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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 21 Mar 1990

Vol. 397 No. 3

Social Welfare Bill, 1990: Second Stage.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This Bill provides for significant improvements in our social welfare schemes and services. It also introduces two major new schemes and a number of other important developments.

The Bill is a very substantial piece of legislation. It comprises seven parts and a total of 51 sections. This makes it the largest Social Welfare Bill since the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1981, which I also had the honour to put through this House. In fact, it is the largest piece of new social welfare legislation in almost 40 years since the Social Welfare Act, 1952, which established the social welfare system as we know it.

The Bill continues the Government's policy of sustained improvements in social welfare. We have once again more than maintained all payments against inflation; given special increases to those on the lowest payments; introduced many improvements in existing schemes; introduced a number of major new schemes and services; and improved in many respects the effectiveness of the delivery of our services, including the new appeals system.

Two years ago in 1988 we extended social insurance to the self-employed. This was an historic development in social security coverage. Last year, we introduced a new social assistance scheme for widowers and deserted husbands as well as other measures aimed at modernising and improving our social welfare system.

This year, in a major piece of social welfare legislation we are introducing two important new schemes — a carer's allowance and a lone parents' allowance.

The Bill includes provisions for a number of major and innovative developments in social welfare legislation — I have already mentioned the introduction of a new carer's allowance and a new lone parent's allowance. The Bill also includes the provisions necessary to establish a new social welfare appeals system which will be a major development in the administration of social welfare schemes.

Other innovative measures being introduced this year include a special clothing allowance to help social welfare recipients provide for their children's school and winter clothing which will come into effect in September. There will be a number of improvements in the means tests including, in particular, an exemption of income from the sale of a pensioner's residence in certain circumstances and an exemption of payments to persons who accommodate students of Irish during the summer months. I would also like to mention changes which I am introducing in the free schemes and, in particular, the provision under the free travel scheme for free travel for companions. This will enable a companion to travel free with a recipient of disabled person's maintenance allowance who cannot travel alone. This will be of major benefit to people in this situation and will be of particular benefit to the mentally handicapped.

In last year's Social Welfare Act, I provided that the prescribed relative's allowance could be paid directly to the person who provides the care. Now we are going further to provide for the first time for a separate carer's allowance. Despite the changes we are witnessing in society today, such as greater mobility for young people and increased participation by married women in the workforce, the family continues to be the strongest and most reliable source of care for elderly incapacitated people. The majority of the elderly and the handicapped continue to be cared for at home living with their spouse or children or with another relative, rather than in institutions.

This new allowance, which I am particularly pleased to introduce, represents a milestone in the development of our social welfare services. For the first time in our legislation we are giving official recognition to the role of the carer who provides full time care for elderly people in the community. Many public representatives and voluntary groups have stressed the importance of the work of those who care for the elderly and the need for this work to be recognised. Such was the lack of recognition of these caring people, mainly women, that they have been referred to as the "forgotten army". Their selfless dedication has been of inestimable value to the community over the years. I am delighted to be able to recognise the dedication of carers with the introduction of this new allowance.

Better living standards and improved health care have increased life expectancy for all of us. The number of elderly people is increasing and will continue to increase. Some of these will need full-time care and attention. Where possible, this is best provided in the home. This is where carers have such an important role. I am anxious that this role be recognised and that carers are supported and encouraged. The new allowance represents much-needed reform in this area.

The development is also in line with the recommendations of the Commission on Social Welfare. The commission recommended that the prescribed relative's allowance be abolished and that carers should be entitled to receive a social assistance payment in their own right. The new allowance will be £45 per week and some 8,000 carers are expected to benefit under the new scheme. This compares with the existing prescribed relative's allowance of £28 which only applies to almost 2,000 caring relatives.

For those who already had the prescribed relative's allowance, the new allowance provides an increase of £17 per week. For others, it provides a new payment of £45 per week. The greatest gains go to those cases where the carer was hitherto receiving no payment at all because of the various restrictions attached to the prescribed relative's allowance. Such households can now benefit by the full £45. In addition child dependant increases will be payable where the carer has children.

I am pleased to tell the House that many of the restrictions which apply to the existing prescribed relatives allowance will be dropped when the new allowance comes into force. These provisions will be made by regulations. For example, at present the allowance is not paid if the carer is a married person dependent on his or her spouse. The new allowance will be paid in such cases, subject to a means test. This represents a significant improvement in the position of a married woman, with a husband on a low income, who cares for an elderly relative at home. The new allowance will also be paid in cases where the carer is not a relative and to people who are currently excluded because others are living in the house.

The position of people at present getting the prescribed relative's allowance will be protected. That is what we call the saver clause. If, due to the means test, a person getting this allowance would get a lower rate on the new carer's allowance, they will be able to retain their existing prescribed relative's allowance. I believe that the introduction of the allowance will lead to a greater awareness of the important part played by carers in the care of the elderly. It will also enable them to carry out this task by providing them with a secure and independent source of income.

I am also introducing a new allowance for lone parents which will mean for the first time that there will be a single means-tested payment for all lone parents with at least one dependent child. The need for this scheme was emphasised strongly by the voluntary groups who participated in our pre-budget forum. I would like to highlight a number of aspects of this scheme.

In the first instance, it formally recognises that all parents bringing up children on their own face similar problems. The ongoing difficulties being experienced by families in this situation are similar whatever the reasons for them becoming one parent families in the first place. The objective of the social welfare system must be to address the income maintenance needs of these families. It must treat all families in a similar manner whether the parent is a man or woman and regardless of the circumstances which originally gave rise to their lone parenthood.

Currently, the needs of lone parents are catered for by six different schemes. The supplementary welfare allowance scheme also caters for a number of persons who cannot qualify for existing schemes. It is a feature of the current arrangements that lone parents are categorised according to the circumstances which gave rise to their situation. This arose partly because of the piecemeal development of the provisions for one parent families. Originally, of course, we only had the schemes for widows. In the seventies separate schemes were introduced for deserted wives, unmarried mothers and prisoner's wives. These were considered innovative and progressive in their time and made a substantial improvement to the lives of many lone parents. Last year I introduced for the first time new schemes for widowers and deserted husbands.

The new scheme which I am now providing for in the Bill will streamline all existing social assistance payments for lone parents. It will incorporate the existing schemes for unmarried mothers, widowers and deserted husbands. Women receiving widow's non-contributory pension, deserted wife's allowance and prisoner's wife's allowance, who have child dependants will also be covered by the new scheme.

In addition, the new allowance will, for the first time, provide a special means-tested social welfare payment for certain lone parents such as separated spouses, unmarried fathers and prisoners' husbands. Up to now the only social welfare payment available to lone parents in these circumstances has been supplementary welfare allowance. I am sure Deputies will agree that the new scheme represents a landmark in the development of a non-discriminatory social welfare allowance for lone parents who are unable to provide for themselves.

The third major initiative for which provision is being made in the Bill is the improved social welfare appeals system. At present appeals are made to me as Minister for Social Welfare and are processed by my Department. The appeals are heard by appeals officers who are independent in the exercise of their functions and have been recognised as such by the courts. Nevertheless the fact that the appeals branch in administering appeals is linked with the Department has been the subject of criticism. I am taking measures to separate clearly the appeals function from the Department by setting it up as a separate executive office. This is in line with the commitments given in the Programme for National Recovery.

Under the new arrangements appeals will be made direct to the chief appeals officer and the appeals office will deal with all aspects of appeals. I will be providing that in future claimants whose appeals are refused will get information about the reasons for refusal and will be encouraged to seek any additional information they require as a basis for their appeal.

Appeals officers and the chief appeals officer will be appointed by the Minister for Social Welfare. Individual appeal officers will retain the discretion to decide whether appeals are dealt with summarily or by oral hearing. However, I am also providing that the Minister for Social Welfare and persons designated by him will in future have the power to direct that an oral hearing be allowed where they consider it warranted in a particular case. The new appeals office will be a self-contained office headed by a director and chief appeals officer. It will have its own manager and secretarial staff. Its headquarters in D'Olier House will include private rooms for the hearing of appeals.

Already the chief appeals officer has been appointed. Work on the refurbishing of office accommodation will commence within the next few weeks. Preparatory and architectural work has already been completed by the Office of Public Works. The new office will have its own self-contained accommodation and its own secretarial staff. Consultation and hearing rooms will be provided and particular attention is being paid to the need for privacy for clients. I am confident that the facilities will underscore the independence and separate nature of the new appeals office. Regulations will be made to update the procedures in relation to appeals in line with the new developments and to prescribe the functions of the director and chief appeals officer. I expect the new office to be fully operational by the late summer.

The current system of appeals has many positive features in relation to simplicity, speed and accessibility which I have been careful to retain. One such feature is informality, which provides a significant advantage over a more legalistic system in terms of providing the best possible service. The changes I am now making will maintain the independence of the appeals system and ensure that it is perceived to be fair and independent. They will also fulfil the undertakings contained in the Programme for National Recovery with the social partners and in the Programme for Government.

The total value of the social welfare increases and related measures announced in the budget is £216 million in a full year and £100 million this year. Total social welfare spending this year will, as a result, increase to £2,764 million which is equivalent to £7.5 million for each day of the year. That level of spending on social welfare is the highest ever in the history of the State. It demonstrates once again our continued determination to protect and improve the position of those dependent on our social services.

Among the measures provided for in this Bill are — an increase in general of 5 per cent in social welfare weekly rates of payment with special increases of up to 11 per cent for 16 different groups of welfare recipients, mainly those on the lowest payments; further streamlining of the rates for child dependants, reduced now to six compared with 36 in 1987, with an increase to £11 in the minimum weekly payment; an increase of 5 per cent in the monthly rates of child benefit; replacement of the existing prescribed relative's allowance by a new carer's allowance which will be payable on a means-tested basis to a wider range of persons providing full-time care and attention to pensioners; introduction of a new lone parents allowance for parents bringing up children on their own which will streamline all existing social assistance schemes for lone parents and which will include, for the first time, lone parents such as separated spouses, unmarried fathers and prisoners' husbands; measures to facilitate the establishment of the new social welfare appeals office; a major initiative to relieve those on low earnings of their liability for PRSI contributions while preserving their entitlements to benefits and pensions; improvements in means-testing which will exempt the income from the sale of a pensioner's home in certain circumstances and the income received by Mná Tí living in Gaeltacht areas who accommodate Irish students; and new arrangements involving the integration of the redundancy fund and the occupational injuries fund with the Social Insurance Fund.

The increases in payments are provided for in sections 3 and 4 of the Bill. The increase of 5 per cent generally in social welfare payments will more than maintain the position of all claimants, since the rate of inflation is expected to be around 3 per cent for the year mid-1990 to mid-1991. The special increases for 16 different groups including the unemployed, widows, the elderly and lone parents reaffirm the Government's commitment to improving the position of those on the lower payments. Ranging from 5 per cent in general up to 1 per cent, these increases more than meet our commitments in the Programme for National Recovery.

The main improvements in rates are: an increase of 5 per cent generally in the weekly rates of social insurance, social assistance and occupational injuries benefits; a 10.6 per cent in the personal rates of long-term unemployment assistance and single woman's allowance; special increases of between 7 per cent and 15 per cent in the rates for adult dependants of the unemployed and those on supplementary welfare allowance. The new adult dependant rate for all of these payments will be £31 a week from July; an increase of £4 (8.2 per cent) a week for widows, widowers, deserted wives/ husbands, unmarried mothers and prisoners wives, under age 66, on social assistance (means-tested) pensions or allowances; 6 per cent increase in the personal rate of the old age non-contributory pension; almost 7 per cent, £3.50 per week, for widows and deserted wives, under age 66, receiving contributory payments; an increase of 7 per cent in the personal rate of short-term unemployment assistance and supplementary welfare allowance; and £3 a week increase in the personal rates for those receiving disability and unemployment benefit.

This year the Government have again provided special increases for those on the lower payments who are the least well off. Continuing our commitment to improving the position of the long-term unemployed, an increase of £5 a week has been provided for in the personal rate of unemployment assistance.

The further streamlining of rates of adult dependant allowance together with the increase in the minimum child dependant payment has substantially improved the payment for families depending on long-term unemployment assistance. From July, a couple with three children will receive an increase of £9 bringing their payment to £116 a week. These latest increases will mean that the rate of payment for these families has been increased by almost 30 per cent since July 1986.

This year, new categories have been included in the special increases. An old age pension couple, both over age 66, will receive £106 a week, an increase of £6, while a widow under age 66 with two children will receive an increase of £5.20, bringing her new rate to £80 a week.

This year we are continuing to streamline and improve the number of different rates for adult and child dependants. I reduced the number of rates of adult dependant allowance for the unemployed to two last year. This Bill provides that, in future, there will be only one rate for this group. The new rate for an adult dependant allowance payable with all unemployment payments and with disability benefit will be £31 a week from July. This new payment means an increase of £4.10, or 15.2 per cent, for adult dependants of those on short-term unemployment assistance or supplementary welfare allowance and an increase of £2, or 6.9 per cent, for those on disability benefit, unemployment benefit or long-term unemployment assistance.

This year I am again reducing the number of child dependant rates by increasing the lower payments. In 1987 we had 36 rates for children. Last year these were reduced to 12 rates and this year I am further reducing them to six. The minimum payment which I introduced last year is being increased to £11 a week and the range of payments for children will now be between £11 and £15.

The following examples illustrate the effect of the increases which apply from July next: A couple with two children on long term UA will receive £105 per week, an increase of £8, while a couple with four children will receive an increase of £10 bringing their payment to £127; a couple with four children on short term UA or Supplementary Welfare Allowance will receive £120 per week, which is an increase of £11.10, while a couple with six children will get an increase of £13.10, and a total payment of £142; a lone parent under 66 with three children on an assistance payment will receive an additional £5.20, giving a total payment of £93.50; a widow or deserted wife on a contributory payment with four children will receive a payment of £116 which is an increase of £5.10; an old age pensioner with an adult dependant on a non-contributory pension will receive a total increase of £4.40, giving them a payment of £79.50; a couple both over 66, and under 80, on a contributory old age pension will receive a payment of £107.20 which is an increase of £5.00.

The monthly rates of child benefit are also being increased by 5 per cent from October. Section 5 sets out the new rates. £15.80 will be payable in respect of each of the first four children and the new rate for the fifth and subsequent children will be £22.90. A family with four children will receive an increase of £3 a month and their new rate will be £63.20. The increase for a family with six children will be £5.30 a month and their new rate will be £109 a month. About 470,000 families benefit from this scheme in respect of over one million children. With its universal nature and the fact that it is paid direct to mothers, child benefit is one of the most effective instruments available to the State through which the important role of mothers in bringing up children can be recognised.

Section 6 provides that child dependant payments for long-term recipients will be continued up to age 20 where the child remains in full-time education. Deputies will recall that I extended the age limit from 18 to 19 years last year. Next year, the Government plans to continue these payments up to age 21 in line with the provision for widows and other lone parents. The measure will take effect from September.

Sections 7 and 8 provide for the customary increase in the earnings ceiling up to which social insurance contributions are payable. Again this year I am glad to say that the rate of social insurance contribution is not being increased.

Section 7 provides for the increase in the ceiling for employers and employees. The increase in the ceiling for the self-employed is provided for in section 8. From 6 April 1990, employees and the self-employed will pay PRSI contributions in respect of earnings up to £17,300 instead of £16,700 at present. Employers will continue to pay contributions up to a ceiling of £18,600 for workers with these higher earnings.

The contribution rate for the self-employed will be 5 per cent from April 1990. I am pleased to inform the House that the self-employed are now making a substantial contribution to the PRSI pension system. Income from the scheme for the self-employed will be £62 million this year. This is some 30 per cent ahead of the original target. Until the scheme for the self-employed was introduced, up to 70 per cent of self-employed persons relied on means-tested payments in their old age. They now have entitlement to old age (contributory) pension and widows and orphans pension on a similar basis to employees.

The question of the coverage of the scheme to include invalidity pension at my request is being considered by the National Pensions Board. I look forward to their report later this year.

Section 9 provides for the PRSI exemption for low paid workers announced in the budget. From the beginning of the next tax year workers currently liable for Class A contributions whose gross earnings are £60 or less in a week will be exempt from their share of the PRSI contribution, 5.5 per cent, for that week. The health and employment levies will continue to be payable by workers who do not hold a medical card. The exemption means an increase of up to £3.30 a week in take home pay for workers who do not have any other deductions or levies. Even though they do not have to pay their social insurance contributions, exempted workers will continue to have full entitlement to social insurance benefits and pensions. It is estimated that over 50,000 workers will benefit from the exemption.

The new provision, together with the improved tax exemption limits announced in the budget, will make a significant improvement in the take home pay for low paid workers. Families on low pay will also benefit from the improvements in the family income supplement scheme which I will be announcing soon.

Section 10 provides for the reintroduction of the employer's PRSI exemption scheme. Earlier schemes covered the 1986-87 and 1987-88 tax years. The latest scheme applies to the 1990-91 tax year in respect of each employee taken on during the period from 23 October 1989 to 28 February 1990. The exemption covers the employer's portion of the PRSI contribution only and is confined to workers who were additional to the employers workforce on 27 September 1989.

At earnings of £250 the exemption can be worth up to £1,585 a year to an employer in respect of each employee. Latest figures in my Department indicate that about 700 employers will benefit from the exemption in the 1990-91 tax year for in the region of 1,000 employees.

