Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 3 Jul 1992

Vol. 422 No. 2

Estimates, 1992. - Vote 40: Social Welfare (Revised Estimate).

I move:

That a sum not exceeding £1,853,478,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1992, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Social Welfare, for certain services administered by that Office, for payments to the Social Insurance Fund, and for certain grants including a grant-in-aid.

My Department's Estimate for 1992 is in excess of £1,853 million. That is the amount provided from the Exchequer this year to fund social insurance and social assistance schemes and services. It represents an increase of 8 per cent over the outturn for 1991. This increase arises largely because of the continuing increase in numbers receiving social welfare payments and the increases in rates of payments which come into effect later this month as announced in the budget.

The increase in numbers claiming unemployment payments is obviously the major element of the increase in numbers of claimants. The level of unemployment has a crucial effect on social welfare expenditure. I have said before and I repeat that unless we make significant progress in reducing the level of unemployment, our capacity to fund the increasing scale of social welfare expenditure will be severely limited.

The Estimate of £1,853 million which I am introducing does not reflect total social welfare spending this year which is estimated at £3,353 million. Of that amount, the Exchequer will contribute £1,853 million — which is the amount of the Estimate — and the balance will be met by employers, employees and the self-employed by way of PRSI contributions.

These amounts highlight the importance of PRSI contributions in the financing of social welfare services. Total PRSI income this year is expected to be almost £1,500 million.

Expenditure on social insurance payments out of the Social Insurance Fund this year will, however, be of the order of £1,650 million. The income shortfall in the fund is made up by the Exchequer and is estimated to be just over £143 million this year or under 9 per cent of total expenditure.

The scope of the PRSI system has been considerably extended in recent years. The extension of social insurance cover to the self-employed in 1988 and the extension last year of full social insurance cover to part-time workers are evidence of that. The self-employed are expected to contribute some £65 million this year in PRSI contributions. However, this increased income to the fund has to be balanced, against the commitment to additional expenditure on social insurance benefits and pensions to those involved. We have undertaken substantial liabilities for future expenditure on social insurance benefits and pensions and my concern relates to our capacity to meet those commitments, bearing in mind the economic and financial constraints which we face.

The Government are faced with an over-riding need to control the level of public expenditure. All areas of expenditure have had to share this burden in recent years and social welfare is no exception.

There is a number of options when one is considering how to achieve necessary expenditure savings in the social insurance system in an equitable way. Reductions in the basic level of payments is not an option in that across the board cuts of this kind could affect people who need and depend on social welfare payments. We are committed under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress to maintaining and improving the basic levels of social welfare payments and we will meet that commitment.

Another option would be to increase the income from PRSI contributions through increases in contribution rates and/or ceilings, thereby reducing the Exchequer liability to the system. This would have wider implications and the scope for such increases may be limited. A third option is to eliminate waste of any kind from the system. An aspect of this is to target benefits more effectively to ensure that they go to those who need them. We have already taken some steps towards better targeting by the introduction of earnings limits for entitlement to certain benefits.

These measures are in no sense an attempt to dismantle the social insurance system. I see the value of a system which gives benefits to people as of right, as against a system which is totally means-tested. Means-tested payments have inherent problems in relation to disincentives and to take-up of entitlements. Also there is no doubt that the social insurance system has broad acceptance among those who contribute to it and that people value the idea of benefits in return for contributions. The changes which have been made do not in any way undermine the concept of social insurance per se.

If we are to maintain the idea of a social insurance system however, we may have to consider a system which is actually self-financing and which does not depend on the Exchequer, i.e. the general taxpayer, to make good the deficit each year. This would mean a situation whereby over a number of years, income and expenditure in the Social Insurance Fund would be gradually brought into line to the point where an Exchequer contribution would no longer be necessary. Obviously such a move would have major implications and would require a combination of measures to ensure a healthy and buoyant contributions base so as to increase contribution income coupled with measures to target benefit expenditure more efficiently. Wasteful expenditure of any kind would have to be removed.

