-employed in business, and small farmers, irrespective of their income. Handicapped persons in receipt of a disabled person's maintenance allowance receive a free travel pass but they are not allowed to bring an adult with them. A mentally handicapped person who may not be able to travel alone has a free travel pass. A mother with a widow's pension cannot afford to pay for travelling and she is not allowed to travel free with her handicapped child, so the free travel pass is not of much use. I ask the Minister to see if something can be done about that.
At the moment elderly people living alone in remote areas are being terrorised. We should pay tribute to the Leader of our party for his enlightened approach to social welfare when he was Minister. I refer in particular to the introduction of the free telephone rental system. That has been of tremendous value and benefit to elderly people living alone who are fortunate enough to have a telephone. It is a great source of comfort to them. If they are attacked or abused in any way they can use the telephone and get help immediately. I ask the Minister to look at this scheme particularly in view of the problems elderly people living alone are facing in rural Ireland and to see if the scheme can be extended to enable us to do justice to those people and to look after their needs.
Fianna Fáil were responsible for the most enlightened social legislation in this State, such as the free television licence. It is interesting that the BBC are suggesting to the British Government that they should follow the Irish example and give free television licences to those in receipt of social welfare assistance or benefit. All these schemes, such as the free electricity supply, were enlightened innovations. It is disappointing that after three years in office we have not had any enlightened social welfare legislation from this Government.
The Bill to set up a combat poverty organisation was circulated recently. I do not see the need for the Bill. If the Government ask the people they will soon learn what the needs are. Any Member of this House who holds clinics can tell them. I agree with Deputy Yates that Members of this House are in a position to inform the Minister and the Government what the real problems are. Unfortunately the pleas of Deputies are largely ignored. When will we see the equality legislation? It was supposed to be implemented by 19 December but it still has not been debated in this House.
The financing of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme is causing serious problems. This issue was raised here time and again. I raised it year after year. I do not understand why there cannot be a direct transfer of funding from the Department of the Environment to the Department of Social Welfare to take account of the obligations of local authorities. The Western Health Board have started to sue the local authorities for money. All this is a waste of resources, involving the high cost of litigation. Something should be done to help the local authorities who have not got the money to meet their obligations in this context.
I welcome the extension of dental and optical treatment to the wives of insured workers in so far as it goes. I am very disappointed that it does not go all the way and give wives of all insured workers these benefits. One cannot accept statistics from the Government having regard to what they said about the family income supplement.
Very few women will avail of the dental service. The woman has to be pregnant and presumbly that has to be proved. That will take time. Dental treatment is recommended for three months only in the nine month period of pregnancy. I cannot see that this scheme will be of any great benefit to women. If it takes anything like the length of time it takes to process other applications, the pregnancy will be long since over by the time the application is approved. In introducing the scheme the Minister should have allowed all women to participate.
I agree with Deputy Yates about the difficulty in processing claims for a deserted wife's allowance. A more flexible approach should be adopted. Recently a woman received a letter from a firm of solicitors in Australia saying that her husband was going to court for a divorce and asking her to reply. That letter went to the Department of Social Welfare but it was not accepted as evidence that she was a deserted wife. She was turned down, on what basis I do not know. This is an indication of inflexibility in the system.
The Minister said that section 10 provides for the extension of social insurance coverage to doctors and dentists in the Defence Forces. He said:
I consider that the continued general exclusion of doctors and dentists from social insurance can no longer be justified and this is a matter which I will be putting before the Government in the near future.
Perhaps the Minister would explain what doctors and dentists he is referring to — presumably the doctors and dentists in the Defence Forces. Presumably also that has already been agreed by the Government or it would not appear in this Bill. But I should very much like to know what doctors and dentists he now intends including in social insurance.
The first thing this Government need to do is to decide what way the country and the economy are going. I accepted what the Minister told us yesterday in the course of his remarks from which I might quote:
Low growth generally in the economy and the need to increase both direct and indirect taxes in order to get the budget deficit under control have all but eliminated the increment of resources from which increased social welfare expenditure could be financed without cutting into living standards.
Then I read an article in yesterday's The Irish Times by their political correspondent, Dick Walsh, under the heading “Putting nation back on tracks — Taoiseach”, when we were told and I quote:
The Taoiseach was in a buoyant mood. He had already spoken, at a function in Dublin, of a quickening in the pulse of economic activity, forecasting an expansion in business, an increase in investment and a pick up in employment this year.
Then there were schemes listed he thought would be of benefit, such as the enterprise allowance, the family income supplement and the social employment schemes. It appears that the Taoiseach and the Minister are at variance on what is the situation in our economy. Anybody who is out and about, any economist, or indeed any Member of this House would have to agree that the Minister was right and the Taoiseach wrong, that the low growth generally in our economy is as a result of the Government's policy. Everybody might not agree with that but everybody would agree that our economy is not beginning to pick up and that we do encounter these difficulties. This is relevant to social policy because it is when the economy is going well that there is not the same need, particularly for social assistance schemes. It must be remembered that we have a very high population encompassing a high number of dependants which places an enormous strain on any social welfare system. We also have the highest percentage of unemployment in Europe. The Minister admitted yesterday that the most effective approach to unemployment is through the provision of jobs and that the Government's policies and resources were being mobilised to that end. We do not see any sign of that and perhaps the Minister would elaborate somewhat in that regard when replying.
If we are to deal with the problems confronting us the first thing we must ensure is that we have a sound economy and we must create employment. I believe this Government went in the wrong direction altogether since assuming office, believing that if they got their books and figures right everything else would fall into line. Even the Taoiseach himself admitted that the policies he was pursuing were diametrically opposed to those necessary for the creation of employment. The tragedy is that after two and a half years the books are still not right. The Government are now borrowing more than was ever done in the history of the State and they have allowed for a deficit of £200 million more this year.