asked the Minister for Social Welfare if his attention has been drawn to the fact that many young people who are unemployed are denied unemployment assistance because of their parents' means; that some others are in receipt of as little as 70p per week; if, in view of the fact that this could be encouraging young people to emigrate, he will consider introducing a minimum payment for all those who are unemployed, which would be paid regardless of household means; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Welfare Benefits.
6.
Entitlement to unemployment assistance is assessed according to a person's means and family circumstances. The rate of assistance payable in any particular case depends on the amount of weekly means assessed. Where the weekly means exceed the maximum level of unemployment assistance, no assistance is payable. Even where the payments are small the recipients are entitled to priority for other benefits including FÁS schemes and programmes.
In assessing a person's means for unemployment assistance purposes account is taken of the value of any benefit and privilege enjoyed, such as board and lodging. The purpose of this assessment is to achieve a degree of equity as between applicants in different household circumstances. This is a long-standing method of assessing entitlement to unemployment assistance.
The operation of the means test ensures that assistance is targeted at those who are most in need and is an equitable way of directing limited resources. Introducing a minimum payment for all those who are unemployed regardless of household means would have major financial implications, particularly if such payments were to be set at a level which would have a significant bearing on the decision of young people to emigrate. Provision for such payments would, in effect, be at the expense of those in greatest need and would be difficult to justify at a time when the priority is to improve the position of those on the lowest payments.
The Minister said that this is a long-standing method of assessment. Is it not time the Minister looked at it again? The Minister said that in assessing means the value of a benefit or privilege is taken into account. Is it not a fact that if a young person leaves his home and goes to live in private rented accommodation, not alone is he able to draw the full amount of unemployment assistance but he is also given a rent allowance to pay to the landlord? Why is the Minister prepared to give a rent allowance to the landlord but gives no allowance to the parents for keeping the child? That is the area of assessment of means that I want to direct the Minister's attention to.
I would like to appeal for brief questions, please.
This system is in operation since 1933, with modifications from time to time. I appreciate the point the Deputy is making. It is true that a person in a flat is entitled to full benefits. Unfortunately the cost of removing this benefit in kind would be, at the minimum, £14 million per year. The equity of doing it would also be questionable. If we had £14 million, would it be better to spend it on people in the lowest circumstances generally or to spend it on raising everybody up a little? All I can say is that the method of assessment is under review at present.
Does the Minister realise that the system as it operates at the moment is driving young people out of their homes into private rented accommodation? Does the Minister also recognise that it is driving them out of the country because many young people get as little as 70p, maybe £5, and must therefore emigrate?
That solves the Minister's problem.
The amount involved would hardly be sufficient to drive people out of the country. There are other factors that are responsible for that.
The amount is about £42.
This is basically a system which provides greater equity. Somebody living in very fine circumstances, well provided for, will not get as much as somebody in lesser circumstances. That is the basic equity of the situation operating since 1933. It is being reviewed at present but there is the basic question of where one best spends the £14 million. Within those circumstances it is being reviewed.
The Minister mentioned a figure of £14 million. What would be the cost of implementing the recommendation of the Commission on Social Welfare to remove the requirement for over 25s? What has the Minister done in relation to removing the discrimination in the method of assessment as between wage earning families and farm families? Is the Minister aware that there is a continuing discrimination against the offspring of farming families? Has that discrimination been removed and, if not, why not? Is there anything the Minister intends to do about it?
The commission recommended that there should be no benefit and privilege assessment for persons over 25. They also recommended that there would be a flat rate of £10 a week paid for those between the ages of 18 and 25.
What is the cost?
The Deputy did not ask about the cost in his question. The overall figure is £14 million and the figure for the 18-25 age group is £5 million. That is to provide a minimum payment of £10 per week.
What about those over 25 years of age? The Minister did not reply to my question about the common method of assessment.
If the Deputy wants specific figures he should state that in his question.
My second question related to the common method of assessment as recommended on page 263 of the report of the Commission on Social Welfare. What is the Minister doing about that recommendation?
We are, as I said earlier, reviewing the matter.
That is ridiculous.
I am calling Deputy Stagg. I am not prepared to dwell unduly long on this or any other question.
Is the Minister aware of the wild variations that occur between a first decision on means and appeals against such decisions? Is the Minister in a position to give an explanation for those wild variations? Will he confirm that persons who are deemed to have an income that would disallow them any payment are excluded by the social welfare code from all other benefits, including the FÁS schemes he referred to?
I referred to those matters in my original reply.
The Minister has ignored my question.
I am calling Deputy Harney.
The Minister in his reply referred to the other schemes and I am asking him to confirm that people deemed to have an income are excluded.