Section 11 of the Bill provides for an increase from £69 to £72 in the amount of weekly earnings disregarded in calculating the rate of pay-related benefit. The disregarding of a proportion of reckonable earnings in calculating the amount of pay-related benefit payable with flat rate benefits has been an essential feature of the scheme since its introduction in 1974. The purpose of the disregard is to take account, in the calculation of pay-related benefit, of the amount payable by way of flat rate benefit.

Sections 12 to 16 provide for the new allowance for parents bringing up children on their own. Section 12 sets out the persons who are to be regarded as lone parents. It provides that the circumstances in which lone parents will be regarded as separated or unmarried will be set out in regulations. It also sets out the rates of entitlement. The amount of the allowance will depend on the number of dependent children and the claimant's weekly means. The maximum weekly rates that will apply when the scheme is introduced will be £66.50 for a parent with one child, made up of a personal rate of £53 and £13.50 child dependant allowance. An extra £13.50 will be payable in respect of each additional child.

Under the provisions of section 12 the existing widows non-contributory pension and deserted wives allowance scheme will continue to apply to women without children. Sections 13 to 16 provide for various amendments to facilitate the introduction of the scheme and that the scheme will be brought into effect by way of a commencement order.

It is intended that the new allowance will apply to lone parents who are bringing up at least one dependent child on their own — children can be regarded as dependants until they reach the age of 18, or 21 if they are in full-time education; satisfy a means test — the means test will be the same as that used for the widow's non-contributory pension and is designed to allow for a certain amount of part-time work; and are not cohabiting, that is, living with another man or woman as husband and wife.

I am particularly pleased to be able to bring this measure before the House. Apart from the major benefits it will provide to parents bringing up their children in what must be very difficult circumstances, it represents a major step for my Department in rationalising the number of schemes which cater for persons with similar needs. The amalgamation of these schemes will enable me to direct resources to more effective control of these schemes and to the pursuit of deserting spouses.

Sections 17 and 18 provide for the new carer's allowance which I described earlier. Section 17 inserts a new chapter in the principal Act covering these allowances. It provides among other things for the circumstances in which persons will be considered carers, the rules in relation to means and the rates of payment. It also provides for the making of regulations setting up the scheme. The scheme is to come into effect by way of commencement order. Section 18 provides for consequential amendments to the principal Act arising out of the insertion of the provisions for the new scheme.

Sections 19 to 22 provide for a number of legislative changes to facilitate the setting up of the new appeals office in line with our commitment in the Programme for National Recovery. Section 19 provides that appeals will, in future, be made directly to the chief appeals officer who will also be the director of the new office. The section also provides for the transfer of some of the functions which currently reside with the Minister to the chief appeals officer. An important provision here is that where the Minister considers that the circumstances of a particular case warrant an oral hearing, he may direct that the case be dealt with by way of an oral hearing. Section 20 provides that the chief appeals officer may refer questions to the High Court. Section 21 provides that the chief appeals officer shall have such functions as may be prescribed.

Sections 23 to 31 provide for the amalgamation of the occupational injuries fund and the redundancy and employers' insolvency fund. The amalgamation of these funds was announced in the context of the publication of the 1990 Estimates. The amalgamation will take effect from 1 May 1990. After that date, payments which at present come from the occupational injuries fund and the redundancy and employers' insolvency fund will be made out of the social insurance fund.

The three separate rates of employer contribution to the three funds will be aggregated to form a single contribution rate subject to a single ceiling. I am pleased to say that there will be no change in the contribution rate on account of the amalgamation. For the next tax year commencing on the 6 April 1990 the contribution rate for employers will continue to be 12.2 per cent. The amalgamation will allow for easier administration, more efficient accountability and control, more secure financing and will ensure that social welfare payments in respect of employees will originate from one fund.

Sections 23 to 26 provide for the relevant amendments to the legislative references to the occupational injuries fund and the redundancy and employers insolvency fund. Section 24 provides for the transfer to the Social Insurance Fund of all moneys standing to the credit of these funds on 30 April 1990 as well as any investment income accruing after that date. Section 25 provides that any outstanding contributions due under the Employers' Employment Contribution Scheme Act, 1981, will be paid into the Social Insurance Fund.

Sections 27, 28 and 29 provide for the necessary amendments to references in the Redundancy Payments Acts and the Protection of Employees (Employers Insolvency) Act. Section 30 sets out the definition for this Part and section 31 provides that the new arrangements will commence on 1 May 1990.

Section 32 relaxes a condition for the receipt of disability benefit after one year, which I consider particularly harsh in its application to some persons. Under the present legislation a person who has been in receipt of disability benefit for one year is required to have 260 employment contributions paid and, in addition at least 39 contributions paid or credited in the governing contribution year for the payment of disability benefit to continue. Claimants in future may continue to receive benefit if they remain incapacitated for work without having to satisfy the requirement of having 39 contributions paid or credited in the governing contribution year.

Section 33 provides for another measure which I think will make an appreciable difference to older persons who have to cope with the death of a spouse. It extends the "after death" payments to spouses in respect of whom an adult dependant allowance would have been payable but for the fact that they were receiving an old age non-contributory pension or a blind pension in his or her own right. Under existing provisions, six weeks payment of benefit is made on the death of a social welfare recipient to the spouse for whom the adult dependant allowance was being paid. Payments are subsequently treated as payment on account of any widow's or widower's pension which becomes payable.

Sections 34 and 35 provide for a number of improvements in the operation of the means test. Deputies will be familiar with the circumstances that form the background to section 35. Many elderly persons are living in houses which have been their homes for many years but which are no longer suited to their needs and which they are no longer in a position to maintain. Although they may be able to find something more suited to their needs or have the opportunity to avail of sheltered housing, they face the dilemma that, if they sell their homes, they may lose all or part of their pensions because the capital realised on the sale of the house will fall to be assessed as means under the rules for assessing capital. Faced with this situation it is understandable that an elderly person may hold onto their home, perhaps ending up in hospital or in institutionalised care instead of living out their lives in comfortable circumstances in the community. Representations have been made to me from time to time about such cases.

Section 35 provides for regulatory powers to exempt the income derived from the sale of a pensioner's principal residence from assessment of means in certain circumstances. This is something that Deputies generally will welcome because it is an important improvement.

Section 34 of the Bill provides that payments received by persons living in Gaeltacht areas who accommodate Irish students who wish to improve their fluency in the Irish language will not be assessed as means. This provision will benefit the Mná Tí of the Gaeltacht areas who play such a vital role in fostering an interest among the young in our language.

In regard to widows and PRSI contributions Deputies will be aware of the arrangements which are in operation for a number of years now which exempt widows and other groups from liability for the employee's share of the PRSI contribution. When social insurance cover was extended to the self-employed in April 1988, similar arrangements were made for widows and other groups who were self-employed. The exemption applies to recipients of widow's pensions (contributory or non-contributory), deserted wife's benefit or allowance, unmarried mother's allowance, widow's pension under the occupational injuries scheme and those receiving payments corresponding to a widow's (contributory) pension or to an occupational injuries widow's pension from another member state of the EC.

In addition to the employee's share of the social insurance contribution, the exemption also covers the health contribution and the employment and training levy.

In line with a Government decision taken last year in the context of expenditure reviews, I am proposing, in section 36 of the Bill, that those arrangements be phased out over the next three years.

From 6 April next, widows and other persons affected who are employees will pay a PRSI contribution of 3 per cent increasing to 4 per cent in the year commencing 6 April 1991. The full employee's social insurance contribution of 5.5 per cent will be payable in the year commencing 6 April 1992. The health contribution and the employment and training levy will continue to be exempted. I should also mention that widows and other persons affected who are on low pay and who benefit under the PRSI exemption scheme I referred to earlier, of course, will continue to be exempt from their share of the PRSI contribution.

I am proposing similar arrangements for those in this category who are self-employed. A contribution of 3 per cent, 4 per cent and 5 per cent will be payable for the next three years respectively subject to the minimum annual contribution of £208 applicable to self-employed contributors generally.

As a consequence of their renewed liability for PRSI contributions, I am also arranging from 6 April next for widows and other groups to be entitled once again to disability benefit at half-rate for up to 15 months duration in addition to their existing pension or allowance entitlement. Deputies will recall that the half-rate disability benefit entitlement was discontinued for widows and others in January 1988. Widows and others on low pay who benefit under the PRSI exemption scheme will also be entitled to the half-rate disability benefit for 15 months. I am happy that the new arrangements for widows and others represent a reasonable approach to this question and that they will be welcomed by widows in employment generally who are willing to pay PRSI again in return for the extra benefits.

Section 37 exempts certain persons from the scope of the social insurance scheme for the self-employed. I am proposing to exempt persons who are receiving occupational pensions on account of their late spouse and whose only other income is unearned income. This is in line with an existing provision which applies to occupational pensioners whose only other income is unearned income. These pensioners have been exempted from the scheme all along. Persons who live abroad and who are liable for PRSI solely because they have investment income in this country are also being exempted under section 37.

Section 38 provides that any moneys paid by way of supplementary welfare allowance in respect of a period during which the claimant is awaiting payment of disabled persons maintenance or infectious diseases maintenance allowance, shall be treated as payment on account of the allowance in question. Similar provisions already exist in respect of supplementary welfare allowance claimants who are awaiting payment of a social welfare payment whereby the health board may recoup the amount of supplementary welfare allowance from the arrears of the social welfare payment.

A person, who as a result of an occupational injury or prescribed disease, suffers loss of physical or mental faculty, is paid disablement benefit by way of pension if the assessment of disablement is greater than 19 per cent. In cases where the assessment is between 1 per cent and 19 per cent a gratuity is normally payable. However, if the period of assessment is for life or exceeds seven years the claimant may opt for either a gratuity or a pension. In some cases the weekly amount of such pensions can be quite small and, therefore, I am providing in section 39 of the Bill for a gratuity to be paid in respect of all new assessments between 1 per cent and 9 per cent.

In sections 40 and 41 I am providing for amendments to the pre-retirement allowance, the single woman's allowance and the orphan's, non-contributory, pension, to allow that the maximum rates of these payments will be payable to persons with means of up to £2.

In regard to the family income supplement sections 42 and 43 provide for technical amendments to facilitate the adjustment of minimum payments and payments of uneven amounts. At present family income supplement is payable in units of £1 and, where the amount payable is less than £1 a supplement of £1 is paid. Section 42 provides that where the weekly supplement as calculated falls below a prescribed amount the supplement shall be payable at a rate equivalent to the prescribed amount. Section 43 provides for a technical amendment to the rates payable under the various social assistance schemes to enable the rounding up of payments. These are technical improvements to the family income supplement which are necessary if we are to make some of the improvements in the very near future.

Section 45 provides that any sum deducted from an employee in respect of social insurance contributions but still unpaid at the time of a winding-up under the Companies Acts will not be regarded as part of the assets of a limited company but instead will be paid to the Social Insurance Fund. I regard this measure as a positive one as it will help to safeguard the entitlements of insured persons who become unemployed due to the winding-up of a limited company. The section also confirms the preferential debt status of unpaid PRSI contributions in certain cases.

Section 46 extends to public sector drivers and vehicles the provision that the amount of disability benefit, pay-related benefit or invalidity pension, payable for up to five years and arising out of a traffic accident, shall be taken into account in assessing damages for personal injuries.

Deputies will be familiar with the vocational training opportunities scheme. The scheme affords the long-term unemployed an opportunity to attend education and training courses at their local VEC and at the same time receive an allowance equivalent to their unemployment payments. This scheme is now administered by the Department of Education but was originally piloted by my Department as the educational opportunities scheme. The scheme is going well. It is up and running in 13 centres with about 200 participants and is planned to progressively expand the number of centres throughout the country. Section 47 is designed to ensure that persons who embark on a course under the scheme and later find out that it does not work out for them may resume claiming their unemployment payments at the long-term rate without serving waiting days when they return to the Live Register.

The vocational training opportunities scheme complements the other initiatives in relation to education which I have introduced for the unemployed. The part-time education initiative allows unemployed persons to attend education courses without infringing the conditions for receipt of their unemployment payments. Last December I made regulations facilitating long-term unemployed persons to participate in second level certificate courses while receiving their unemployment payments. I expect to announce details of a pilot scheme allowing the long-term unemployed to pursue third-level education courses shortly.

A person convicted of fraudulently obtaining a social insurance payment is disqualified for receiving benefit for three months. In section 48 I propose to bring the corresponding provision in relation to social assistance payments into line by reducing the disqualification period for these payments from six to three months.

Section 44 provides for certain amendments to the provision relating to prosecutions. These amendments are necessary in the context of proposed alternative methods for making unemployment payments which I am sure Deputies will welcome. Sections 49, 50 and 51 provide for technical amendments to the basic legislation. Sections 49 and 50 are designed to simplify the First Schedule to the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act which sets out the rates of social insurance payments. This is in keeping with my policy of simplifying the system so that it may be more easily understood by clients. Section 51 provides that certain regulations will require the consent of the Minister for Finance.

In addition to the measures provided for in the Bill I am making a number of other improvements to which I would like to refer briefly.

In line with the improvements introduced last year into the footwear scheme, I am pleased that we are able to go a step further this year and provide a clothing allowance to help social welfare recipients to provide for their children's school and winter clothing. The sum of £3 million is being allocated for this purpose. This scheme will come into operation in September and I will be announcing the details in due course.

I am continuing to improve the free travel, free electricity, TV licence and telephone rental schemes and to remove anomalies that come to our notice. Improvements being implemented this year are as follows: the free travel scheme will be altered so as to allow recipients of disabled person's maintenance allowance who cannot travel alone to bring along a companion when availing of the free travel concession. This will help physically and mentally handicapped people to utilise the free travel concession more. fully. The detailed arrangements under which this measure will operate are being considered at present and the concession will be brought into operation as soon as possible this year; elderly pensioners over 80 years of age will be allowed to retain their entitlement to free electricity allowance when people come to live with them; invalidity pensioners who transfer to retirement pension on reaching 65 years of age will no longer lose their entitlement to the free schemes and free scheme entitlements will be extended to all social security pensioners of States with whom Ireland has signed bilateral social security agreements. We have signed some already and others are in the pipeline and will be coming up over the next year or so.

In addition, we are extending the national fuel scheme to households where a long-term social welfare recipient lives with someone on short-term unemployment assistance or supplementary welfare allowance, and to smallholders receiving long-term unemployment assistance who are living alone.

As I indicated at the start of my speech, this Bill is a very important and in some respects an historic piece of legislation in those dependent on the State's support progress we have made in the past three years in improving and modernising the social welfare system. In that short period we have introduced some of the most farreaching improvements ever seen. We are conscious that social welfare recipients are among the most vulnerable sections of society and that legislative change can have a major impact on them. Our overriding objective at all times is to safeguard and improve the position of those dependent on the State's support systems. I am satisfied that we are achieving that objective through our policy of progressively raising and improving the standard of living of social welfare recipients and introducing new provisions to meet the changing needs of society.

I commend this Bill to the House.

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:

"Dáil Éireann declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill because:—

(a) it fails to fundamentally reform the Social Welfare system,

(b) it leaves the bulk of the low-paid in the PRSI net,

(c) it retains substantial anomalies and multiple means-testing based on gross rather than net incomes,

(d) it makes only a token gesture towards anti-poverty measures, and

(e) it totally fails to develop adequate educational opportunities and voluntary work options for the quarter of a million unemployed and their dependants.".

I do not think there has ever been an occasion in modern Irish history when the Social Welfare Bill and its contents have been more central to more people than at this time. I do not say that lightly. I say it because we are continuing into a period in which widespread long-term unemployment is an endemic feature of our society and will be with us, even on the most optimistic of job creation forecasts, until the end of the century. The view of unemployment as a temporary black spot in a person's life is no longer a reality. For many people the quality of their life of necessity will be shaped by the quality of the social welfare system. That is why this is such an important debate and why this Bill deserves the closest attention of this House. Fine Gael are opposing the Bill on Second Stage although we will do our best to produce amendments at a later stage, knowing the realities of the figures in the House, to improve the Bill along the lines we feel are important.

In 1989 we produced a radical policy document, Putting the Country First which proposed a movement towards a just society. That was before the recent Árd-Fheis. It was part of a long tradition in Fine Gael going back to the sixties, one which I hope will be maintained and developed. This included a basic income scheme, a single eligibility test with graduated entitlement to benefit, the establishment of one-stop welfare shops and more favourable treatment of part-time work, educational programmes and voluntary work options. Fine Gael proposed major integrated reforms in the tax and PRSI systems. It is always a little limiting to have to discuss the Social Welfare Bill in isolation because it operates in tandem with the tax system. Much of the disappointment in relation to this Social Welfare Bill mirrors our feelings in relation to the failure to introduce substantial reform in the tax area which can have a radical effect on employment and employment creation.

Fine Gael also proposed, and will seek to have included in this Bill by way of amendment, the following reforms of the social welfare system: the reform of the supplementary welfare system, the possibility of rent and mortgage subsidy to the low paid and the exclusion of benefits for those over 25 years of age deemed to arise from living at home in calculating their entitlement to unemployment assistance, in view of the long-term nature of unemployment in our society. I have heard in the past few weeks of individuals being paid figures as low as 20 pence and 80 pence. Recently I heard of the offer of £8 per week in social assistance to a 30 year old man. That kind of treatment of an adult in a society which cannot offer him employment is unacceptable. At a certain age people should have an entitlement to a basic minimum without assessing the benefit they get from living in their parents' home. It is offensive that a 30 year old man should have to depend on his father's goodwill for pocket money to get into town to sign on the dole or apply for employment.

