As I indicated already, I am glad the Minister has decided to end the urban-rural anomaly in regard to the rates of unemployment assistance. In addition to the obvious benefits to the individual it is also a further step towards rationalising and streamlining the whole social welfare system. When demands are made for streamling or simplifying the system it is always on the basis that the most generous rates are the ones that should be used for this purpose. The only difficulty with this approach is that it has very considerable cost implications. The cost of raising the rural unemployment assistance rate to the urban rate will be £3 million. This is a considerable commitment by the Government and they are to be congratulated for taking this positive and welcome step.
The Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Woods, undertook in the budget to review the urban-rural differential in the rates of unemployment assistance and to have new arrangements in place in July. The Bill provides that 107,000 social welfare recipients will get an extra increase in July over and above the budget increases already announced. Of these, 95,000 are on the rural rate of unemployment assistance and 12,000 are on supplementary welfare allowance. For the first time all unemployment assistance recipients will be paid at the same rate regardless of where they live. The lower rural rate will be increased to the urban rate, an increase of £1.20 per week for a short-term claimant and £1.30 per week for a long-term claimant. The new personal rate for unemployment assistance which will come into effect in July will be £42 per week for a short-term claimant and £47 per week for a long-term claimant. A family with three children on long-term unemployment assistance will get £107 per week from July as compared with £96.90 if they are currently on the rural rate, an increase of £10.10 per week. The new rate of supplementary allowance will be £42, the same as for those on short-term unemployment assistance. Because of the abolition of the rural rate of unemployment assistance, people on supplementary welfare allowance will get an additional increase of £1.20 next July. Taking account of budget increases, people on this rate, the lowest payment, will receive an increase of £4.20 in July.
I know the abolition of the rural rate will be much appreciated by people in some parts of my constituency, for instance Mayfield, part of which is on the outskirts of the city, and Dublin Hill where there are many new housing developments and which up to now were on the outskirts of the city. All those people in Cork who are on supplementary welfare allowance will benefit from this new arrangement.
I should like to refer to widowers and deserted husbands and I take this opportunity to welcome the introduction of a new social assistance scheme for widowers and deserted husbands with dependent children. This is a major improvement for men who lose their wives and who are left to look after their children. At present they have to fall back on supplementary welfare allowance. When we consider the provision we make for widows and deserted wives, there was a need to introduce this scheme for widowers and deserted husbands so as to create greater equality. When one speaks of equality it is normally in the context of improving the position of women vis-à-vis men.
The discrimination against widowers and deserted husbands needed to be tackled and I am glad that the Minister has taken the opportunity to introduce this new scheme. It will mean a very significant increase for widowers. Compared with what they receive under supplementary welfare allowance at present, a widower with four children will receive £29 extra per week. I know that the introduction of this new scheme for widowers and deserted husbands will be a great help to people in Cork who find themselves in this unhappy position. A widower or deserted husband with dependent children will now get the same rate of social welfare social assistance payment as a widow or deserted wife.
With changing work and life patterns in society, we have to face the reality that men are left to take on the responsibility of looking after their children when their wives die or desert them. It was unfair to penalise them for doing so or to discriminate against them. Many are unable to go out to work or unable to find work. This new scheme will be a major help for such people and has been warmly welcomed. It is a major step towards a single parent allowance scheme and is a first step in a series of measures necessary to introduce equality between men and women in the social welfare system.
We have already had some experience of the effects of European Community equality directives. When the Coalition introduced the equality provision in 1986 they had to make special alleviating payments to people on social welfare who would otherwise have lost out. They had intended that those payments would last for one year only but this Government have continued them. Rather than abruptly stopping them in one go, as the Coalition were going to do, the Government decided to phase them out on a gradual basis. This was a caring and sensible approach to adopt. I would ask the Minister to consider the possibility of introducing a single parent allowance scheme and to bring about the necessary rationalisation of the system to achieve this. This is the direction we should be going in. It is better to face the issue and not wait until we are forced to take action by the EC
The Minister has introduced very welcome and desirable improvements for people on social welfare but I would like to consider the position of the unemployed and the other measures that could be taken to improve their situation. Some of these, like the pre-retirement allowance, are dealt with in this Bill but others are dealt with at an administrative level. The Minister has introduced the part time job incentive scheme, the educational opportunites scheme and the voluntary work option. These are all very important helps for the unemployed but we need to make more progress in this direction. In order to be entitled to unemployment payments, a person must be available for and actually seeking work and must be free and willing to take up full time employment. One of the conditions or means of monitoring this availability for work is signing on, usually on a weekly basis, at the local employment exchange or other signing office.