If the Deputy is dissatisfied with the Minister's reply he has a remedy. Deputy Harney has been called.
The Minister ignored my final question. I asked him if he would confirm that persons who have received no payment are also excluded from all other benefits.
The Deputy should desist.
The Minister wishes to reply to my question.
If the Minister wishes to reply to the Deputy he will be afforded an opportunity.
The Deputy is trying to be argumentative.
I am trying to get information.
The Deputy, like other Members, will be aware that unless a person is in payment he or she is to a large extent excluded, not necessarily entirely. Such a person will not get priority from any of those schemes and that is why I stated that people who get a small payment are included in the priority.
Will the Minister agree that it is inappropriate that parents should have to have financial responsibility for their children up to the age of 25 years? Has the method of assessing means changed recently? Is it now a percentage of the parents' income?
In response to the second question I should like to tell the Deputy that there has been no change recently. However, the whole question is being reviewed.
The Minister has ignored the recommendation of the commission on that.
That is not true and I have stated that it is included in the review.
This is the soft option.
The method has been the same for a long time.
7.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare when he will introduce the new arrangements for the payment of disability benefit; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The question of introducing a statutory sick pay scheme under which employers would be responsible for payment of benefit to their employees for an initial period of illness has been under examination. An inter-departmental committee who examined the implications of such a scheme identified a number of crucial policy issues to be resolved before such a scheme could be introduced. A scheme on these lines has major implications for the administration of the disability benefit scheme and the timing of its introduction has to be considered in the context of the other major developments taking place in the administration of the social welfare system. The examination of this issue is ongoing and I will be putting forward detailed proposals in this area in due course.
What are the crucial policy decisions under consideration before the Minister introduces the new scheme?
The change involved is a very extensive operation. The Deputy may be aware that it took several years to find a workable scheme and introduce it in Great Britain because of factors within the payments systems. Various elements had to be teased out. It is largely an administrative question and will involve discussions with employers' organisations. We will have to find a system of phasing that would be workable both from the point of view of the employers, the Department of Social Welfare and the recipient so that he or she will have a service that is as effective as the existing one.
Is it the Minister's intention that employers will have to pay the first 13 weeks or so of disability benefit?
The initial proposal was that employers would be responsible on a statutory basis for the first 13 weeks. There is nothing particularly magical about 13 weeks and that is one of the issues that will be examined. Another question is how those payments will be made and how they will be recouped because it is the intention to recoup them.
Has the Minister given any consideration to another problem that arises for recipients of disability benefit, that of delays in the postal service? As a result some people have to live from hand to mouth over weekends. Has the Minister given any thought to changing that method and substituting payments through post offices or by some other method so that people would not have to wait for the post? In many instances such people are disappointed and find that they, and their families, go hungry over weekends.
The incidence of delays is very small, fortunately.
Not in the part of the country I come from.
Last September I introduced a new system in Cork which involved direct entry into the computers. That overcame many of the delays and other problems. Up to then people who lived a distance from central records were at a disadvantage. If a person put down a wrong RSI number or gave some incorrect information on a form there would be a delay. That occurs in a percentage of cases and the number increases from week to week. Under the direct certificate entry system certificates can be delivered to the local office, for example, in Cork, entered into the computer and cleared straight away so that further problems will not arise. The payment will be sent out within a couple of days. That extremely rapid and efficient service has spread to other parts of the country and, eventually, will operate everywhere. Most people are happy with the new arrangement. It is hard to see how any other arrangement would be quicker but I appreciate that on occasions cheques do not arrive on the date expected thereby causing problems for people, particularly if it is close to a weekend. There must be an authorisation for payment from somewhere and that must be sought from the office. The only way to get over that problem would be to permit payment at local offices. That is a possibility in the long term but computerisation represents a huge step forward.
Will the Minister accept that there is considerable hardship on that score? I am not sure about the position in Cork city but the improvements he mentioned have not reached west Cork as yet and I have received complaints from people who have been left over weekends, and sometimes longer, without their cheques. There must be some way of ensuring payment through a post office or otherwise.
That point has been adequately made.
8.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason payment of a free fuel allowance was refused in the case of a person (details supplied) in County Kildare who is in receipt of a retirement pension with an allowance for his dependent wife and with no allowance for his dependent son, who is aged 18 and in receipt of full-time second level education.
To qualify for a fuel allowance under the national fuel scheme a pensioner must be living either alone or only with a qualified dependant, another qualified pensioner or a person providing full time care and attention where the pensioner is incapacitated.
Payment of a fuel allowance was refused in the case of the person concerned because his son, who resides with him, is no longer a qualified dependant for retirement pension purposes and does not, therefore, come within the excepted categories for the purpose of the "living-alone" condition.