We also propose giving the option to applicants for non-contributory pensions to have their capital assessed on the basis of their actual income from bank and other deposits rather than insisting on the present artificial 10 per cent. Obviously with the change in interest rates that becomes a variable. There have been some welcome changes in means testing proposed by the Minister in this Bill and we hope he might consider on Committee Stage looking at this area as well. While the Minister has repeated his indication of some gesture in the direction of additional back-to-school payments, I will be very interested to receive more details by the time we conclude this debate tomorrow afternoon. It would help us in deciding our approach to amendments in that area.

None of these measures is addressed, or sufficiently addressed, in this Bill. While we will endeavour to amend the Bill on Committee Stage we consider it so fundamentally flawed that we will oppose its Second Reading.

Undoubtedly the flagship proposal of this year's Social Welfare Bill, the much hyped carer's allowance, is a major disappointment. Its presentation by the Minister as an increase from £27 to £45 per week is, for the vast bulk of those who will qualify, a blatant sham. The number of people who will see that kind of increase will be less than the current 2,000 who are in receipt of prescribed relative's allowance. Some persons who currently qualify for the existing allowance would not qualify for a carer's allowance as a result of the associated means test. The Minister has acknowledged that. I know he is not proposing to take it away from those who have it, but it will mean that in future people who might have got a prescribed relative's allowance will not qualify for any assistance in the context of their providing care for others.

Regrettably, no new categories of persons requiring full-time care are included. This is a major flaw which I hope the Minister will be willing to look at. We will be pressing amendments as we go through later stages of this Bill to remedy this. It means that because of the expectations built up by the headlines arising out of the earliest announcement about this along with the announcments over the weekend and today, parents of adult handicapped people will be disappointed unless the Minister agrees to accept a Fine Gael amendment to include recipients of DPMA as qualifying persons for whose care the allowance will apply. I know the Minister has had direct correspondence, as I have, from the Union of Voluntary Organisations for the Handicapped who describe their bitter disappointment that no provision has been made for people, many of them now advancing in years, who are looking after and caring for people with a physical disability and a mental handicap. I know that is also based on a misunderstanding on their part about even inclusion in this scheme because for most of them the means test makes it irrelevant for them. However, for some of them it might mean the increase of £6 to £14 which in effect is what most people who qualify for and most new recipients will be receiving, not the difference between £25 and £47. In that category of person are some particularly deserving of a response and a group for whom the provision of care is particularly difficult. Added to the problems of age are, in their case, the problems of mental illness, disturbing and violent behaviour and the insecurity and anxiety about what will happen to those they are looking after when they pass on or are no longer able to cope. I ask the Minister to look at that most sympathetically and to ensure that the needs of adults with disabilities are fully considered and that people are not for financial reasons forced to leave the care of their families to institutions, which would be the height of folly. It is neither socially nor otherwise desirable.

The changes proposed in the Bill broaden generously the categories of people who may now qualify as carers, and we welcome that. It is a major change and the Minister is to be commended for it. However, rigid means testing such as applied to non-contributory pensions means that anybody whose spouse is employed other than those on a very low wage indeed will not qualify. For those on social welfare payments in their own right this will constitute a drop from all individual payments. Therefore, for those who in their own right are on a social welfare payment at the moment there will be a drop involved. For the person who may have to give up employment entirely to provide care and who would be single, the increases will be between £6 and £14 on average, depending on the kind of social welfare payment they are receiving. The Minister must take responsibility for the misrepresentation of the presentation and the huge expectation built up. He knows that all around this country there are people now anticipating sizeable extra support for the provision of care who are going to be disappointed when they examine the fine print, as some of us dealing with this Bill in the House have had time to do, and realise that unless there are significant amendments they will be entirely excluded. For many others the benefits will be a tiny proportion of what they had expected. The reforms could be wholeheartedly welcomed were it not for those drawbacks.

The Bill gives no indication of a date when the scheme will commence. The Minister must have some idea of this. He makes provision for regulations which will include means testing and the commencement date. At the end of Second Stage he might be in a position to indicate whether it will commence this year. We hope it will be as soon as possible.

It commences in October. That has been stated already separately.

I thank the Minister. I ask him to consider extending to a person who is in insurable employment the carer's allowance, as of right, without a means test similar to unemployment benefit or disability benefit because the person will be vacating full-time employment, vacating a job to be taken up by somebody else, when the net cost to the State will be insignificant.

There is a great problem with the treatment of the carer's allowance under the social welfare system. That system is essentially an income support scheme and here we are moving into a statement of how we believe our society should respond to the needs of those requiring care, be they elderly or sick. It is arguable whether this should be dealt with under social welfare at all, and whether it may not be more appropriate to a health brief. We are asking people to provide care in the best possible way, which is socially and humanly most desirable and economically most effective, that is, in their own homes. Community care should never be treated as a cheap option and we should be prepared to invest in it and try to frame a scheme which fits in with the social welfare system. Maybe the Minister has views on this broader issue. If so he might be in a position to respond in some more detail when he replies to the debate tomorrow.

I would like to draw attention to a related issue. There are a number of organisations, including the Soroptimists, who are anxiously trying to provide facilities to give breaks to people who are providing care on an ongoing basis. If we listened to our radio programmes over recent weeks we would have heard that for carers that is a very big issue. Getting off every now and again can mean they will continue for a great deal longer to carry their burden. It is a very valuable service. It is not directly related to the Bill but, as a result of the budget, the Minister has charge of a couple of little funds. He might consider the allocation of lottery funds to voluntary agencies he has under his control to beef up his initiatives in this Bill in relation to support for carers.

I welcome the fact that the categories have been so broadly redefined. Nobody is now excluded; everybody is included who is providing full-time care — excluded rather severely by the means test but included for consideration. That is welcome. It gets it on the map in a new way. It is a title that allows people to understand immediately and awards recognition to people who are doing a very important job for us. We will be pressing amendments on Committee Stage along the lines I have indicated. I ask the Minister to consider responding positively, particularly to the extension of the scheme to those on Disabled Persons Maintenance Allowance.

A matter that has been announced many times in the past but the legislative changes to implement it are included in this Bill, is the establishment of an appeals office. We are concerned that it will be seen as merely a cosmetic change. I indicated this concern earlier to the Minister when his intentions were announced originally in relation to this. I know the concern is shared by the associations looking for welfare reform. The proposal in Part V of the Bill is disappointing in its scope. The changes are disappointing and seem cosmetic because they do not provide for consumer representation. This is in effect an internal reorganisation and lacks the independence which is an essential feature of the changes sought by the various welfare reform groups who have lobbied for years on this issue. At some level it should include welfare rights representatives. It should not be confined simply to social welfare personnel but should be open to others to be involved. We will propose amendments to redress this on Committee Stage and I hope the Minister will look favourably at them.

The Social Welfare Bill makes inadequate provision for families with children. Perhaps this is one of its most disappointing features. The Minister, when dealing with child benefit, referred to rationalisation of rates, etc., and I accept that he has done a great deal in that area. However, in terms of the volume of support for people with families, it is grossly inadequate to meet the crisis they face. Report after report has highlighted that families with children are bearing the brunt of the recession and are over-represented among the poor. Huge numbers of children are growing up in poverty. The budget did not in any serious way target this group. In particular, older children make adult demands on family budgets, their clothing, food and educational needs are at an all-time high. The need for additional payments for teenage children has been identified by the ESRI, the CMRS, the Combat Poverty Agency and the national campaign for social welfare reform. I am surprised that the Minister did not take on board such a body of well founded opinion represented by those groups. I am confident that the Minister does not share the view of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors which the Taoiseach unfortunately expressed in the House last week. I know that the Minister values the work done by that agency and respects the fact that they are a disinterested group motivated by the best of all possible objectives and desires to see our society become fairer. We in Fine Gael believe that changes to include payment for older children would greatly strengthen the Bill.

We welcome an increase in child benefit, the first since July 1986. However, it is a minimal increase and does not make up for the fact that this increase has not been changed since Deputy Woods became Minister for Social Welfare. The last time it was increased regularly was during the period from 1982 to 1986 when child benefit was increased at least every alternate year and, where appropriate, increased consecutively. The changes this year do not make up for the failure to increase the benefit since that time.

Unfortunately, the drift started in 1982 has been continued by the Minister in relation to the date of implementation of this payment which will not commence until October 1990, which is, in effect, half way through the year. That limits its value and of all areas in the Bill this is the one about which there is most disappointment. The failure to effectively target additional payments to families with children will mean that many of them will not significantly improve their situation as a result of this Bill.

The social welfare system continues to be hostile to work and suspicious of education. It does not address this issue properly. We suggest that the earnings disregard for means tests, unchanged since 1975, should now be updated to a figure of £30 as requested by some of the welfare agencies. This would allow some element of part-time work. It would accept that for many people full-time employment is not an option and that occasional part-time employment may be a reality and a means of getting back into the workforce. The fact that pound for pound everything you earn involves a cut in social welfare militates against this. Although it may have been acceptable when employment was short-term it is out of keeping with a period when, regrettably, unemployment is all too long-term.

Futhermore, the VTOS scheme should be expanded to cover all adult beneficiaries of long-term social welfare payment and should be extended nationally. It is entirely unacceptable that 200 places only — at the time of going to print — are available for the vast numbers of unemployed and their dependents. We have highlighted this issue at Question Time. We will continue to do so until the level of participation relates to a sufficient number, as we adjudge it, of those who are unemployed.

Training and education are closely related to long-term unemployment. The progress which the Minister made since 1986 in this area is grossly inadequate. In 1986 the Minister admitted that there were two pilot schemes only providing 30 to 60 places. I am glad that the numbers have now increased to 240. In November or December the Minister announced regulations which would allow many more educational schemes to be included. That is very welcome but we repeat the urgency and the necessity for the Minister to interpret it generously. It is also the responsibility of the Minister to ensure that he is in a position to answer to this House as to how the scheme is being implemented, unlike the last occasion when I asked a question and the Minister said this was a decision for local employment offices and that he would not be in a position to indicate how many were involved and what criteria were being used. That simply is not good enough. It is important that the numbers involved should be monitored to see if we are making progress and what effect it has on their long-term employment prospects. We will continue to give very high priority to this area.

I am very concerned about the emergence of a new sub-class in the social welfare system. I refer to the recipients of disability and unemployment benefit. Last year, coming up to Christmas, I highlighted the situation of recipients of disability and unemployment benefit. Nominally, these are short-term benefits and the recipients are in the privileged position of being in benefit. However, the reality is very different for them and their families. They are now on the lowest rate of benefit, lower than long-term assistance rates and they are not entitled to bonuses or supplements. The situation is critical for families who are dependent on long-term disability benefit. We argued this at Question Time and I know the Minister's problems in relation to the fact that some of them have other incomes. However, of the 20,000 people in receipt of benefit for between three and eight years and who have no other income the situation is critical and needs a response. The budget worsened their position and they lag further behind all other benefits which have been increased.

I urge the Minister to allow this group to qualify for dependent payments for children over 18 years attending full-time education. I will table an amendment in this regard on Committee Stage. The definition of "qualified child" is being extended to cover virtually all categories of social welfare recipients apart from this group. In the past two weeks I have been visited by a number of families because it is at this time that the sixth year students reach the age of 18 and their parents are stunned to find that their child is a non-person. There is no acknowledgment of them for tax purposes or social welfare. They are cut off and, because their parents are in receipt of disability benefit or unemployment benefit, they cannot receive any support from supplementary welfare or anything else. It is a very real problem for them. It puts immense pressure on young people approaching leaving certificate. Their families have had to stretch an already inadequate budget to cover their education and this puts dreadful pressure on them to give up school. The Minister has gone a great distance in extending the child dependant payments for children attending full-time education to many categories and he deserves credit for the steady progress in this area. I suggest it would not be a huge additional cost to include those over 18 years of age attending full-time second-level education. I would ask the Minister to consider this to help people in this group. There is an on-going debate on the reason people are on long-term disability benefit. This Bill, which has marginalised these people even more, will not find solutions for this group.

I would like to give a warm welcome to the lone parent scheme and the Minister is to be congratulated for implementing it. As well as rationalising all allowance schemes for lone parents it removes the socially stigmatising terminology associated with some of the schemes. This too is very welcome. As the Minister identified, it is the end of a programme of change which included the creation of the widower's allowance last year. The rationalising and streamlining of all the payments in the budget resulted in this scheme finally being established. It gives dignity to a great number of people and is the best possible example of an ideal social welfare system.

I welcome the inclusion of a group which to date have been in a no man's land in the area of social welfare — the category of single fathers. They are now included under the lone parent's allowance and that is very welcome. However, there is a glaring need to do the same in the area of contributory benefits for lone parents. Some categories have been entitled to a benefit while others have not been so entitled. I would be interested to hear the Minister's response.

Fine Gael are very concerned that substantial anomalies remain in regard to old age pensions. The Bill fails to address the issue raised for pro rata pensions to be awarded to pensioners with mixed contribution records. In 1988 pro rata pensions were awarded to one group of pensioners with records of between five and 19 contributions. This has created an obvious anomaly and injustice. I know the Minister is kicking to touch by saying the matter has been referred to the National Pensions Board, but there is a limited life to that approach. This issue must be faced, the economic cost fully assessed and justice done for pensioners who do not have time on their side. This is an issue we propose to try to address on Committee Stage. Obviously there are certain difficulties for an Opposition party putting down amendments which involve an additional charge, but I would be interested if the Minister would respond to this issue which we discussed to some extent at Question Time.

One of the other major areas of failure in the budget is the issue of low pay. The PRSI exemption proposed by the Minister is of some value but to benefit a person would have to earn under £60 a week. I suppose it would be of benefit to some women working part-time and their families for whom it would be an additional income, but it falls very far short of the Fine Gael proposal of an exemption from PRSI on the first £2,500 of income. This would be of benefit to all low paid workers and would be a far more progressive way of approaching the issue. It would avoid the creation of a poverty trap. We have already seen how exemption limits trap people who have a tendency to try to stay below the ceiling. The exemption limit for equal payments has tended to trap a group of women who have tried to reduce their hours and income rather than go over the limit. That problem has always existed.

There should be a general exemption which would be of benefit to everyone, particularly those on low pay. It would also help to provide extra employment for those in the low paid sector. A special case is being made at the moment by the clothing industry who feel there would be great potential for extra employment in labour intensive industry if some of the burden of tax and PRSI could be lifted. We know the Government have indicated, in part of their internal dialogue with their Coalition colleagues, that they intend to look at this area in greater depth next year but I hope we can convince them to bring forward this review. We will be putting down an amendment in this area on Committee Stage, proposing income and the Minister might get the Government to agree to this in the interim.

We are a little in the dark in relation to what reforms the Minister proposes in the area of family income supplement. He referred to this in his speech. If he could develop that a little more in response to Second Stage we might be more reassured. The family income supplement is obviously another major element in this area as well as tax and PRSI. There is also the issue of means testing and responding to the problems of people on low pay. I would be interested to know the date of implementation of the PRSI exemption. Maybe this is referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum but I did not see it in the Bill. Am I not properly informed or is it in the Bill?

From 6 April.

That is welcome. I would ask the Minister to look again at means testing and the £50 exemption limit applicable to equal payments. Throughout the country welfare rights groups, women's groups and all of us have learned that the failure to index this payment has created a prison for women. Obviously if you are talking about a £50 income level you are talking about part-time employment but people are being forced to reduce their hours of work or lose their social welfare dependent benefit which, following the increases in this budget, range from £31 to £39. In effect, these people would be working for £11 or £12. If there is an exemption limit it should be a realistic one and should be index linked. This would bring the figure up currently to £65. I welcome the additional changes in death benefit arrangements and in means testing in relation to the sale of houses. The proposal to exempt certain payments to mná tí has been welcomed by some of my colleagues representing those areas and I am sure they will be referring to it later in the debate.

Rural poverty has become a reality in recent years, never more so than this winter when prices for agricultural produce collapsed to an all time low. The long term future of small farms does not affect the Department of Social Welfare but it does affect the Department of Agriculture and Food and, in a very big way, the EC who see the whole fabric of rural Europe being affected due to the difficulty in getting a decent standard of living for many people living on traditional family farms. In so far as this proposal makes some gesture in that direction, we welcome it.

I continue to be concerned about the lack of drive in regard to anti-poverty initiatives. The community development fund which we and the Combat Poverty Agency looked for has been addressed to some degree by the allocation of £0.6 million for community development projects, but regrettably this is in the Minister's own hands and is not being used in a way that acknowledges the role of communities in running their own affairs or their tremendous capacity to improve the quality of their lives, education, environment and employment opportunities. I wish to place on record the deep disappointment on this side of the House that this Government chose last year to turn down £8.5 million which the EC was anxious to have allocated directly to communities for their own development and under their control. The best the Minister could do in response to that was to allocate £0.6 million, which he was able to find in the Department, which is grossly inadequate and will be only a token gesture towards community development and will not in any way finance integrated development programmes. I would like to see this kept on the agenda; future opportunities for such funds should not be let slip by. The Minister could not give an extra pound in child benefit per child per year but he could certainly find £8 million to effectively assist communities over a number of years in developing their funds. Similarly I wish to express my disappointment that the funds for women's organisations are being held centrally and are not being allocated either to the Combat Poverty Agency or to the Council for the Status of Women. I hope that situation will be redressed.