The schemes I have just mentioned involve some suspension of the criteria of being available for and genuinely seeking work. If a person is to undertake, say, the educational opportunities scheme, they devote the period of the course to their studies. They are, in theory, available for and actively seeking work but in reality the majority do not seek work during that time. They use the opportunity of the course to acquire an additional educational qualification so as to improve their long-term job prospects. This is a very sensible approach but it means accepting that such persons need not continually establish that they are available for work. While the Government are succeeding in creating an environment for jobs and growth in the economy it appears we will have the problem of unemployment for some years to come.
Representing as I do a constituency with more than its fair share of unemployment, I have a particular interest in any means of improving the position of those who are unemployed particularly the long-term unemployed. The Government have made great strides in improving the income position of the unemployed and this Bill gives effect to substantial increases. We must take this further and increase flexibility in the system so as to create a wide range of options for the unemployed.
While some unemployment groups are mainly pressure groups, I should like to compliment one of the unemployed groups in my constituency for the practical and sensible approach they have adopted in coming up with proposals to improve the lot of the unemployed. The unemployed group in Knocknaheeny have produced a preliminary document suggesting that there should be a transition period between unemployment and employment, especially for the long term unemployed. The basis of their proposal is the establishment of a co-operative for unemployed people. The Minister will be well aware from his interest in cooperatives of the immense role they can play in society. It should not be forgotten that the co-operative movement was started in Ireland by Sir Horace Plunkett. It proved an excellent idea for the people of Ireland and swept the country. It is based on the concept of people helping themselves.
The Knocknaheeny Support Group in their preliminary submission, a copy of which has been submitted to the Department of Social Welfare, have said that there is a connection between unemployment and poverty and I am sure we would all agree with that. They recognise the need to express the views of the disadvantaged in society, but they place a greater emphasis on the need for imaginative and positive responses which might have some chance of making an impact on the problem of unemployment. They consider that their submission is in the category of such a response. "Support", as they are called, claim that the extent of the problem imposes an obligation of co-operation on all people, whether in Government, the public service, or in community or voluntary groups.
The Knocknaheeny Support Group provide mutual support and a commitment to community enterprise and job creation. They consider this is a difficult but viable route forward. The unemployed have to play a part in tackling the overall problem of unemployment for society. The group tackle the psychological aspects of unemployment and help people to get back into circulation. They believe there is an obligation on the Government to recognise in some practical and substantial form the efforts of groups such as themselves to find some way out of unemployment. They are trying to highlight how unemployed people feel about their situation and to set the scene for greater flexibility to give them a chance to return to work.
At this stage it is as well to state that the support group claim no monopoly on wisdom, commonsense or initiative and that the group are completely open to suggested improvements or changes from any quarter. The basis of their proposals involves the recognition both in principle and in practice of the concept of a transition period, that is a period between unemployment and full employment. They feel from their own experience of long-term unemployment that this is an essential element. It is vital to the success of this specific proposal and of any sustained community effort to rectify the problem.
During this transition period they propose to set up a services co-operative with a mixture of skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled and professional services being provided. This would be done on a competitive commercial basis. All funds generated by the co-op would be held by Support Limited, a company limited by guarantee which is currently in the process of formation.
During this transition period all those engaged on the project would keep their full social welfare entitlements and, in addition, would be paid the appropriate family income supplement. Local authority rent payments would be held at their current levels on commencement of the project. When the accumulated funds and income flow have reached predetermined levels, all those engaged in the project would leave the social welfare system. All payments would be made from the accumulated funds from that point on.
That, in its basic form, is the proposal which is being suggested as a pilot project. I would strongly urge the Minister to give serious consideration to this matter. The people involved in this project are unemployed for a long number of years, some of them for up to seven or eight years.
What is wanted is some system which would enable these people to be exempted from having to meet the criteria of being available for work for a period of, say, up to one year. There would be no real cost to the State. The people involved have no immediate prospects of obtaining employment. What they want is an opportunity to create for themselves the chance of setting up in business, while having at the same time the security of knowing that their social welfare payments will continue. I know that the Minister is actively considering this proposal and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him, on my own behalf and on behalf of the support group, for his interest in the work of the group.