I will be looking at all the options in this area. I would like to think that the system could be self-financing, if for no other reason than that it would impose a better discipline in terms of proposed increases in benefits, because a corresponding increase in contribution income would automatically be required. It would also compel us to take a more long term view of future costs and income for the fund to better guarantee its orderly management and consequently its future.

Social welfare is complex, far-reaching and touches the lives of almost every person in the country in one way or another. It currently provides a weekly payment to around 780,000 persons which in turn benefits almost 1.4 million persons when adult and child dependants are taken into account.

The true extent of our overall social welfare spending may be easier to comprehend if you consider that we now spend more than £9 million each and every day on social welfare. This figure may be broken down into a number of categories, as follows: payments to the elderly £2.6 million per day; payments to the unemployed £2.6 million per day; payments to the sick and disabled £1 million per day; and family income support and other miscellaneous allowances £2.4 million per day. It is not so long ago that we were talking of expenditure of £7 million a day, and the increase which has taken place graphically illustrates the size of the financing problem we face.

I know and fully accept that the vast majority of claimants receiving payments from my Department are bona fide. I am also well aware that there is a certain level of fraud and abuse within the system. The control of fraud and abuse is an integral part of the administration of my Department's schemes. As in any large spending organisation, whether public or private, control measures have to be in place, have to be effective, and therefore have to be updated and reviewed on a regular basis. I am determined to take effective action to deal with abuse of the system.

The campaign launched last year against PRSI abuse will continue into this year. As I have already announced, a major publicity campaign is under way to remind employers of their obligations under the PRSI system and of the penalties for non-compliance. In addition to the 15,000 employer investigations carried out last year, a target of a further 10,000 visits has been set for this year. I am glad to report that the target is well on course for being met with about half that number of visits already carried out. In money terms, about £5.5 million additional PAYE/PRSI has been determined as being due as a result.

The full range of our activities in relation to anti-fraud and abuse measures is now co-ordinated by a new Control Unit which has been established at senior management level in my Department. This development establishes control measures on a more formal footing within the Department and emphasises the importance I attach to the proper monitoring and control of social welfare payments.

I want the message to go out loud and clear that abuse of social welfare by employers or employees will not be tolerated. To do so would totally undermine those employers and workers who are operating within the law. The bill for social welfare services represents a very large proportion of overall State expenditure. Each year it is becoming more and more difficult to fund that bill. It is essential, therefore, that any loss through fraud and abuse of our payments systems is minimised. As I have already said, this is the least the ordinary taxpayer, whether an employer or employee, can expect.

The House will be aware that I have spoken many times since my appointment as Minister for Social Welfare about the sheer complexity, range and multiplicity of our social welfare schemes and conditions for entitlement. These give rise to a number of problems with which I am concerned. They include: the confusion and lack of understanding among social welfare clients; the resultant lack of benefit take-up, particularly among those who are most in need; and the difficulties which the current level of complexity causes for administration generally. I intend to make simplification of the social welfare system a priority.

In recent years, considerable progress has been made in streamlining the rates structure for assistance payments. The number of child dependant rates has been reduced from 36 to 3 and a unified lone parent's allowance scheme has been introduced. I will be building on these developments so as to progress towards a unified social assistance scheme in which the conditions for entitlement and rates of payment will be simplified and standardised to the greatest extent possible.

My Department are currently examining the issues involved with a view to formulating proposals which I can bring to Government for consideration.

The standardisation of means tests for the various social assistance schemes is an essential prerequisite for a simplified social assistance scheme, I hope to bring forward proposals in this area in the near future. Because of the multiplicity of schemes and conditions of entitlement which apply at present this is not an easy task. As far as means tests are concerned there are numerous rules, some of which are more favourable to one category of claimants and others which are more favourable to another category. It would be much easier, of course, if we could standardise simply by applying the most favourable rule to all categories in all situations. This, of course, is not possible because of the sheer cost involved and possibly explains why a rationalised means test has not been introduced before now. If we are to simplify the system, however, we will have to recognise that there are certain features of the present system which it will not be possible to continue to apply. However, overall I am confident that we can devise a system which is fair and equitable to all people who depend on the social welfare system.