While we welcome the extension of free travel to companions of a person receiving DPMA we regret that the scheme has not been extended to other categories. We will be proposing amendments along these lines because, as is the case with other Deputies, this is an issue that has been coming up in correspondence to me from people who feel that free travel is irrelevant to them. The Minister is conceding the point to persons in receipt of DPMA. I think he should concede also in the case of other handicapped and elderly persons the right to have a companion travel with them if they do not happen to be married, as this right exists if they have a spouse. It is creating a clear anomaly to confine this to one category of free travel beneficiaries.

I regret that changes in the schemes were confined to those over 80 years of age as this means that a very tiny proportion of senior citizens will benefit. While those in the 65 to 70 year old category seem generally to be fairly active certainly those over 70 would need some support and it would be a great help to them if they were allowed to live with their families without the loss of the support of the schemes. Again I look for more generous interpretation of this reform.

The Minister referred to the substantial contribution made to the PRSI fund by the self employed. I would be interested to know if he has any proposals to develop the insurance scheme further for the self employed in the area of disability and sickness benefits where they do not have cover at present but where the need crops up occasionally. I know this would have to be negotiated with the representative groups but I wonder if any work has been done in this area. I note that the Minister has made provision to pursue unmarried fathers in relation to the care of their children. I am a little surprised that the Minister has the neck to introduce this measure in view of the fact that having announced his intention to pursue deserting husbands in the last Social Welfare Act not a single deserting husband has been pursued according to the reply he gave me. He said he has not worked out how he will do this and is still discussing it. While I welcome the declaration of intent in this regard I would prefer to see more substance in it.

With regard to the proposal to integrate the occupational injury fund and the redundancy and employers' insolvency fund I would like to record that this has been done without consultation with the employers who had managed and established the funds and kept them extremely healthy. They had ensured that the contribution level rose at a very modest rate in comparison with other social welfare funds. I wonder how the figures will be arrived at in the future? The increases in contribution for occupational injury were based on actuarial valuations, on the needs and demands on the fund and the number of demands made in any year. I wonder if the careful management of the fund that was possible in that situation will continue when it is integrated into the general Social Insurance Fund. I am sure it is a nice windfall for the Minister and will help the Government to make the figures a little more palatable on this occasion. Will there be as effective management of the fund as has been the case up to this? To date the employers were the total contributors and in years when there were no large drawdowns they could keep contributions down; in many years there was no increase at all. I know the fund was set up under legislation of this House but effectively a private group of individuals contributed to it separately.

We already managed it, so the Deputy can be sure it will continue to be managed effectively.

The fund will be integrated and the contributions will not be based on actuarial valuations.

There will be separate estimates.

I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply at a later stage but I am glad he has reassured me on that matter.

One recommendation of the Combat Poverty Agency is well worth taking on board and that is the need for people to understand the complexity of the social welfare system, the need to commence that process earlier than we do and to have education on social welfare included as part of the learning for life programme, etc. in our second-level schools and even from the earlier stages of education. It is a minor issue but it could be very important. Social welfare schemes are complex enough as we public representatives have to interpret them day in and day out know, indeed as the Minister knows from preparing social welfare legislation annually. It is vitally important that the average person understands the importance of what came to light at the Committee of Public Accounts, that was the whole question of whether contributions were being recorded and the need to keep track of your own social welfare number if you happen to stray over to Britain. For instance it is important that people understand the need for proper records and for maintaining contributions, signing on for credits, etc. All too often people only realise the importance of signing on when it is all too late. This may not be central to the Bill and may not relate directly to it but it is an important point and should be taken on board.

We are opposing the Second Stage for all the reasons I have outlined and particularly because the social welfare system is more central to more people now than at any other time in our history. It is vitally important we get it working right and will provide people with an opportunity to live with some dignity until such time as our society is organised in a way that it can offer them full participation in employment. I do not believe this Bill will contribute substantially to that end.

This is the first opportunity I have had to respond to a Bill as the Labour Party spokesperson and I welcome the opportunity. My records from 1 January this year show that I have dealt with 770 new cases in my constituency clinic, of which 30 per cent concern social welfare problems. This is an indication of the importance of this Bill and the concept of the State caring for certain people who are unable to care for themselves. It is also an indication of how complicated this area is and the need, as has been said by Deputy Flaherty, to inform people of their entitlements.

At the outset I wish to say how glad I am that Members of the Oireachtas are able to contact a specific section in the Department of Social Welfare, known as the TD inquiry section, about cases, the satff of which are most helpful. This obviates the need to make personal or written representations in an effort to have difficulties facing people dependent on the State ironed out. We act as a buffer between our constituents and the Department of Social Welfare on which they are very dependent and about which they know relatively little. This contrasts starkly with the attitude adopted by some social welfare officers at local level, particularly when it comes to assessing eligibility for non-contributory entitlements. Not alone do they make it difficult for people — and I can quote instances — but they also express reservations about constituents consulting elected politicians. Often they go further and say that there is no point in going to their local Deputy as he cannot do anything for them. However, it is my experience that the opposite is often the case. Without our intervention to inform people of their full entitlements and to tell the Department of Social Welfare what a person's means are, some of these files would get stuck in offices throughout the country with relatively little progress being made.

The provisions of this Bill are to be welcomed. They have been welcomed by bodies who have a non-vested interest, such as the Combat Poverty Agency, the Conference of Major Religious Superiors of Ireland and non-governmental agencies. We also welcome the Bill and want to be constructive in our criticisms. If we believe that the Minister has not gone far enough we will be prepared to tell him so. In particular we welcome the introduction of the new carer's allowance and lone parent allowance. The Minister mentioned that in the seventies seven categories, who up to then had been disregarded, were brought in. On this my first contribution to a Social Welfare Bill I wish to pay a special tribute to the memory of the late Brendan Corish and his Parliamentary Secretary, the late Frank Cluskey, for including special categories who had been neglected in the past, such as deserted wives, unmarried mothers, prisioners' wives. The suggested new terminology of lone parent covers a multitude about whom we are all concerned but it is our experience that this category is widening as the days go by. No matter how much we regret this we have to accept that this is what is happening.

It must be pointed out, as was done by the previous speaker, that because of the way the means test is operated the number of people who will qualify for these allowances is small. In particular, the number of married women who will qualify for the new carer's allowance will be very small indeed. In presenting this new carer's allowance the Minister pointed out in great detail that for the first time married women in the home will be eligible to receive this allowance. In the past married women in the home were excluded from receiving the prescribed relative's allowance. We welcome the fact that married women in the home will now be eligible to receive this allowance but because of the way in which the means test is operated very few of them will qualify.

At present about 2,000 people are in receipt of the prescribed relative's allowance but I believe that the Minister's estimate of 8,000 as the number who will qualify is rather optimistic. As I understand it, following a means test most married women will be excluded even though thousands provide in the home full-time care and attention for elderly incapacitated persons. We on the Labour benches urge the Minister to look again at the means testing provisions and at the number of people who will be excluded from receiving from the State what is a small contribution in recognition of the work they do looking after elderly incapacitated persons. If all those being looked after at home by their relatives, by married women in the home or by wives of their sons, were hospitalised or admitted to welfare homes, or long-stay geriatric institutions, the State would have to pay between £300 and £400 per week caring for these people.

If the husband of a married woman is in receipt of more than £90 per week she will be excluded, even if she has no income. At present under the law a woman is legally entitled to receive 50 per cent of her husband's income. Therefore, in any means test 50 per cent of the husband's income will be taken into account with the result that these women, because they provide care in the home for an incapacitated person and are not able to fulfil any other vocation outside the home, will be excluded from receiving the allowance.

We should pay tribute to those who gave up full-time employment to care for elderly parents or relatives. We expressed our gratitude to them for spending their lives at home looking after those elderly people by paying them the single woman's allowance. The Minister should consider extending the scheme applicable to Mná Tí in Gaeltacht areas to other carers. The income to Mná Tí from accommodating Irish students is exempt. I commend the Minister for that move. We should do everything possible to encourage people to live in Gaeltacht areas. In introducing that scheme the Minister has an opportunity to extend its provisions to those in receipt of carer's allowances.

The Minister should consider the position of the wives of social welfare recipients. It may happen that they will not be considered as an adult dependant of their husbands which will mean that they will receive less than the amount being paid in carer's allowance. As far as I can see they are the only married women who will benefit under the carer's allowance scheme but it would be an extraordinary thing to remove a wife as a dependant to permit her to draw the carer's allowance if she is looking after an incapacitated person in the home. The Minister must deal with that problem in a more formal way and I suggest that he should consider introducing a scheme like that under which Mná Tí benefit.

I can see problems arising in regard to the equalisation legislation which permitted women to have an income of £50 per week before they were debarred as a dependant of their husband. The Minister should make a gesture in regard to means testing in such cases. I have been a public representative at different levels for many years but I cannot understand what one must do to prove means to some social welfare officers. Is there a national set of guidelines for means testing? I should like to quote a number of examples to highlight the difficulties public representatives face in regard to means tests. The first example I should like to refer to is that of an applicant for a pension whose qualification number is V23809. The man lives in a county council cottage which is situated on one acre of land. Up to two or three years ago the man rented land annually and kept seven or eight cows. When his health failed two years ago he was unable to continue, but his daughter, who at that time was residing in England, returned home and acquired the cows. She continued to rent the land and look after those animals. I have an affidavit, sworn in front of a commissioner of oaths, to the effect that on 2 February 1988 the ownership of the seven cows was transferred to that woman who subsequently arranged to have the cattle put out on grass. That affidavit was forwarded to the Department. We proved, through the sub-office of ERAD, that on 18 February 1988 the seven cows were registered in that woman's name.

However, on 9 March 1990 the Minister's officials reckoned that man's means at £46.19 per week. That man does not have a cow and I have all the evidence necessary to prove that, but I cannot convince the social welfare officer who is of the view that Deputies should not be advising their constituents of their entitlements. How am I to deal with that problem? We must remember that there are young people of 17 and 18 years of age who are unable to get work here but are anxious to stay at home. They are means tested at anything from £29 per week down to the ridiculous sum of 5p. In some of their homes there is no other income than social welfare benefits while the families of others have what can only be described as a reasonable income. Those young people are being forced to leave the family home and live in a flat in order to convince the Department of Social Welfare that they do not have any means. I am surprised that they are being asked to produce evidence that they do not have any means. What evidence is required to show that a person does not have any means? Is it not sufficient that a person should sign on at the local employment exchange, indicate that they are endeavouring to obtain employment and that they are not doing nixers? I am surprised that the Department say to those people that they have not proved that they do not have an income.

Is the Minister aware that we are penalising those who after spending a period in England return home and seek to draw unemployment benefit? Are they being means tested on what they earned in the previous 12 months in England? If we are to be awkward in the means testing for the lone parent and carer's allowances very few people will benefit under what appears to be a good scheme, one that we all welcome. We have called for the introduction of such a scheme and have asked the Minister to increase the amount of the allowance from the miserable figure it was at. I accept that the Minister raised the figure to £28 last year and that this year it will be up to the minimum social welfare level. If the Department continue with their awkward system of means testing we will be inundated with representations from constituents. The Minister may find that he will have to establish a separate section to deal with queries under that scheme. There is a view throughout the country that all those who are caring for elderly people will benefit under the new scheme. I had a letter recently from a person who is looking after two people and I have warned that person that because she is married she may not qualify for the benefit.

I have had many problems getting some of my constituents their entitlements. A person with PRSI number 5092823J claimed disability benefit on 18 September 1989 but because that person did not give an explanation to the Department of incapacity until 21 September 1989, three days later, he was disqualified.

People send in appeals which read, for instance: "I am appealing against this decision because I am attending an orthopaedic surgeon in hospital" and the Department reply, "that is not an appeal because you have not told us what is wrong with you". I respectfully suggest that a person would be unaware of what was wrong with them until the consultant had confirmed the illness or whatever. Eventually after long and tedious discussions the Department agree to accept it as an appeal pending receipt of the medical evidence. People in some areas of the Department can be difficult while people in other sections are most helpful. Indeed, I have always found the Minister to be most helpful in these areas. I have asked him, through numerous questions, to let me have the various figures that have been used for means testing, for example, the £6 per week for people in the area of assistance schemes which precludes them from having anything more than that amount without being penalised. In other words there is a disincentive for them to do any odd jobs outside the home which might help them maintain their sanity. The figure of £6 which was set in the seventies for the allowances for single parents and deserted wives depending on social welfare should have been index-linked. If this were the case the figure today would be in the region of £30 but the Minister in his response to questions has said that he is devoting all the resources of his Department to increasing payments for those who qualify, still he makes it more difficult for people to qualify because of the limits which have remained static.

The other figure that has remained static is the £50 under the equality legislation which was introduced on foot of EC legislation to ensure equal rights for women. The intention was to have that £50 index-linked but this Government, in Opposition, objected and the figure has remained unchanged. All I got from the Minister in reply to Question No. 42 on 12 December 1989 was that he would keep the matter under review. Since then we have had a budget and a Social Welfare Bill and it has not been reviewed. That means that the women who are doing mostly part-time jobs, badly paid jobs, are locked into an income of £50 because their employers are now saying: "If you get more than £50 your husband will lose you as a dependant". That, then, becomes an excuse to underpay women who work long hours. If we are to be progressive we should continue to look at these areas because, if not, we will be discriminating against people and that is dangerous because we will lock them into a position of being poorly paid. That also applies in several other areas where there are people who would normally do better were it not for the fact that certain limits are set by ourselves.

Some of the other aspects of the Bill are less welcome than the lone parent allowance and the carers allowance. I have outlined my difficulties with those, for instance, the proposed increases of 20p a week in the child benefit scheme which is about 2½p per day. This is a major change for the Minister in the sense that he has not touched this area for the best part of four or five years. Effectively that benefit has been cut by 15 per cent in real terms over the last three years and, as a result, is grossly inadequate. We will be seeking, through amendments on Committee Stage, to do something about this miserly provision of 2½p per day per child under the child benefit scheme.

There are three overall issues which form the background against which the Social Welfare Bill will be judged in general terms: first, there is the statistical reality of deep poverty in our country which nobody, not even the Minister, except the Taoiseach has ever disputed; second, there is the report of the Commission on Social Welfare which continues to gather dust on the Minister's shelves, and to which he has referred tonight, saying he is doing some of the things the commission recommended but he is really only tinkering with that major report; and the third, which is a most shameful one, is the fact that social welfare spending overall has been cut by one per cent of our national wealth since the Minister took office.

Having regard to this background, the Social Welfare Bill, 1990 can be seen only as crumbs from the rich man's table. We still have a long way to go before we can believe this Government care about anything and especially about the right of every citizen, to human dignity no matter how poor. No consideration of the Social Welfare Bill can ignore the record of Fianna Fáil, in particular. It is not surprising that they are very sensitive about their record and about the record of the Minister in certain areas in relation to the whole issue of social welfare, especially since 1987. It is a period we have been analysing and we have had time to reflect on what has happened. We have seen the overall cutbacks that have come into force and the area of social welfare was not exempt from these cuts.

Members of this House are generally fortunate enough to be employed, even if their mandate has to be renewed from time to time, making for non security of tenure. However, we are gainfully employed and most of us, thank God, are in the whole of our health and do not have to rely on the social welfare system of payments that has been built up by the State over many years. However, if we were dependent for any reason on social welfare — some of us were before we entered the Dáil — we would keenly appreciate what cutbacks in the area of social welfare can mean and what cutbacks by this Minister since 1987 have done to the social welfare system. I will give a few examples. Families in receipt of child benefit received no increase in 1987, 1988 or in 1989 but they are to receive 2½p per day extra as a result of this year's budget. Individuals who need to claim long-term disability benefit now need 260 stamps, which represent five years constant employment, as against 156 stamps, the requirement in January 1987 when the Minister took office. People who have to claim unemployment benefit, maternity benefit, disability benefit or whatever have found that their required number of paid or credited contributions has also increased, from 26 to 39. Widows, deserted wives, single parents or prisoners' wives have not been entitled to claim the half rate payment of disability benefit, maternity allowance or unemployment supplement since January 1988. These are the facts. They are unpleasant. They have been brought to the attention of everybody in this House by various agencies.

The new lone parent allowance will no doubt be subject to the same restrictions in these areas. People who need dental or ophthalmic treatment must have 207 paid or credited contributions as against 156 contributions in 1987. They need 39 contributions in the claim year as against 26 contributions in 1987. We have all tried to promote the social employment scheme in order to get people back into the realm of work, to enable them be with other people and enjoy themselves on a week on, week off basis. The local authorities have used this scheme efficiently with the co-operation of the trade union movement. I am pleased that the Minister has announced that a further 15,000 places will be made available this year. However, as soon as the Government took office the allowance for single person participating in that scheme was reduced from £70 to £60. There has been an increase in this year's budget for child dependants in that category. Until then deserted husbands who availed of the social employment scheme were not paid the married person's allowance because they had no adult dependants in the home. That was scandalous. Lone parents who availed of the scheme in the past were treated as single people unless they had an adult dependant living with them.

The allowance under the Teamwork scheme, one of the schemes used by communities, was also reduced by Fianna Fáil from £70 to £60. People who were entitled to claim pay-related benefit along with unemployment, disability or maternity benefit under previous Governments have had their entitlements cut by Fianna Fáil. The rates of 25 per cent and 20 per cent in pay-related benefit have now been reduced to 12 per cent and the floor for pay-related benefit has been raised to £68 per week. This means that pay-related benefit has been reduced again.