The Government have a major part to play in helping people in need. It is much better if Government can work in tandem with voluntary groups to improve the lot of the unemployed. This Minister is committed to that approach.
The technical requirement of being available for employment presupposes the availability of employment opportunities. In times of high unemployment the strict enforcement of this condition has been questioned. Considerable progress has been made over the past two years in introducing flexibility to the unemployment payments system. I would ask the Minister to consider further modifying the system so as to allow for the transition period. This could also apply to educational courses where those under the educational opportunities scheme are unavailable or unsuitable. The essential control would be that this flexibility would only be available to people who were unemployed for, say, two years. In this way the likelihood of this proposal costing the State any money would be very small, if it existed at all.
I am pleased that the Minister has taken the necessary powers in this Bill to make a man liable to maintain his wife and any dependent child. A similar obligation is placed on a woman to maintain her husband and any dependent child. This is a major and very significant departure from the position that has existed up to now. A deserting spouse previously was not obliged to maintain his wife and children. All that is to change under this Bill.
While the State provides — and will continue to provide — for the deserted wife, the State will take on part of the responsibility for getting a contribution from the husband towards the maintenance of the wife and children. At present, a deserted wife must take steps to obtain maintenance from her husband before she will be entitled to social welfare. For wives left in such a vulnerable position, this can be a very harrowing experience. Going to court is a difficult experience for ordinary law-abiding citizens. It is much more so if it is to try to force a deserting husband to pay maintenance. Entitlement to deserted wife's payments depends on the wife trying, and continuing to try, to get maintenance from the husband.
The number of deserted wives in receipt of payments from the State has grown enormously and is now over 13,500. The cost to the taxpayer is estimated at over £52 million in 1989. This increase in payments is due to the increased breakdown in marriage. In many cases the husband walks away from his obligations and the taxpayer is left to foot the bill. This must stop. Those who can afford to pay maintenance for their families must be made to do so. There is no good reason why the taxpayer should continue to take the husband's responsibility when he is in a position to meet it. By imposing a liability on a deserting spouse to maintain the other, the first step is being taken to reduce the burden on the taxpayer.
The Minister for Social Welfare will now be able to seek a maintenance order against a person who fails to pay maintenance to the deserted spouse. The District Court will be able to make an order compelling that person to make the necessary payments to the Minister. In this way the State will be able to reduce the cost to it of paying deserted wives.
In common with the Minister's general approach to preserving the entitlements of people at present in receipt of payments, the new arrangements will not affect any payments that deserted wives are at present receiving. This is a very sensible and practical arrangement. People will have entered into commitments on the basis of their anticipated income and we should recognise that any change would impose hardship on those deserted wives.
The Minister is introducing a procedure to simplify and streamline court procedures in matters of evidence in social welfare fraud cases. These measures are to be welcomed, as is his crackdown on subcontractors. For too long the public have been complaining about fraud and abuse in the social welfare system. The Minister is to be complimented for having the initiative to deal seriously with this problem. He has had considerable success to date, saving tens of millions of pounds of taxpayer's money. These new measures are designed to further improve his power to tackle people who fiddle the system.
There are many other major positive developments in this Bill and in social welfare matters generally that I have not had time to consider in detail. The bottom line, really is that this Minister and this Fianna Fáil Government care about the needs of people on social welfare. The Minister has successfully managed the resources of his Department. He has the backing of the Government in providing additional resources so as to give major increases in real incomes for the unemployed and maintain the position of all who depend on social welfare.
It is important that we should remember, in a time of economic difficulty, the problem that the present Minister and Government inherited from the previous Administration. I was disappointed at the contribution of the main Opposition speaker. His contribution to an extremely important matter was very negative. More progress has been made in two years than was ever previously envisaged. Both speakers of the Labour Party and the Progressive Democrats recognised and acknowledged the progress made by the Government and particularly by Deputy Woods, the Minister for Social Welfare, in that time. It is a pity that we could not have had a more positive approach because, whether we like it or not, it must be recognised that we inherited a major problem. There had been no activity for almost four and a half years. This Government are tackling the problems, we are on the right road. There is an awful lot to be done but we have made progress in streamlining the system and giving better benefits. I am confident that with the continued efforts of the Minister and the Government — and of each one of us in the House — we will face the responsibility in an honest and serious way, not in a political way. If we do that we will live up to what is expected of us.