The Estimate includes £85 million in respect of the social welfare improvements provided for in this year's budget, including the increase in rates of payments which will come into effect later this month. The full year additional cost of these improvements will be £162 million.

A sum of £22 million represents part of the cost of the restrospective application of equal treatment for the period of delay in implementing the 1979 EC Equal Treatment Directive. The total cost will be £60 million over a three-year period. Under these provisions, married women who were affected by the delay in implementing the directive will receive the higher personal rate of payment which men got in that period; an extra three month's unemployment benefit to bring them up to the 15 months paid to other claimants, subject to their having been unemployed in that period; and increases for dependants in the form of a household supplement. In addition, married women will be able to qualify for unemployment assistance provided they were unemployed at the time and satisfy a means test.

The overall cost of the package is £60 million, and the retrospective payments in question are being made on a phased basis. The increased rate of benefit and extended duration of unemployment benefit are being paid immediately. The other entitlements are being paid in two equal instalments, the first instalment being made in 1993 and the second instalment being made not later than July, 1994.

Providing for equality of treatment in respect of the period of delay has very significant administrative implications for my Department. A new Central Unit which is now fully operational has been set up within the Department to process claims and the required additional staff have been recruited.

The Department have identified over 110,000 potential beneficiaries and personal claim forms together with an information leaflet are being issued to the women concerned. In addition, the Department have launched a nation-wide advertising campaign designed to ensure that all potential beneficiaries are aware of their entitlements.

I would also like to refer to the treatment benefit scheme and, in particular, the dental benefit scheme which, as Deputies will be aware, has been the subject of a long-running dispute with the Irish Dental Association. I am glad to have the opportunity today to welcome the results of the recent ballot among members of the Irish Dental Association on settlement proposals to end this dispute. This means that up to 300,000 dependent spouses of PRSI contributors will again have access to dental treatment from their local dentist.

The settlement proposals involved the introduction of a new dental contract for dentists operating the scheme. The new dental contract will more adequately reflect modern dental practices and will include mechanisms for improved consultation with the dental profession and improved monitoring of standards.

The other element in the settlement proposals involved an agreed schedule of fees for treatment carried out under the dental benefit scheme. The main features of the new schedule of fees are: increased fees which will provide dentists operating the dental benefit scheme with an economic and fair return for their professional services, and the introduction of a patient contribution of 30 per cent of the agreed fee for most items of treatment.

I would like for the information of the House to explain how the patient contribution will operate. There will be no patient contribution in the case of examination, scaling and polishing, and routine gum treatment. A patient contribution of 30 per cent will apply in the case of treatment items such as fillings and extractions. In the case of a single filling, this will amount to £4.50; in the case of an extraction it will be £5.40. In the case of dentures, there will be a reduction in the current patient contribution from 66 per cent to 50 per cent. With the increase in the total fee payable for a full set of dentures, the new patient contribution will mean no net increase in the amount payable by the patient for dentures.

I would like to remind the House that patient charges are not a new development. They have always been a feature of the dental benefit scheme since its inception. For example, certain fillings on front teeth have attracted a patient contribution of £2.50 while £7.50 was payable on certain more extensive fillings.

The advantage of the new arrangements is that it will rationalise the whole notion of patient contributions by setting a standard 30 per cent patient contribution on most items of treatment. I believe that in this day and age it is not unreasonable to expect people to contribute in some way to their own dental health. Under the new arrangements, it will be in the interests of the patient to visit their dentist on a regular basis and thereby avoid expensive dental treatment in the future. Where regular visits involve no more than examination, scaling and polishing and routine gum treatment, there will be no patient contribution payable.