People in the social welfare category who require private rented accommodation under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme will have their entitlement cut by £1.50 per week. Any improvements they get in this year's budget will be clawed back by the supplementary welfare scheme which is used at times to assist people to get private rented accommodation. Those who received any benefits under the free fuel scheme will have the number of vouchers they receive reduced which effectively means a cut of £20. I acknowledge that the Minister accepted the scheme and did not disallow two people in one home who qualified from getting at least one payment, but a number of people have been excluded.

Deputy Flaherty referred to the people who have been receiving long-term disability benefit and unemployment benefit who have not run out of credit and have been forced onto the dole. These people are being excluded from the scheme even though their weekly income is lower. People who are permanently disabled will now need five years insurable contributions before they qualify for a pension. When Fianna Fáil came into office those people required only three years' insurable contributions.

The trade union movement may have been promised that the Government would maintain the level of social welfare income in line with inflation and all the other terms used in their agreement with the trade unions, but they did not say they would make it more difficult for people to qualify for the same payments or for payments which would be index linked with inflation. This is the Government's three card trick to maintain the levels, but in reality they are making it more difficult — and impossible at times — for some people to qualify for such payments.

These are only some of the cuts which Fianna Fáil have implemented over the past three or four years. Their history in this area is doubly scandalous because the vast majority of these cuts were made stealthily without proper public announcements. Even as things stand at present, the cutting by stealth is still going on. For example, a great number of people on social welfare who are looking forward to increases in July will not get them because they have been in receipt of alleviating payment arising from the implementation of the European Community Equality Directive. Those alleviating payments are now being phased out again by stealth, even though when this Government were in Opposition they advocated——

The Deputy's party were going to do away with them in one year. We extended them.

When Fianna Fáil were in Opposition they said there would be no loss of these payments. These payments are being phased out——

The legislation said it was to finish in one year but we extended it.

Fianna Fáil did not want it at all initially. It is amazing how they can change their position once they are in Government and vice versa.

Fianna Fáil have carried out stroke pulling gimmicks in order to confuse the public who later have to try to get support from their public representatives. We are worried about the people in poverty traps who have been referred to continuously by many agencies. The criticism of the Conference of the Major Religious Superiors of Ireland is fairly typical of the response by Fianna Fáil. The Taoiseach said he was worried about the word "Major". He did not realise that the Conference of the Major Religious Superiors of Ireland were named under Canon Law and that they believe they have a social responsibility. The Taoiseach is not the only one to have criticised these bishops who have a social conscience. A Senator from the Fine Gael ranks was also critical——

I would prefer it if there were no references to Members of the other House.

An Oireachtas Member from Fine Gael also criticised the bishops for looking for schemes of improvement particularly for people in the social welfare category. He criticised people with a conscience for talking about such matters on the basis that they had no responsibility and that they did not have to worry about where the money came from. It is important for people with a social conscience to have the right to express their views.

Their leader called the bishops something nasty too.

I have just said that the Taoiseach was worried about the words "Major" and "Superior".

The Deputy was talking about a different leader. He was talking about the leader on the other side of the House.

It was in an entirely different context.

Obviously people are very sensitive about the social welfare area. At times it is almost unpopular to talk about social welfare. Some people say social welfare payments are so good they are a disincentive to work. I would argue that point on the basis that many jobs are low paid.

The Conference of the Major Religious Superiors of Ireland have pointed out that the cost of feeding, clothing and caring for a child varies from £19.60 per week for a child under the age of four years to £28.20 for a child over four years. Almost 350,000 children in Ireland are being maintained in social welfare families or through social welfare payments. Even after the increases proposed by the Minister in this Bill, the basic rate for a child under those schemes will be £11 per week. Is it any wonder our children are under-nourished when the child benefit which is intended to supplement these rates and is an important source of income for mothers, as has been accepted by the Minister, has been frozen by Fianna Fáil since they returned to office or, to put it another way, has been cut in real terms by about 15 per cent? The Conference of the Major Religious Superiors of Ireland point out these facts week after week.

This is bound to annoy anybody, even the Taoiseach, who does not want to hear this kind of criticism during his term as President of the EC where the whole concept of the Social Charter has been diluted. The Social Charter started off with a wonderful commendation from the Commission and was strengthened in every way by all sectors in the European Parliament. But when it came back to the Council of Ministers the concept of a citizen of Europe, which would include the under-privileged, the sick, the old and people on social welfare, had been excluded. The word "worker" has been included instead of "citizen".

I referred to this point last week when I was speaking on the protection of employees legislation. Some employers resent it when people talk about a minimum wage or the need for legislative action to protect workers.

At times we have to depend on old laws going back to the 1900s to make sure that people get some rights in this area. It is a difficult and uphill battle because it is becoming unpopular to talk about the rights of the underprivileged, as the major religious superiors have discovered. There may be hungry children in the Taoiseach's constituency. He may not know but from the statistics it is obvious that there are such circumstances in every constituency.

That Conference of Major Religious Superiors made a submission to the Minister before the budget. They asked that social welfare payments be raised to the minimum recommended by the Commission on Social Welfare, which was reckoned to be £60 for a single person or £96 a week for a couple. They asked that the total allocation for social welfare be increased. They asked that the use of inflation percentages as a basis for increasing social welfare payments be discontinued. The Minister has done that in some areas and I commend him for it. The conference asked for a reform of the family income supplement. The Minister has now promised some reforms but we still do not know the details. They asked for access to that on the basis of disposable income rather than on gross income. Disposable income is what is coming into the home to feed and clothe the family, not what is available from the employer before the taxman gets his hands on it. They looked for increased benefits for larger families and for full social welfare payments for the unemployed while involved in any form of education. Again the Minister has responded to that. His pilot scheme has been extended to ten or 11 centres throughout the country I am glad that over 200 people are availing themselves of the opportunity to further their education without being disqualified from receiving unemployment benefit or social welfare.

While welcoming whatever increases there were and the positive developments that were listed in the budget, the conference noted that the total amount allocated for social welfare was increased by only 3.6 per cent, which fails to keep pace with inflation; that where some categories have got larger increases percentagewise the overall increase in social welfare is only 3.6 per cent; that percentage of total budget allocated to social welfare has declined from 27.8 per cent in 1989 to 27.2 per cent this year.

Many people were conned into believing that much more was being done for the people on social welfare. When one analyses the nitty-gritty of what is happening in the various sectors, however, one realises that things could be a lot better. The Conference of Major Religious Superiors say that this shows that despite appearances social welfare was not given the priority it deserved in the budget. They noted that in the 1989 budget social welfare was increased by 3 per cent but that prices rose by 4 per cent during that year and that this year's increases mean that recipients can simply maintain their 1988 standard of living; that the depth of their poverty was just as bad as it was two years previously; that there is still a major gap between what social welfare recipients will receive after this budget and what was recommended by the Government-appointed Commission on Social Welfare; they deeply regret that there are no commitments in this budget to implementing the recommendations of the Commission on Social Welfare. They believe that this budget's social welfare provisions have been anti-family because increases in adult dependant and child dependant payments have lagged behind increases for the claimants themselves. There is a graph available to prove the continuing deterioration in the dependant's section of what is paid by social welfare. That is a pity because the dependants in a family on social welfare are as important as the recipient. In 1987 the dependants' percentage of the personal rate paid to the family was only 72 per cent which was low enough but, in 1988, it had dropped to 66.7 per cent; in 1989 it was further eroded to 61.7 per cent. That is a continuing drop in the dependants' rates, and the Conference of Major Religious Superiors have referred to that. They comment then:

Poverty levels in Ireland are of crisis proportions. Much of this, though not all, is due to the low levels of social welfare payments. Originally the social welfare payments were not meant to be the permanent source of an individual's income. Rather, they were seen as simply a means of tiding a person over until he/she got another job or recovered from sickness or other temporary setback. This situation has changed drastically with the new reality of permanent unemployment for large numbers of people. As a result levels of payment for the long term unemployed, for example, which originally were kept low to act as an incentive for people to go out and get jobs which existed now result in a major inequality in income distribution where jobs simply do not exist for the vast majority of the unemployed.

They go on to say that as well as being inadequate in tackling poverty our social welfare system also marginalises and alienates social welfare recipients. The way the system is structured forces dependency and prevents recipients getting involved in the activity of the community since they must remain idle so as to be available for work and no progress was made in this budget towards rectifying that situation. They acknowledge that the Government in recent years have singled out the long term unemployed, particularly single long term unemployed for special increase. However, they say, these payments are still a long way short of what is required to ensure that they are above the poverty line.

No wonder the Taoiseach does not like it. They tell the truth as they see it, as the information is available to them, and they have professional people working in the field in constant consultation with the people in these categories. They are not politically motivated. They have a religious and social commitment. I commend them for their work and support everything they try to do. If agencies like that do not continue to carry out assessment of schemes that are designed for people on social welfare, then anything we as politicians on the Opposition benches do we would be accused of doing for political motivation. They are not the only sector who have commented on this budget. Threshold made a submission in which they said:

The eradication of poverty is clearly far lower on the political agenda than the reduction of top tax rates, the easing of capital taxation measures like Capital Acquisition Tax, or the horse and greyhound industry. While recent budgets, including this year's, have clearly taken on board much of the rationalisation of benefits proposed by the Commission on Social Welfare, they have failed to acknowledge with any real degree of urgency or an adequate financial commitment, the central thrust of that report, which was the gross inadequacy of basic social welfare payments.

They go on to describe their attitude to the family benefits. They talk about the long-term unemployed getting a mere £5 a week to bring them up to £52. They mention in particular that those who are renting private flats have half of that increase clawed back through a downward adjustment in the health board rent allowance scheme. There are very few Members of this House who have not some regard to local authority rents which are escalating. Much of last year's miserly increase in social welfare payments has been clawed back by the county managers and much of these increases will also be clawed back by the local authorities. The giving with one hand and taking back with two must not be disregarded by the Government or the Minister for Social Welfare. Social welfare recipients are treated the same as any income holders in spite of the fact that they are subject to delays in payment and extraordinary means testing. The whole area of social welfare is so complicated that it needs great care and attention.

Economists have said with some authority that there is every possibility we are facing into a period of sustained economic growth. The recent medium-term review published by the ESRI heralded the possibility that within a few short years we will be making capital repayments on our debt rather than simply servicing the debt by interest payments. According to the ESRI, our economy could grow by an average of 5 per cent per annum for each of the next five years. By 1991, on the basis of present revenue and spending policies, we will be taking in more in taxation than we spend for the first time since the seventies. This is a very rosy picture but one must question it. Some would say it is too optimistic but, even allowing for some degree of optimism or pessimism, the likelihood is that our economy will grow.

Who will benefit from that growth? Will the poor benefit? Are the people covered by this Bill to be the beneficiaries? They will only be the beneficiaries if health, social welfare and education are the priorities, as they must be for any Government who would aspire to have a social conscience. The authors of the ESRI review pose that question very well. They say that the policy dilemma will be the reconciliation of the need for economic efficiency and the desirability of social equity. That puts everything in context when read in conjunction with the budget speech of the Minister for Finance.

The Labour Party have attempted over and over again to pose the same question in published documents and policies, questions in the House and speeches. We have insisted that the management of our economy must be efficient and tough but must go hand in hand with a deep underlying commitment to the principles of social justice. We have had economic growth in the past two and a half years, more efficiency in the public service and throughout the economy. Some of these statistics published recently in Dublin Castle prove that. It has been built on the backs of about 100,000 people who have emigrated, on the backs of 250,000 people who are unemployed and on the backs of one million people who are poor, at the cost of increasing inequality and disadvantage at every level of society. Side by side with the increasing efficiency of our economy we have witnessed in the past two and a half years an increasing polarisation of our society. It is manifest in our two-tier health system, just as it is manifest in the virtual collapse of our public housing programme, the gradual elimination of free education and the dismantling of some social welfare schemes. A more efficient economy coupled with a more unjust and less equal society is what we began to create in the short lifetime of the last Dáil, in spite of the purported economic upturn or the "boom and bloom" as the current commissioner described it in his day. There is little evidence that equality and justice will feature as a priority on this Government's agenda. We have heard nothing that persuades us that this Government are even aware of the importance of wisely managed and fairly distributed economic growth.

There are a number of reasons the extent of poverty is so great and has grown larger in the past few years — high unemployment, low pay, an increasing number of people in part-time or casual work and an increasing effort, with a lot of success by some employers, to use schemes run by the Department to employ people and discharge them after six months, then taking in a new group of people. There is a continuing movement of people employed for short periods who do not build up any social welfare entitlements or protection against unfair dismissal. We are witnessing a new phenomenon. Employers use employees temporarily or have their work done by contractors or subcontractors. We have witnessed inadequate social support, charges for essential services, such as health services, and cutbacks in education. All these affect social welfare families in particular.

Perhaps the greatest single cause of poverty is unemployment, which is directly related to social welfare. The more people who are unemployed the larger is the demand which will be made on the Minister's budget estimate. We link the two as being fundamental to each other. The higher the level of unemployment the greater the social welfare needs. The Labour Party have published detailed proposals in regard to this crisis. In many other areas that have been mentioned, direct action by the Government is essential and possible in the short-term.

The Social Charter was recently signed but is now only a series of aspirations which are not binding on the Governments of member states. Our Government have accepted the moral obligation to ensure that part-time workers are no longer exploited. That will require some legislation which I hope will be introduced. Whether our neighbours across the water will take action is a matter for conjecture. So long as this Government legislate to protect part-time workers, we will be satisfied. Other areas requiring legislation are pay, sick leave entitlements, protection against unfair dismissal and so on. All these entitlements which are normally there for full-time workers or workers of at least two years should be available to part-time workers. We look forward to the legislation——

I think the Deputy is straying into an area which is the responsibility of another Minister.

I was trying to link unemployment and low pay as a cause for social welfare intervention. The FIS which is used for low pay is a social welfare scheme and has a direct bearing on recipients. Indeed, the Minister referred to it tonight with a promise that he would elaborate further on the new scheme of FIS which is linked to low pay for people in employment covered by PRSI contributions. The FIS does not apply to recipients of social welfare but it applies to areas of low pay. That is why I suggest that the Government's promised legislation in this area would protect people from some of the problems that are there for part-time workers. We look forward to the Minister's announcement and elaboration on the FIS.

The Government have an obligation now to examine the whole issue of low pay, legislatively speaking. Employers can make use of the FIS, which is paid for by the Department of Social Welfare, to compensate people for low pay. Therefore, it is obvious that legislation in that minimum wage area is necessary. I know there will be resentment and reaction to it from the FII and other groups who represent employers, but this House must address itself to this area. There has been a great deal of publicity lately about our poverty trap which results in some people on social welfare being better off than some people at work. Right-wing politicians and some commentators have begun to draw the conclusion that the reason for this is that social welfare levels are too high. I have refuted that because the real truth is that wages in many cases are too low.

The Minister referred tonight to improvement in free travel. First of all, free travel can benefit people only if the bus will stop. Whereas in Dublin City when the buses are running they will stop at most bus stops, in the country express buses will not stop in any village that is not a recognised express bus stop. People who would qualify for free travel would welcome the opportunity of going to Clonmel, Limerick or elsewhere, but if they are living in New Inn they have to get a car to bring them to Cahir to get a drive to Clonmel free on the bus. They have to travel to Tipperary if they want to go to Limerick. An anomaly about free travel is that it is available only if transport is available. The Minister might use his good offices particularly for these people. When they are standing on the roadside the express bus should stop and allow them to avail of free travel.

I want to discuss discrimination against women. If a woman over the age of 66 applies for free travel at the moment, by regulation she is obliged to submit her marriage certificate. That is not required for a married man. The only requirement for the married man is to produce his birth certificate to prove he is 66. At the bottom of the application form is an instruction to a woman to submit her birth certificate and her marriage certificate. When I questioned this in the Department I was given the excuse that they wanted to ascertain that this woman did not qualify under her maiden name; they wanted to know her maiden name and that was why her marriage certificate was required. The birth certificate has already provided the woman's maiden name. Age is what qualifies a person for free travel. Why is the maiden name sought? Are we suggesting that all 66 year old women are now getting married? I do not know the reason but this is discrimination against women.

Free telephone rental presents another problem in that people are sending in medical certificates for very serious illnesses and they are living with qualified applicants. Decisions are being made in the Department without examining the patient. A social welfare referee might look at somebody to decide whether the doctor's certificate is correct. Medical certificates for very serious illnesses are being sent in and are being rejected by the Department's inspectors. I do not know why. If we have sight of some of these certificates and we have to respect confidentiality in regard to medical matters, why do we put so many people to so much trouble for £22-odd every two months for telephone rental?

The free electricity that the Minister announced for people over 80 is welcome, but the number of people over 80 who will qualify is small because it is accepted that at over 80 they would need somebody to be with them. If the age were set at 70 or 75 many more people would qualify for this.

I welcome the Minister's statement that his Department will now be pursuing for maintenance the spouse who has absconded and reneged on his or her obligations to the home. This applies to men and to women but particularly to men who leave their home, wife and children and are still within the jurisdiction gainfully employed. Because of the total collapse of the free legal aid scheme it has become increasingly difficult for women to get into the family court to get a maintenance order against their defecting spouses. The families were subjected to having to go weekly to a supplementary welfare officer, often in conditions where privacy was unheard of. It was degrading, particularly where there was the trauma of a broken marriage. I am glad the Minister has seen fit to ensure that his Department will now take on the responsibility of ensuring that a maintenance order is made against the spouse if he or she is still in the jurisdiction. That is a step forward. If responsibility still lies on the spouse who has absconded, they should not be allowed to get away scot free and the State should make every effort to recoup its expenditure. The Minister and some officers in the Department have confirmed that even if they were not successful the payments would continue to the beneficiaries. That is welcome.

