asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason he has decided not to give a double payment at Christmas to social welfare recipients this year; and the savings his Department will make by granting a 75 per cent bonus instead of a double payment.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Christmas Double Payment.
40.
A Christmas bonus amounting to 75 per cent of the weekly entitlement will be paid in the week ending 6 December 1985.
The bonus will be paid as usual to pensioners and persons receiving allowances in the nature of pensions. There are approximately 119,000 of these. It will also be paid to the long term unemployed, that is, those who have been unemployed for 15 months or more, of whom there are some 105,000. In all, therefore, some 524,000 will benefit from the bonus payment.
This is the first time the long term unemployed have been included and, because of the consequential big increase in coverage of the scheme, each person who qualifies will get a bonus of 75 per cent of normal weekly entitlement. The new arrangement will not involve a saving for the Department. On the contrary there will be an additional cost. Last year the Christmas bonus cost about £20 million whereas this year the extended bonus scheme will cost almost £21 million.
Why has the Minister decided this year not to grant a double week's payment to social welfare recipients and instead give a 75 per cent bonus which must result in an estimated loss, when compared with last year, in the Christmas benefit of these social welfare recipients? Why did the Minister decide to give a 75 per cent bonus as against a double week's payment?
A decision was taken this year to extend the bonus payment to the long term unemployed whom I am sure everyone regards as a section of the community, in the social welfare area, as being hardest hit, some 105,000 of them. It was felt to be a fair and just way of distributing the bonus, to spread it out to a great many more deserving people.
I am glad that this year the Minister has decided to bear in mind the strong representations and pleas made this time last year from this side of the House when he and his Department refused to give a double week's payment to the long term unemployed. Does the Minister think it fair, in providing this 75 per cent bonus, to throw the blame for the reduced payments onto other beneficiaries such as old age pensioners, invalidity pensioners, people on DPMAs, people on blind pensions, because at long last the Government have recognised that the long term unemployed are deserving of this bonus?
That is not a question. It is a comment on the information given.
The Minister in this House a few moments ago laid the blame for the reduced payments on the remainder of recipients because the Government had decided so gratuitously on this occasion to give a bonus to the long term unemployed.
I have no control over the way the Minister answers questions. But I must ensure that, whatever way he answers them, it does not give rise to debate or argument about whether he was right or wrong, or he should have done this, that or the other.