In view of the particular anomaly that arises in this type of case and the small number of such cases, would the Minister consider making an order to allow payment in this and similar cases and would he inform the House of the number involved and what the extra cost might be?
The case refers to a particular person. I cannot allow any extension of the subject matter.
The Minister might have the information available.
I have said all I should say about this particular case. Regarding the question of 18-year olds continuing in education, I think that would be a separate question. I have made an arrangement this year whereby if a person reaches the age of 18 during the course of the season — in other words, if they are under 18 at the start of the season and reach 18 during the season — the allowance will not be stopped during the season. It will continue for the remainder of the season.
We are dealing with an 18-year old without any income who receives no payment from the Department of Social Welfare through his parent's income and is totally dependent on his parents. I would ask the Minister to make an order to end this disgraceful anomaly, one which causes very real hardship to a very small number of people and not to use such tricks and traps in the social welfare scheme to exclude such people from payment.
This is what he has done all over the place.
Order, please, let us hear the Minister.
This has been a condition of the scheme for a long time. It is part of the living alone——
Mr. Stagg rose.
Please, Deputy Stagg, the Minister is replying to your question. Please be good enough to listen to him.
The fact that in some particular cases it may not have been implemented is a separate question.
The Minister is not correct in what he has said.
If the Deputy does not want to hear the Minister that must be the end of the matter. I am calling on Deputy Austin Deasy.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Stagg, please desist. I have called Deputy Deasy.
I was hoping that the Minister would take Question No. 21 in conjunction with Question No. 8 because Question No. 21 is the more generalised form of Question No. 8 which is specific.
He has deliberately avoided it.
This is the most disgraceful anomaly that exists.
We are dealing now with Question No. 8. We shall deal with Question No. 21 later if we come to it.
Would the Minister like to answer Question No. 21?
Not now, Deputy. Please desist.
On that issue, because it raises broader issues as in the case highlighted by Deputy Stagg, which I agree with him is one of the most disgraceful anomalies I have ever come across, would the Minister accept that in the case outlined by Deputy Stagg — indeed, there are a number of such issues arising in my own constituency — that not alone does the family lose the winter fuel allowance but, in addition, because they are keeping that son or daughter in full-time education, they also lose the child dependency allowance of £10.20 a week and the mother loses the child benefit allowance. The overall weekly cost to that household is £18 odd because they want to keep that son or daughter in full-time education. Is that not a disgrace and totally contrary to all social policy?
Order, please. There is a deviation from this question now.
There is indeed and it has widened very much but, nevertheless, this has been the situation in the various schemes continuously. The Deputy is raising the issue of the child dependant allowances which is a very important element — it is the other element which is very important. In fact, it is a much wider element but unless it is a widow, a deserted wife or an unmarried mother it does not continue up to the age of 21. That is a matter to be considered in the context of the budget. It was considered by budgets while the Coalition were in office but nothing was done at that stage. It will be considered further in the current budgetary situation but it has been——
Did not the health boards have a discretion in this matter?
I am calling Deputy Stagg for a final supplementary.
Can the Minister confirm that the previous system relating to the area to which this question refers was operated by the health board? In that case, can he agree or confirm that the health board could examine each case on its merits? Can he also confirm that there is no discretion in his Department to look at individual cases and to deal with them on the evidence presented and that they are bound by this ridiculous rule which states that somebody who is over 18 and who is totaly maintained by his parents is no longer a dependant?
That has been the situation all the time. I do not deny what the Deputy has said that some health boards may have operated differently. What I would like to make clear to the Deputy is that the health boards still have discretion in relation to fuel schemes if there are special needs. While there is not a principle across the board that everybody over the age of 18 is covered, the health boards still have discretion.
The fuel allowances have been virtually withdrawn.
That is not true.
(Interruptions.)
Question No. 9, Deputy Bell's question. This is unnecessarily disorderly.
(Interruptions.)
I have called the next question.
I wish to give notice that I wish to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of Question No. 21 on today's Order Paper.
I will communicate with Deputy Deasy in respect of that matter.
That is quite extraordinary since we have not even got to that question yet.
I wish to raise on the Adjournment the issue of the national fuel scheme.
I will communicate with Deputy Stagg in respect of that matter.
I want to raise on the Adjournment the whole area of the national fuel scheme.
I will communicate with the Deputy, also.
Maybe we should have the Adjournment here now?
An tAire to reply to Question No. 9, please.
I would have taken it. I can tell you, a Cheann Comhairle, for nothing, that the number of extra people coming along who never claimed before — because it is handled by the Department of Social Welfare and because they can get it as a right — is very considerable. That is what is actually happening. That is the reality.
Thousands have lost it.