In the context of the budgetary process, can we say the Government have started any attack on poverty even in the short term? According to the Combat Poverty Agency and other reputable sources, there are still families paying tax on incomes of less than 60 per cent of the average industrial wage. The Minister announced tonight an exclusion for PRSI employees on an income of £60 a week. That is a very minimum income, if one can call it that. Under the social employment scheme it is only an allowance. Still that is the low level at which we have set the exemption from PRSI. That will create another low paid trap. The gesture is most welcome but setting the figure that low will create anomalies and further poverty traps. There are families still paying tax on incomes which are 60 per cent below the average wage. They are quite poor families and the £10 or more which they will pay in income tax is the reason they fall into a poverty trap.

Solutions to poverty cannot be achieved by one or two isolated steps. Although the Minister has addressed some of the anomalies in the Bill they are isolated steps. These problems can only be attacked by a concentrated and integrated programme of activity and the Minister and the Government should have such a programme extending over a number of years In 1992 the Community will supposedly be equal but unless we address this area many of our poor people will be even poorer. The programme could be based on the twin principles of economic efficiency and social justice.

Many families are suffering and need help to share in the benefits of the considerable improvement which, we are told, has taken place in the financial situation. We must do that if we are to alleviate the hardships suffered by many families over the last number of years. We will be tabling amendments on Committee Stage regarding means testing and those whom the Minister has decided to exclude from means testing, such as the bean a tí in the Gaeltacht areas. Perhaps he would do the same in relation to the carers' allowance; if he does not, an excellent scheme will be caught up in the whole odium of means testing and we will exclude many of the people whom we want to help.

We will be tabling reasoned amendments in many other areas and I hope the Minister will respond positively. There is goodwill in the House for developments in the social welfare area. There is also goodwill in the new concept of not requiring people over the age of 60 to sign on as being unemployed and actively seeking work. However, at that age we know that, unfortunately, they are unemployable. At least they will no longer suffer the trauma and stigma of signing as unemployed. Of course there is a plus in it for the Government, which is possibly the only reason they put it in. It will reduce the live register by about 7,000 people and we will then be told that unemployment figures are improving. The Jobsearch programme and others will be used to give the impression that more people are at work. If we link that to emigration — another scourge in our society — we will have done a disservice to the number of people aged 60 or slightly over who are not old enough to qualify for a pension but are being paid an allowance to stop them signing. We welcome it for the beneficiaries but we hope the Government will not use the misleading figures which will arise from it as a credit for having addressed the numbers of people who are unemployed.

I look forward to the Minister's reply and to the tabling of amendments in the areas I have identified as needing to be addressed by the Minister in a constructive way.

The general thrust of this Bill is disappointing as it is unimaginative and totally inadequate to deal with the level of poverty. The Bill reflects the sort of attitude prevalent in Fianna Fáil which wants to see the extent of poverty swept under the political carpet——

——and adopt a hostile attitude to any organisation or group which seeks to highlight the extent of poverty and deprivation. This attitude was seen at its worse in the extraordinary, petulant and ill-tempered comments of the Taoiseach in the Dáil last week when he claimed that reports of poverty were exaggerated. He went on to make offensive and ill-considered comments about the Conference of Major Religious Superiors.

The Taoiseach is a privileged man. Apart from holding one of the highest political offices in the land — and enjoying all the privileges that go with it — he is also a man of extensive personal wealth. In addition to his house and lands at Kinsealy he also owns a private island off the coast of Kerry.

That is an unwarranted remark.

Please, Deputy, entering into personalities of that kind is surely not in order. We are dealing with a Social Welfare Bill.

It is relevant when we are talking about poverty and a Social Welfare Bill. It is particularly relevant having had to endure the outburst by the Taoiseach last week——

I must ask the Deputy not to personalise matters, it is not done in the House.

Look at the Taoiseach's record on social reform.

The Taoiseach's wealth is more than sufficient——

The Taoiseach's wealth has nothing to do with the Bill.

As he jets around Europe or takes a helicopter to Inismhicealáin the extent of poverty may not be obvious to him but, as head of Government, he has a responsibility to acquaint himself with the facts.

Look at his record.

It is important that the statistics on the level of poverty which the Taoiseach sought to disparage last week were not produced by the Conference of Major Religious Superiors or the Combat Poverty Agency. The figures were produced by the professional researchers of the Economic and Social Research Institute who did not seek to exaggerate or to put any political gloss on them. The fact that the Taoiseach is so out of touch with reality that he does not see the poverty around him does not make these figures any less valid.

The harder the Taoiseach and the Minister for Social Welfare try to deny the figures, the more they prove themselves to be out of touch with the harsh realities of life for hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty in the last decade of the 20th century.

These people are the innocent victims of Irish capitalists' rush to record profits. They are also the victims of a visible twotiered society. It is clear that the policy of successive Governments has unashamedly given privilege to the wealthy and allowed the majority to make do with what is left. It is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. Let me remind the Minister of the basic facts. In a country with a population of just 3.5 million, approximately one-third are currently living in poverty — 31.4 per cent of the population. There are 240,000 people — or 18 per cent — registered as unemployed but these figures hide the real depth of unemployment because, at any one time, there are at least 40,000 people on work training schemes of one kind or another; 47,000 emigrated in the year to April 1989 or, if you prefer, 177,000 people have emigrated since 1980. Many others, particularly women, are not counted because the lack of adequate child care facilities prevents them from working, even if they could find work. Of the 31 per cent of the population in poverty one in three people — 150,000 — classified as adult dependants do not receive a payment in their own right.

Unfortunately, women comprise the overwhelming majority of those, representing approximately 125,000 adult dependants. They and their children are among the most vulnerable and oppressed by poverty. In 1988 346,497 children were being maintained by social welfare. This startling figure means that 40 per cent of Irish children are living below the poverty line of a miserable £48 a week for an individual. A figure of 277,000, or 30 per cent, of the Irish women live in poverty, on less than £48 a week. Past Governments and Fianna Fáil politicians have often smugly claimed that unlike the United Kingdom we are a classless society. The word "class" is hated by Fianna Fáil for the reason that they know that when a class dimension is recognised in Irish society it threatens their very existence. Until recently Fianna Fáil have successfully cultivated a populist image, that we are all in the same boat — like hell we are. Let Charlie be the captain and all our boats will be lifted together on the rising tide of prosperity. That is the cry. The myth of a classless society combined with Fianna Fáils pretensions to be a non-ideological party became enshrined in their rhetoric until the Progressive Democrats came to lie so comfortably beside them in the nuptial bed of coalition. The reality of Ireland is a far grimmer tale of national independence.

Who wrote the script?

It is the story of a society where class barriers are more ingrained and rigid than in neighbouring Britain. The impact of Government policy over successive years has significantly institutionalised class barriers and inequalities, to the extent that without a massive transfer of funds those at present trapped in poverty, along with their children and their children's children, will become even more deprived and marginalised. This is not a moral issue requiring prayer and faith in the market forces. This is the indictment of deliberate Government policies of neglect on a grandiose scale. One way of demonstrating the extent of inequality is in relation to the distribution of income. According to the 1980 household budget survey, the top 10 per cent of all households receive 29.9 per cent of all income while the bottom 20 per cent receive a miserable one-half of 1 per cent of all income. That was in 1980 and the position has got worse since then. That comparison starkly represents the degree of inequality in income in Ireland.

The State supports a class of substantial proprietors. A book published recently by researchers at the ESRI states that entrepreneurs are facilitated by a wealth of subsidies to their business concerns and a low rate of corporate income tax. The viability of that class is further assisted by the imposition of low rates of personal taxation relative to employees with comparable incomes.

I would appeal to the Deputy to relate his remarks more closely to the Social Welfare Bill and what it contains.

Hear, hear.

The Deputy is straying very far from the subject.

He is insulting.

I am trying to give a picture of the state of Ireland today so that when I do mention the various aspects of the Bill, which I am coming to very shortly, it might put them in their proper context.

I would be grateful if you would come to it now.

The State provides those people with a safety net, one that enhances the profitability of their position, which they can later bequeath to their family. What does the State provide for those at the bottom of the class structure? Farmers with small holdings and poor quality land benefit from a substructure of State and EC supports. Unemployed members of the urban working class lack the dignity of a job and are increasingly forced into dependency upon the State. In turn, industrial policies have focused on generating employment opportunities away from those areas in which the old indigenous industry was contracting. Most working class families at the middle stages of the family cycle must rely on income earned by children residing within the household to meet their needs. This doubly penalises the working class. It maximises the family's tax liability and minimises the likelihood that children from such families will participate in second and third level education.

Research in Ireland has continually shown that opportunities for upward social mobility are extremely restricted. Children of middle class parents continue to enjoy a substantial advantage in access to more privileged occupations. In contrast, long-term unemployment has become, in the nineties, a new category into which those from working class origins may be downwardly mobile. There is no mobility. Fr. McGrail's reports would be worth reading by the Minister.

Over the past ten years or so the State has tended to lower the support available to families with young children. This has exacerbated existing class inequalities. At the same time new family problems connected with unemployment, poor housing, depreciating health services and so on are emerging. Some 5.6 per cent of all households are headed by women who are in receipt of social welfare payments, as deserted wives or single parents. There are housing estates in parts of Dublin where the percentage of single parent families is as high as 20 per cent. The challenge that this presents is not merely financial but also calls into account all those who claimed to support the right to life in the 1984 constitutional referendum. The silence of that former vocal lobby group is deafening in regard to outlining their policies on behalf of one of the largest groups in poverty, single parents and their children.

Emigration provides a means of social mobility but only for those with skills and training. Those with educational qualifications but unable to work in Ireland can search elsewhere. Those without qualifications and who cannot find work remain unemployed in Ireland, England and Europe. There is no social mobility for Irish unskilled labour anywhere in the world. What the State can do to correct these frighteningly awesome statistics of human misery and what it is doing can clearly be seen in contrast. Job creation on a massive scale is the single major means to eradicate poverty. Education, which can break the vicious circle of deprivation and inequality of opportunity, is another important tool in this effort. Social Welfare plays a crucial role but it is clearly only a means of alleviating the distress and misery of poverty and cannot be seen as a means of eliminating poverty itself.

Where is the political will to ensure a greater distribution of the State's resources and so really eliminate poverty from Ireland? Does the Minister at Cabinet not fight for the elimination of glaring inequalities of opportunities that infect all spheres of Irish life? Is it not his stated aim to tackle poverty? What is the Minister doing to make this aim real? There is little evidence that the Government intend to effect any fundamental change in the inequities of the Irish class system. Social welfare plays an important and commendable role in the alleviation of poverty through cash transfers and income support, eliminating up to 70 to 80 per cent of the gap between incomes and the poverty line. Social welfare on its own without any fundamental interventions in jobs, education and opportunity, will at best keep people from starving. It sustains the thousands of recipients in perpetual suspension, with no real prospect of social mobility. They are left like suspended puppets to be manipulated by their puppeteer masters, the cynical politicians, trapped forever within the poverty trap.

I have many problems with the Bill before us. Having outlined at great length, with the Ceann Comhairle's permission, how the poor are discriminated against and what steps the Government might take to fundamentally correct their status, let us look more closely at this dishonest attempt to convey to those in poverty that Fianna Fáil really care. I will quote from the Minister for Social Welfare who stated in the Adjournment debate of 15 December 1989:

Over the past two years the Government in co-operation with the social partners have tackled the economic problems facing the country and at the same time developed the social dimension.

The Minister claimed that the third aspect of the threefold approach was:

to ensure that the benefits and sacrifices are shared equitably across society.

We all know who benefited and we also know who made the sacrifices. The answer to that question could be addressed to the trade union movement who will be letting the Government know quite soon when they get down to discussing the negotiation of a new programme for national recovery.

This Bill, if passed, will see this Government spend, by way of Exchequer contributions, £100 million less than in 1989. Is this the Government's considered response to increasing poverty? Not only that but

total social welfare expenditures comprising insurance based payments funded from the social insurance fund and assistance payments which are totally Exchequer funded. The Social Insurance fund is funded by the Exchequer, employees and the self-employed. The abridged Estimates show the Exchequer contributions to the SIF is a whopping 52 per cent less in 1990 than in 1989.

Is the Deputy against the self-employed contributing?

They were the Minister's proud words on 30 November 1989.

Are The Workers' Party against the self-employed contributing?

I will now suggest what the Minister could have done with the money he has saved. In case that was not bad news enough for those in poverty and the agencies with a social conscience, I will paraphrase the content of the Minister's speech. The Minister was rightly proud of his success, and I give him credit for it, in stamping out fraud that resulted in savings of £30 million in 1989, a total saving of £100 million since 1987. In 1990, he hopes to save a further £55 million from measures to control fraud and from reduced expenditure mainly on unemployment and disability benefits. That comes to a saving of £155 million since 1987. There is, of course, the added gain of £52 million, a once off payment, on the amalgamation of the occupational injury fund and the redundancy and employers' insolvency fund. Now we are dealing with a grand total saving of £207 million, but the Minister did not redistribute this money to those in genuine need.

It is scandalous that there is organised fraud aided and abetted by many employers, but when a fraud is discovered, the resulting savings should not be taken out of the social welfare budget and returned to the general Exchequer. Instead, any savings made from the elimination of fraud should be retained for redistribution within the social welfare system to those in need. If this were to happen the Bill would be able to address important areas highlighted by the Free Legal Aid Advice Centres (FLAC). The case of Cotter and McDermott v. the Minister for Social Welfare is well documented and recorded. It is a scandal that two unemployed women should have had to resort to the High Court which, in turn, had to refer this case to the Supreme Court, in order that the women be awarded their just entitlements.

We in The Workers' Party not only want better levels of payment for people whose incomes are too low but we want far more than that. We want the removal of all unnecessary obstacles to people taking up employment and the removal of the stigma attached to people who cannot take up or find employment. We want the social welfare system to be positive, not punitive, we want it to be supportive rather than judgmental, which means major changes in attitudes and laws.

What sort of positiveness and supportiveness was forthcoming in the Cotter and McDermott case? Why does the Minister prefer to drag people not only through the Irish court system but through the European courts as well? I would ask the Minister directly to pay approximately 40,000 married women the estimated sum of £20 million he owes them. The breakdown of that figure means payments in the region of £100 to £800 per married woman discriminated against between 22 December 1984 and 15 May 1986. This discrimination emerged from the State's delay in implementing the EC Directive 74/7/EEC on "Equal Treatment for Men and Women in the Matters of Social Security".

The figure is £200 million Deputy.

The figure I got from FLAC was £20 million.

Their figures are wrong.

I will come back to that point. During this period, the State continued to discriminate against married women in relation to rates of disability benefit, disablement benefit, unemployment benefit, injury benefit, invalidity pension and unemployment supplement. Furthermore women who were unemployed between 23 December 1984 and 25 February 1986 were cut off from their unemployment benefit after 12 months compared with a cut off point of 15 months for men.

If the Minister had inserted into the Bill the entitlement to benefit for these women I would have called this move progressive and positive. If he had intended to redistribute some of the money retrieved from fraudulent abuse of social welfare and directed it especially towards people who were entitled to repayment of the arrears I would have congratulated him. However, the Minister seems to have confirmed my next point, that he knows from computer files the names and addresses of married women and how much they would be entitled to, but he is not offering them their just arrears. Instead, he says they should apply individually and then leaves them on hold while he forces FLAC back into the arena of the courts. Only yesterday we saw the EC Directive being broken yet again by the Government's exclusion of part-time workers from full insurance cover by the Department.

The Social Welfare Bill appears to ignore the spirit and letter of EC law, including the Social Charter. We have read that as many as 26,000 part-time workers have been shown to be discriminated against in the European Court of Justice. They are currently being denied full PRSI cover and once again we see a situation where implementation of social welfare rights is being forced on the Government by the European Community. Article 10 of the Social Charter states that every worker of the European Community shall have a right to adequate social protection and whatever his or her status enjoy an adequate level of social security benefits. It is a sad indictment of the Government that in the year the Taoiseach is President of the Council of Ministers, the Irish Government are once again found guilty of discrimination involving the social welfare code. According to the 1988 Labour Court survey approximately 26,300 people work less than 19 hours per week; of these 20,400, or 78 per cent. are women. Given the fact that more women than men are engaged in part-time work it follows that the exclusion of part-time workers from class A insurance has a disproportionate impact on women and on the face of it is discriminatory, which is the terminology used in the Dutch case. The burden clearly rests on the Department of Social Welfare to produce some objective justification for the continued flouting of the EC Directive on equal treatment for men and women. I plead with the Minister not to allow himself and, by implication the name of Ireland, to be dragged again to the European courts. He must resolve today to announce that part-time workers will be eligible for class A insurance.

I would not like the Minister to feel that I do not welcome some of the commendable aspects of the Bill. For example, I congratulate him for allowing a companion to travel free on the bus pass of DPMA recipients. I had written to the Minister highlighting this anomaly as between the disabled and senior citizens. The spouses of the latter are allowed travel with them. This is a small item but nevertheless it is important to recognise it. I am delighted that the Minister has made this change and no doubt my correspondence helped him in making up his mind.

I also support the extension of the free electricity scheme to old age pensioners who have someone living with them. However, in order to qualify they must be 80 years of age or over. What sort of concession is this? I ask the Minister to reconsider his approach, broaden his horizons and enter the real world.

The Deputy should enter the real world.

The insertion of a clause which would allow the recipients of free electricity units to have some other person in receipt of any social welfare payment live with them would be a big improvement.

I welcome the introduction of the new carer's allowance but warn that no attempt should be made to coerce families, in particular the daughters of aging parents, into becoming cheap paid carers for the aged or disabled. We must bear in mind that while many thousands of people, at tremendous personal sacrifice, give of their time to care for an aged or infirm family member, equally there are thousands more who are not prepared to make the same sacrifice. I am therefore warning that the carer's allowance must not be used by health board personnel in an attempt to pressure families into caring for the elderly at home when in fact they should be in a hospital or nursing home. I am aware of the trauma which many families go through in trying to have an elderly person admitted to a health board nursing home or hospital and, therefore, I seek reassurance from the Minister that he is not looking for a yellow pack Nurse Nightingale to facilitate his colleague in the Department of Health in cutting back the number of beds available in health board nursing homes.

It should also be pointed out that carers are predominantly women and I am warning against the possibility of women being forced to leave employment to become carers. An interesting fact is that the subvention per bed in a nursing home is almost on a par with the proposed carer's allowance. This could be seen as a co-ordinated approach between the Department of Health and the Department of Social Welfare and I ask the Minister to tell us if there is a hidden agenda.

It is the same as a social welfare payment.

The Minister should not interrupt the speaker. Can you not protect the speaker, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle?

I ask the Minister to tell us if there is a hidden agenda. While I am happy to see carers compensated for the sacrifices they make I will maintain a watching brief to see what developments take place in the health service as I fear there may be collusion on this issue between the Departments.

Would the Deputy mind if I laugh?

This is terrible.

I promise only to smile.

We will see——

I think Deputy De Rossa is unwittingly encouraging the Minister to interrupt and I hope the Minister will not respond. Deputy Byrne, without interruption.

I promise only to smile.

As it is now 10.45 p.m. and the debate is due to be adjourned at midnight I will get on with delivering my prepared speech. Another aspect about which I am unhappy is the incredible range of start up dates for the various increases——

I probably should not interrupt but the Deputy is not supposed to read a speech. However, I am not objecting.

Would the Minister prefer if I made reference to herds of cattle like the previous speaker and took twice the length of time?

The Chair takes it that Deputy Byrne was not conveying to the House that he was reading a speech but rather referring to notes.

They are extensive notes. I even quoted what the Minister has said.

Let the record show that the Deputy is reading from notes.

In relation to the incredible range of start up dates for various increases, I ask the Minister to tell us why, for example, mothers in receipt of child benefit have to wait until October for their increases while those in receipt of unemployment assistance and old age pensioners will receive theirs in July and while low paid workers with earnings of £60 per week or less will be exempt from PRSI from April. Therefore, there is a variety of start up dates. The National Campaign for Welfare Reform Group said:

The Irish social welfare system is a mess. Its payments are inadequate, it is unjust and inconsistent, it is complicating and confusing.

I am in sympathy with them. There should be a uniform start up date. The system is complicated enough without adding further to the confusion. It is wrong that people should have to wait so long after the increases are announced before they receive payment. In some cases, having learned about the Minister's proposals last December, people will have to wait until October before they receive their increases. I ask the Minister to agree once and for all to a uniform start up date.

One of the many horrifying details to emerge in this debate is that so many people are trying to eke out a living on incredibly poor incomes. The Minister pointed out in his contribution to the debate on the budget on 1 February this year that the Government have decided to tackle the problem of low pay by exempting workers on low pay from PRSI contributions and that anybody earning less than £60 per week would be exempt. He went on to proclaim that as many as 50,000 poor unfortunates are actually in receipt of £60 per week or less. If 50,000 people are in receipt of less than £60 per week there must be hundreds of thousands earning between £60 and £100 per week.

Some person — I do not know who it was — had the audacity to say that we had turned the corner, that the rising tide was lifting all boats. The rising tide of prosperity not only is going to leave behind 240,000 people without work but it is also going to leave behind hundreds of thousands of low paid workers who are not going to enjoy the life of prosperity being experienced by the already well off sections of our society.

What the figure of low paid workers shows is the need for a safety net into which workers will fall in times of unemployment, redundancy and sickness. The social welfare net, with all its shortcomings and inadequate rates of payments, can act as a cushion for many workers and their family members. Earlier tonight it was stated that a few months ago members of Fine Gael were arguing that workers were better off on social welfare than in gainful employment. If Fine Gael were arguing the point that it is a disgrace that so many employers were paying such miserable wages that left so many workers on wages that were only subsistence payments, that they were so low as to be on a par with the subsistence payments for social welfare, I might have agreed with that.

I agree with the Minister who made the point in his speech on the budget in February that the disincentives to work faced by those on social welfare payments had been greatly exaggerated. He pointed out that only a minority of individuals are better off on social welfare payments than at work. That should not be seen as a reason to suggest that welfare payments are somehow or other good. Rather, it should highlight the very poor, dead-end, badly paid jobs that are on offer particularly to young people. It should be said that 3 per cent of the 7.9 per cent of the people surveyed and found to be better off in receipt of social welfare payments were single people who were entitled to the lowest level of social welfare payments only. That is an indictment of our employers. Fine Gael would have been better off highlighting that fact instead of using greatly exaggerated, highly dubious statistics to prove the opposite. Bad and all as low paid employment is, it is better than the horrible experience of drawing the dole or assistance or feeling humiliated by seeking assistance from community welfare officers. The Fine Gael spokesperson on social welfare made a statement tonight which I should like to refute. She said that the social welfare system is hostile to work.

Against this background of poverty the level of increases provided in the Bill is totally inadequate. It is most regrettable that the Government have once again pushed the date for their payment back to the latest possible dates. The principle of increasing social welfare benefits in line with inflation would only be acceptable if the basic levels were adequate. The Commission on Social Welfare, and many other welfare groups, have said clearly that this is not so. Even with the extra increase for the long term unemployed, many jobless will still be expected to survive on about £10 per week less than the 1990 levels recommended by the Commission on Social Welfare. In addition much of the extra few pounds will be eaten up by inflation and increases in local authority rents.

I would not like it to be thought that The Workers' Party believe there is nothing worthwhile in the Bill. The new schemes provided for in the Bill, such as the lone parent's allowance and the carer's allowance, are welcome but the small print of the Bill will need to be very carefully exmained on Committee Stage to ensure that they are genuine attempts to deal with the problems and that they are not unnecessarily exclusive or bureaucratic. It is, for instance, regrettable that the new carer's allowance appears to exclude a person or persons caring in the home for mentally or physically handicaped persons. I hope there will be a genuine attempt to make those schemes available to those who need them.

The experience with the deserted husband's scheme, which was provided for in the Social Welfare Act, 1989, does not give grounds for optimism. When that Bill was going through the Dáil 12 months ago the Minister indicated that thousands of men were likely to qualify under it. To the best of my recollection he said that in the region of 9,000 men would qualify. However, the reality was different. In the course of a reply to a question tabled by my colleague, Deputy Gilmore, on 22 February last the Minister said that at that stage only 468 men had applied for deserted husband's allowance and of those, awards were only made to 14 cases with 18 claims being rejected and a further 18 being withdrawn. The Minister went on to say that a further 418 applications were still under consideration.

Let us hope that 12 months from now we will not find that the fine sounding schemes provided for in the Bill are nonevents or are available only to a handful of people. We need genuine schemes to cater for those in need and not window dressing to make the Minister's record look good.

I should like to obtain clarification in regard to a number of provisions in the Bill. The Minister proposes to increase from £69 to £72 the amount of weekly earnings that are disregarded in calculating the rate of that benefit. In 1983 that rate was £36. Is the Minister planning some sort of progressive annual increase to do away with social insurance altogether? I am not happy with sections 13 and 14 which contain amendments to the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act to facilitate the introduction of new schemes. Section 15 provides that the new scheme will be brought into effect by way of commencement order. Where are the deadlines for implementation? It is not correct that we should spend two days at least debating the Bill, make our comments in good faith and not know the deadline for the implementation of the provisions.

I should like to make a similar point about the carer's allowance. It appears that we will have to rely on the introduction of regulations for benefits. It also appears that none of those regulations will be brought before the House for approval. That is not a satisfactory way to deal with this issue. It is unsatisfactory that there is no deadline for a number of schemes and the Minister should tell us when he proposes to introduce the benefits.

It is important to stress the need for a deadline for the hearing of appeals. Under the new proposals to establish an appeals system certain people will be given authority. We need to have some scheme whereby we would inform appellants that, having gone to the trouble of appealing, their appeal will be responded to within a reasonable period. I suggest that that reasonable period should be no longer than of two weeks duration.

It would not work in practice for the claimant. It is often to the claimant's advantage if it takes longer.

I do not think it is satisfactory that many people are wondering——

It is important to have it as soon as possible but it may be to the disadvantage of the claimant in many cases if sufficient time is not allowed.

There is another area to which I would like to draw the Minister's attention now that he has made that point. One of the major areas of complaint about appeals, lack of information and so on is in relation to people approaching community welfare officers for help and having their requests refused. There appears to be incredible confusion, judging from what Deputy Ferris has said, in understanding why people are rejected in this way. I do not know whether the new appeals system will cover community welfare officers.

That is under the administration of the health boards and the Department of Health. It is not directly under our administration.

Perhaps it is not directly under the Minister's administration——

We will have a Committee Stage where all the details will be teased out to his heart's content.

The Minister is inviting interruption.

He asked me a question.

The Minister is being co-operative to the extent that might constitute interruptions.

The Minister refers time and again to local offices and to what he intends to do about the many such premises that are demoralising, dreary and oppressive. Perhaps he would think in terms of, for instance, providing for fresh flowers to be put in these offices or for some nice prints to be hung on the walls by way of creating a more conducive atmosphere in which to conduct one's business. I am thinking in particular of employment exchanges. Incidentally I often wonder why these premises ever got that title in view of the fact that they do everything but offer employment.

Social welfare staff who deal with the public have a very trying job. Recipients of the services provided by these officers, by the very nature of their dealings with the area of social welfare, are often in need of encouragement, assistance and patience and it can be trying for both the officers and on the recipients that frequently tempers are frayed. I would argue strongly for more mobility of staff within the social welfare services so that staff would not be placed in the one position of dealing with the public in the one place for a long time and whereby they can unfortunately be seen to alienate themselves from the recipients. I would like some comment on that.

Having seen in England what I regard as the ideal situation, that is, citizen advice bureaux, I submit that we develop similar facilities so that people requiring information, not only on social welfare but on a range of other Government and local authority related issues could go to a softly furnished, open plan, area in which the atmosphere is warm and inviting. When the Minister gets around to organising his one stop service he might consider very seriously having a look at what happens in this regard in Camden Town and perhaps take on board some of the excellent ideas that the citizen advice bureaux operate there.

Both the Fine Gael and the Labour Party spokespersons made the point that social welfare is an incredibly complicated field. If the Minister was unaided by his social welfare civil servants I do not know whether he could explain to a lay person the ins and outs of all the schemes. Something should be done to familiarise people more as to their rights. Because of the complex legislation that exists it is not fair to expect people to understand how to process their claims. It is clear from certain schemes, for example, the family income supplement support scheme that people are not availing of their rights. With that in mind perhaps the Minister would consider a role for the Department of Social Welfare with other Government Departments in the area of providing citizen advice bureau facilities.

Unfortunately, Deputy Byrne's opening comments amounted to a dirty, nasty and cheap but a typical personalised attack on the Taoiseach. There is no need for me to set out the Taoiseach's record on social reform because it is a record that is second to none, that is well documented and will be remembered when Deputy Byrne and all of his colleagues have gone from this House.

That is wishful thinking, Deputy.

In the past couple of years, having watched the various stages of the growth and development of the democratic process of Deputy Byrne's party and their policies, I got the impression that that policy was to destroy, disrupt and damage in any way possible the State and its institutions. After listening to him tonight I have not changed my views.

The Deputy must be misinformed.

If we really want to trade insults and talk of the privileged few in the way he did, I would point, for instance, to one of his own colleagues here who got massive amounts of tax payers' money by way of the free legal aid scheme.

For a lot of hard work.

Many taxpayers found that very difficult to take. It is ironic now that the same people are coming here and saying they should get the same amount again and use it in the same way. I have no wish to buy a yacht or, if I were getting £106,000, to spend it in that way.

Secondly, I will refer to the Deputy who is now contributing and who was not here earlier. He may have been in Europe or elsewhere. There was a reference to our captain. I would refer to Deputy Byrne's captain. At a time of massive unemployment, he has no difficulty in going on the gravy train — as his party described it for so long — and collecting his various expenses and his pay cheque in Europe. He is getting a huge amount of money. When he has a day off from Europe he comes back here, puts in a few hours and collects again. The public are well aware of this and all the shouting and roaring in the world about class systems will not hide the fact that two well paid jobs are being held down, one of which is extremely well paid. In the other case I have referred to, the gentleman concerned took over £100,000 of taxpayers' money per year in free legal aid.

It was well earned.

The people should be aware that the Deputy is paid twice for the same job; no matter how hard he may work he is paid for being in two places at the one time.

The people elected me.

The Deputy is still being paid for being in two places at the one time.

That just shows——

That is not acceptable to the public. The Deputy is now holding down two jobs. As captain of the fleet he should not be double jobbing.

Deputy Byrne's final point was that there are very many schemes and that the social welfare area is very complex. In my short time in the House this is one of the reasons that I have consistently paid tribute to our present Minister for Social Welfare because he has moved rapidly to change the areas where change could be brought about quickly, for instance, in relation to the child benefit rates. I was astonished when I came here in 1987 to find that there were 36 different rates with all the administrative difficulties etc. that that entails. Now the Minister has rationalised that number to six but that was not without cost. The Minister put the money down and we got rid of the need for vetting this, that and the other. This went some of the way towards sorting out the difficulties. The Minister has done the same with regard to the long-term unemployment benefits, which have again been rationalised upwards, and in a number of other instances to which he referred tonight. All these improvements cost money.

Deputy Byrne or Deputy Ferris said that because the cut off point for the payment of PRSI will be £60, people would not pay and very few of them would take it up. This scheme will cost £8 million and if this is the case somebody will be getting a lot of money for nothing.

It is only an estimate.

I regard this as a good move and I welcome it. The Fine Gael amendment moved by Deputy Flaherty made astonishing reading. Fine Gael propose to vote against this Bill on Second Stage. We should look at the Fine Gael record up to 1987 and compare it with the radical changes which have taken place since then. The legislation introduced by the Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Woods, is a magnificent record. The various Bills introduced by him can be examined during this and other debates and we can compare his record with the record of the previous Administration who were in office for four and a half years. I did not think any member of Fine Gael would have the gall to voice criticism about the Minister's record in view of their record during their period in office.

The old style social welfare Bills concentrated on the rates of payment and nothing else. This Minister has taken innovative moves in every Bill he has introduced since 1987. I would be quite happy to have a reasonable debate on any of those Bills with anybody. Such a debate would show that there has been a very consistent and regular programme of improvements. These improvements have not been of a once off nature; the Minister has had a positive programme of achieving certain objectives which are mainly contained in the report of the Commission on Social Welfare and in representations made by various groups. The Minister listens to everybody who makes recommendations and acts on them.

As I have said previously, the Minister has removed anomalies which existed for years. I can refer to many initiatives taken by him, for example, the introduction last year of the pro rata pensions scheme which had been sought for years and which removed the anomaly in that area. The Minister tackled this anomaly which had been ignored by Ministers during the eighties. The Minister introduced a carer's allowance, a widower's allowance, a clothing allowance and allowed the elderly to continue to receive free electricity, which was a hardy annual. People said this could not be done but this Minister did it. He has also introduced a PRSI exemption for low paid workers and included the self-employed in the PRSI pensions scheme. I could continue to list the improvements he has made.

Deputy Byrne referred to the free travel facility for those accompanying a person receiving a disabled person's maintenance allowance. These are all positive steps and no matter how destructive The Workers' Party want to be, I believe they must recognise that improvements have been made. They cannot treat the public as idiots. No matter what brainwashing goes on, these are facts.

The one thing we do not do is treat the public as idiots.

The people who will benefit from these schemes are happy with these improvements. It is important to note that the Minister has not confined himself to the easy options. He has taken the initiative to rationalise the child benefit rates and other rates upwards and he is doing the same with the adult and child dependant rates in this Bill. The improvements made by the Minister are completely in line with the recommendations in the report of the Commission on Social Welfare. It is heartening to see how much the Minister has done but there are other improvements which must be achieved. All this must be compared with the record of the previous Administration during their four and a half years in office.

Several speakers referred to the Combat Poverty Agency. Deputy Ferris said the Combat Poverty Agency and the ESRI were independent organisations which did not belong in the political arena. The ESRI carried out a survey in 1986 and it was published in 1988. This survey was a damning indictment of the treatment of the unemployed by the Administration at that time. In fairness, Deputy Ferris's party cannot avoid the findings of that survey because they were involved in that Administration for most of that time. Deputy Flaherty had a fierce cheek to come into the House tonight and say that Fine Gael will vote against the Bill getting a Second Reading. Other speakers welcomed certain elements of the Bill and pointed to the good parts but Deputy Flaherty knocked the Bill from the time she came into the House.

There will always be improvements which can be made and issues which can be discussed. I question the approach taken by Fine Gael to this Bill. Deputy Ferris welcomed the general thrust of the Bill and pointed out certain aspects which the Labour Party want to change. Like The Workers' Party they will be putting down amendments on Committee Stage. As I said, there will always be areas which can be improved and I should like to refer to a few which the Minister might consider.

I ask the Minister to extend the free travel scheme which allows a person to accompany a recipient of the disabled person's maintenance allowance. He should look at the position of people who should receive a disabled person's maintenance allowance but who do not because they are institutionalised or have to attend therapy regularly. Such people do not receive that allowance and are, therefore, deprived of free travel.

Deputy Ferris stitched one or two cases into the records but I should like to refer to the case of a 24 year-old person from my constituency who is attending a therapeutic workshop in Dublin. This person travels home from Dublin every two weeks and because he does not receive a disabled person's maintenance allowance and the Southern Health Board do not supply a free ambulance service, his family have to bear the travel costs. This means that every two weeks his family have to hire somebody to accompany him from Dublin to Cork and back to Dublin or else a member of his family has to travel from Cork to Dublin to meet him and also accompany him on the return journey. This costs his family a minimum of £92 per month. His parents are getting older and they have carried out that job voluntarily for the past 18 years. This young man should have a degree of independence which I believe a right to travel would give him. I appreciate that there may be an element of health care involved in this issue and I ask the Minister to get together with his colleague the Minister for Health, Deputy O'Hanlon, to consider this matter so that the anomaly in this area will not be added to with the extension of the free travel scheme.

The income limit of £50 before a spouse's social welfare entitlements are taken into account needs to be reviewed as it has been static for four years. I have been approached by quite a number of constituents who work in contract cleaning and who have been happy enough up to now because they have consciously stayed under the limit of £50. Now, after long efforts the Labour Court has granted an increase of 15 per cent in their wages, but they cannot accept this because it would put them over the limit. That limit should be reviewed to facilitate these people. They deserve it because they work hard and they would not be out working if they did not need the money.

I would like the Minister to look also at the question of people on mixed insurance contributions. The most familiar example of these is drivers or conductors with CIE who become insured at a modified rate on promotion to inspector. Many of these people are not entitled to a full pension. Last year the Minister granted pro rata pensions to one particular group. I would ask him to look also at this category, many of whom are in dire straits. They have taken unto themselves a name that is very appropriate, DOAPs, (Deprived Old Age Pensions) and they should be catered for as speedily as possible.

I understand that the National Pensions Board are examining the whole structure of the existing contribution conditions for entitlement to pensions. I understand also that extending social insurance cover to civil servants and public sector workers, with new modified rates of PRSI, would effect their position. Whatever happens in that area, these people deserve special attention, not least because they have given a life of service to a State enterprise, and very often all we do is to pay lip service to this group. I would ask the Minister to look at their situation and try to facilitate them if at all possible.

Generally speaking I welcome the report of the Commission on Social Welfare. I have one argument against their findings and I might not get another opportunity to say this before something happens in that area. The commission have made a recommendation that people over 65, 75, 85 etc. should get increased allowances under different headings. It has been suggested that that is not necessary and should be discontinued. I disagree strongly with this. People who have given a lifetime of service to building up this State should not be penalised because the Government are trying to equalise issues elsewhere. There is need for greater funding as people get older and have more difficulties. For example, they need extra heat and special care. I would ask the Minister to note my disagreement at this early stage. Because he is moving so rapidly on the commission's findings he might have caught up with that one before I have a chance to say more.

In regard to alleviating payments, Deputy Ferris said it was scandalous that 2 per cent or 3 per cent was being clawed back on this. The Bill which clearly showed that this payment was being discontinued totally in October 1987 is still in existence. When Fianna Fáil came into office, the Minister, Deputy Woods, had to deal with that situation. It is an indisputable fact that about £28 million had to be added that year or the following year to maintain that payment. If it was wrong to suddenly cut off that payment in 1987 it is certainly wrong to cut it off in 1990. I agree with the suggested method of phasing it out over a long number of years. It is not correct to say that money was not made available because a minimum of £60 million has been paid in that area since Deputy Ferris's party suggested doing away with it. Deputy Ferris was factually incorrect and unfair to the Minister.

A number of other issues were brought up but again it would be negative to concentrate on those only, because there are so many good things in this Bill that we should praise. One point that Deputy Ferris raised showed the inconsistency of some of the members of his own party. He paid tribute to the Minister and said there was tremendous goodwill towards the move whereby those over 60 would not have to sign on every week. We welcome this. This is in total conflict with what his colleague, Deputy Gerry O'Sullivan, said down in Cork, and which was widely reported. He said that in fact the Minister was throwing people on the scrap heap at the age of 60. That was a heartless and unfair accusation. I am glad that is corrected by the party spokesperson on social welfare. It is a humanitarian move and we should pay tribute to the Minister for it.

The content and context of social welfare Bills has been changed by this Minister. Previously they were just a range of payments. Now there are 20 or 30 different items and on each occasion since 1987 we have had a minimum of six or seven new items included. This year there is the extended travel scheme, the new clothing allowance, the extension of the vocational training opportunities scheme, the extension of the scheme for payments after death, the carer's allowance, a new appeals office and so on. I want to pay tribute to the Minister. Deputies on the other side of the House, can, by all means, outline areas of anomaly or things that the Minister can change but let them not be negative or destructive. Above all let them not insult the Minister in a personal fashion. That does nobody in this House or outside it any good.

I particularly welcome the lone parent's allowance which the Minister has dealt with. It is ironic that we can categorise, quantify, count and clearly identify every unmarried mother when benefit or anything else is being sought, but it is very difficult to identify unmarried fathers. Until unmarried fathers are made responsible for their actions and made to contribute financially to the support of their offspring we will be in very difficult circumstances.

Not all the fathers are unmarried.

Some of them may have a dual role, like the Deputy. They may be straying outside a haggard occasionally. For every unmarried mother there is a father somewhere, married or unmarried.

Not always unmarried.

The day of the flighty young man must come to an end. I refer to the type of man who could go out, live easy, take whatever benefits were available and then coolly walk away. I appreciate that the Minister is taking on the enormous task of making fathers or husbands pay maintenance contributions. People will have to become more responsible. Whether people decide to get married or stay single is a matter for their own discretion, but they must accept responsibility. For too long the female of the species has suffered. That cannot be allowed to continue. We will have to take whatever action is necessary. With modern technology it is possible to identify people and we should take whatever action we can.

With regard to the carer's allowance, one of the important discriminatory factors was that the married person dependent on his or her spouse was not paid. The new regulations will have a means test but it will be applied to all equally. I welcome the change the Minister has introduced. I appreciate that these will be fairly costly schemes to introduce but it is the right road to take. It is the human face of the State administration coming through. There are many other areas in which we can make improvements.

I again commend the Minister on what he has done for lone parents by doing away with the various headings and bringing in one single heading. Even for administrative purposes, it is beneficial. Various aspects of the Bill will be debated during its passage. We can look at almost every item and see that there are millions to be spent under each heading. The total cost of the measures introduced is £216 million in one year. That is a frightening figure but it is necessary to spend it and it will be well spent. A total of £7.5 million is spent each day of the year.

There has been some complaint about the increases becoming payable in July but administratively it would be very difficult to get this Bill through and to have all these items tidied up before an earlier date of payment. There would have to be a gap. It was funny to hear complaints from members of the parties in Government between 1982 and 1987 when payments were brought in from October. They have now been brought back to July.

On the general increases, I am glad the trend the Minister started three years ago is continuing and that he is giving double or treble increases to the least well off. The Minister has a good record in this respect. If some of his predecessors had given real increases of that magnitude all payments would be fairly decent today.

I welcome the Bill and I would ask Fine Gael to reconsider their amendment. I commend the Minister on the continuing progress being made in this area.

I can aptly describe this budget and Social Welfare Bill as areas of missed opportunities. The poor do not benefit a great deal from either the budget or the Bill, despite appearances to the contrary. The vast majority of people who were below the poverty line before the budget are still below it following the budget and the introduction of this Bill. The budget and the Bill fail to implement a comprehensive anti-poverty programme. There is no substantial widening of the tax base, no major redistribution of the tax burden, no concerted programme to tackle unemployment, no attempt to combat widespread rural poverty and no approach of any description to tackling emigration.

Emigration has been draining the lifeblood of our land for generations and it is clearly apparent in recent years that were it not for the emigrant ship and plane the Minister would have to contribute far more money in the Social Welfare Bill to meet the claims of the unemployed. In drawing up this budget the Government listened to the articulate, well off and influential lobby who argued for an even larger share of the national cake for themselves. It should be of paramount importance that all citizens be treated equally and fairly.

A great opportunity to tackle poverty in a significant way was sadly missed by the Minister. The present policy adopted by this Government will simply sharpen the divisions in our already deeply divided, two-tier society. Responsible and deeply concerned groups who understand the divisions that have been developing in society in recent years have done a vast amount of research and provided policy options which could be undertaken by the Government but their submissions in regard to poverty and divisions in society have been completely ignored.

It is a sad reflection on our native Government that there are today more people living in poverty than there were in the seventies. As we enter the final decade of this century it is estimated that more than one million people, or 31.4 per cent of our total population, live in poverty. Surely this is a dismal record for any native Government. Furthermore, 40 per cent of all the children in Ireland today live in households in which the income is below the poverty line.

The Government's strategy for eliminating poverty has focused mostly on job creation and has proved a dismal failure. The jobs are not materialising, nor is there any likelihood that they will be created in the foreseeable future anywhere near the scale required to combat poverty. The present Government seem to be content to have Ireland locked into a deeply divided two-tier society. The good news about all this gloom and poverty was that something could be done about it in the budget. The economic indicators suggested the opportunity was there but, alas, there was no real evidence of a comprehensive integrated programme to eliminate poverty.

The budget has failed to address the major socio-economic changes which Ireland is facing at the moment. It has also missed the opportunity of creating the Ireland we want to develop as we move towards a new millennium. We are at a time in history when the development of economic life could diminish social inequalities if that development were guided and co-ordinated in a reasonable human way, yet all too often it serves only to intensify the inequalities and in some places it even results in a decline in the social standards of the weak and shows contempt for the poor.

On those terms this budget seems to have failed to grasp the possibilities of the true facts. It has completely failed to widen the tax base and consequently the Government have no revenue from that source to alleviate the problems for the poor and the needy. For single people the income tax changes benefited the higher earner substantially more than the lower paid.

I hesitate to interrupt the Deputy but it is clear he is making a speech more appropriate to the budget than to the subject matter before the House which is the Social Welfare Bill.

I am speaking on the Social Welfare Bill.

I wish very much you would, Deputy.

I am speaking on it. It is all incorporated in the Social Welfare Bill.

The Deputy is making a budget speech.

A single person on £5,000 per year and taxed under PAYE will receive an additional £37.28 per year while a single person on £25,000 salary will receive an additional £593.92.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the Social Welfare Bill.

The Social Welfare Bill appertains to inflation, and these anomalies need to be addressed. It is clearly evident that the total percentage of the budget allocated to social welfare declined from 27.8 per cent in 1989 to 27.2 per cent in 1990. There is still a major gap between what social welfare recipients will receive after the budget and after this Bill has gone through the Dáil, and what was recommended by the Government appointed Commission on Social Welfare. These social welfare provisions could be classed as anti-family because increases in adult dependant and child dependant payments have lagged behind other increases. Increases for social welfare families are at a lower rate than increases for single people in the same category and the increase in child benefit for each of the first four children was only 75p per month or 2.5p per day per child. These rates have been frozen since 1986. What would 2.5p per day per child do for a family in any part of rural Ireland? It would not buy even the cheapest lollypop. This was a miserable, niggardly approach to a very serious problem confronting the poor and needy section of this community.

Poverty levels are of crisis proportions and social welfare payments are making a major contribution to those problems. When social welfare was originally introduced it was not meant to be a permanent source of income. It was seen as a means of tiding a person over until he or she got a job or recovered from sickness or other temporary setback. This has changed dramatically with permament unemployment staring a large proportion of our people in the face. The jobs simply do not exist for the vast majority of our unemployed. Emigration is not and never will be accepted as a mechanism for reducing unemployment and poverty in a self-respecting society. The country needs a new strategy to tackle the problem by other means.

It is estimated that over 300,000 people have emigrated over the past five years. This is a shocking indictment of any country and it is something our youth will never forget. Unemployment would be twice the present level were it not for emigration. The biggest drain has been from the 15 to 24 year old group. A breakdown of the 1986 census figures shows that over two-thirds of the emigrants come from this age group. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society which seems to have no solution for their problems other than emigration.

The Minister for Social Welfare has failed totally to face up to the scale of poverty and social division in Ireland and the measures reintroduced are completely inadequate. The Minister states that the new allowance for carers which he is introducing in this Bill broadens substantially the range of individuals who can qualify for payment when they give full-time care and attention to an incapacitated and elderly person and that it will mean for the first time that married women and people who are not relatives of the pensioner will be able to qualify for a means-tested carer's allowance. Why does the Minister not include married women who are relatives of the pensioners and who are doing Trojan work caring for those incapacitated relatives——

They are included already.

——who would be consigned to geriatric hospitals throughout the country and would cost the Exchequer far more than if the Minister allocated the allowance to such people? I would like the Minister to spell out clearly to the general public what is stated under the heading "Woods Publishes Social Welfare Bill". I presume this is a new policy of Fianna Fáil.

The Minister has been very vague about the sections of the community that will benefit from the home carer's allowance. I am amazed that he has not spelt it out more clearly. It will be very interesting to see who will benefit. Will the married woman who is caring for her mother-in-law or father-in-law qualify for this allowance? The Minister has misled the public in this Bill.

The Deputy's press officer got it wrong, they all qualify but there is a means test involved.

Can I take it that people who are caring for elderly people — who would be in a geriatric hospital otherwise — will now qualify for £43 per week?

They will qualify under the criteria which includes a means test.

The Minister did not say what the means test involved and it will be very interesting to see how it works out.

The Deputy should have read my speech.

Must a person be on the poverty line before he or she qualifies for this allowance? I am afraid there will be many disappointed people in rural areas when they find they have to undergo a means test in this regard. The present rate of home help payable by health boards to people who care for relatives or others at home is only 75p per hour in most areas — although it is £1.50 per hour in the Eastern Health Board areas — and it is ten years since it was increased from the miserable sum of 60p per hour to 75p per hour. Has the Minister any intention of increasing this amount to people who are caring for elderly relatives and others?

That is a matter for the Department of Health and the health boards.

It is also encompassed within the Social Welfare Bill.

It is not.

It will be very interesting to know what the Minister for Health, in conjunction with the Department of Social Welfare, will do in that respect.

Ask him about it.

Apparently huge anomalies exist in the method of assessing small farmers applying for unemployment assistance under the Social Welfare Act. These include the estimated value of cattle which have to be "wintered" and fed during the late autumn and the greater part of the spring, and this is in addition to deflated prices and the uncertainty of the market. All these matters mean that there is a loss instead of an income when assessing the small farmer's application for unemployment assistance. The Minister should be big enough to face up to the matter and ensure that assessments on farmers who are keeping cattle in their herds during the winter because they could not give them away in the autumn are fair and equitable. Their social welfare payments should certainly not be taken into account.

When the children of small farmers apply for unemployment assistance at 18 or 19 years of age they are saddled with an assessment for board and lodgings of maybe £20 to £24 per week and are given a niggardly sum of £13 or £14 unemployment assistance. Surely this is not justice to an under-privileged section of the community? The Minister should address those anomalies.

There are also anomalies in regard to widows of old age pensioners who are debarred from the six weeks' posthumous payment if they are already in receipt of a separate old age pension. This is disgraceful.

That is not so.

Does this apply to the non-contributory payments? I know the Minister referred to the contributory payments. I also want to refer to the free telephone rental applications which are dealt with by the Minister's Department. His attitude to those applicants is a disgrace. A person would nearly have to be a complete invalid before he or she qualifies for this allowance. It is as hard to get free rental or telephone allowance for those unfortunate people as it is to extract teeth from a goose. I guarantee that that is a very difficult job, indeed it is nearly impossible to extract teeth from a goose and it is just as difficult to extract the free telephone rental from the Department.

Is it a white-fronted goose?

I hope that the Minister will outline and address all the anomalies which I mentioned today and rectify them once and for all. If he is a caring Minister he will show compassion to those unfortunate people. Apparently, however, the Minister does not seem to be au fait with his Department because, if he was, he would not allow this to happen.

(Wexford): I have listened with interest for the last hour and ten minutes to two Cork Deputies, one from each side of the House. Their wit and wisdom were entertaining and interesting. I am sure that Deputy Sheehan is pleased that the Minister introduced a number of welcome changes in the Social Welfare Bill which he has been looking for over the last couple of years and which his Government did not implement during their period in office from 1982 to 1987.

I welcome the Minister's decision to maintain all payments against inflation and to give special increases to those on the lowest payments. I also welcome the number of changes in the social welfare area which will benefit the long term unemployed, the old and different sections which need to be looked after.

When I was in Opposition I criticised the then Minister and over the last couple of years I have praised our Minister but also criticised him if I felt he deserved it. Last year I criticised the fact that he did not introduce a scheme for children of unemployed people when they had to go back to school in September. At that time I called for a double weeks' payment of social welfare and I am glad the Minister has recognised the need to look after this area by introducing a clothing allowance. This area has caused major problems for people on social welfare payments. When their children went back to school in September because of the cost of clothing and school books, they suffered undue hardship.

Debate adjourned.
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