I am particularly pleased to be able to provide in this Estimate an additional £500,000 for the Community Development Programme funded by my Department. This programme provides financial assistance to locally-based projects in disadvantaged areas to assist with the staffing and equipping of local resource centres which provide a focal point for community development activities in the area. While the amount of money involved is small in the context of my Department's overall spend, I have become convinced in the short time since becoming Minister for Social Welfare that it represents exceptional value for money and funds voluntary activities that are very worth while.

There are 21 projects operating under the Community Development Programme at present. The additional funding provided has allowed for the expansion of the programme earlier this year to four new areas, Mountwood/Fitzgerald Park, Dún Laoghaire, Dundalk, Galway and west Clare. Work on establishing the projects in these areas is well under way and it is expected that they will be fully operational shortly.

The activities being undertaken locally by community development projects include local enterprise initiatives and projects with the elderly, young families, single parents, the unemployed and other groups in need of help, support, advice and information. The emphasis in the projects is on the involvement of local communities in developing approaches to tackle the problems faced by the community and on creating successful partnerships between the voluntary and statutory agencies in the areas concerned.

Getting together with neighbours to think about the future of ones home patch and to devise strategies to meet its needs in the future, the creation of a living community spirit — things are central to the future viability of local communities up and down the country. Community development work of this type is not a sideline or a luxury, but is in fact an essential precursor and component of any social and economic development.

On this basis, I am very pleased to be able to announce today that the Community Development Programme is again being expanded to take in a further four new areas. I have just this week approved the establishment of four new projects in the following areas: Finglas South, Dublin, the Lifford/Clonleigh area of Donegal, Athy, County Kildare and the south side of Cork city. I am confident that the establishment of these projects will be of real benefit to the local people in the areas concerned. The Community Development Programme will represent a significant addition to the ability of the local community to respond to local social needs and to the range of services and opportunities available locally.

In my short time in the Department, I have come to realise the impact which social welfare has throughout the country and the huge number of people who depend on the system.

At any one time, we are handling payments to about 1.4 million beneficiaries on a weekly basis. I would like to pay tribute to the staff of the Department at head office and those who get the payments out, and to all staff without whom it would not be possible to deliver our services.

I am confident of the Department's ability to meet the needs of the present and to adapt to the needs of the future. I look forward to continuing our efforts at protecting the position of social welfare recipients, at targeting our resources to those most in need, streamlining and simplifying our social welfare schemes and services, and at taking a flexible and innovative approach to the delivery of our social welfare services.

I commend this Estimate to the House.

It is doubtful if Social Welfare Estimates were ever discussed in a more confused environment than in this Chamber today. The Minister for Social Welfare has spent the past few months conditioning people to accept more austere measures in order to reduce the overall bill for social welfare. Recent utterances by him have sent cold shivers down the spines of people who genuinely believe the Government are about to break their contract with them in matters of retirement pensions, redundancy payments unemployment benefits and other social welfare payments.

I will readily accept that a sense of balance and proportion is required in dealing with social welfare. The numbers involved are very high. In 1990, 733,000 individuals with 585,000 dependants relied on the social welfare system to provide either all or part of their income.

However, my concern and anxiety centres around the confused and mixed-up priorities the Government seem to have, and they must have priorities. The next ten years will see greater emphasis on the targeting of resources to legitimate social welfare recipients. Conversely, there will have to be a massive crackdown on social welfare spongers who, by their greed and by their cunning manipulation of the social welfare system, literally deny others the right to live a normal life.

The Combat Poverty Agency report shows that only four social welfare programmes, namely, old age contributory pension, retirement pension, disablement benefit and injury benefit meet the minimally adequate levels as laid down by the 1986 Commission on Social Welfare report. This represents only 18 per cent of all social welfare recipients. Put more bluntly, could any Dáil Deputy, Senator, civil servant, journalist or any other salaried person raise a family of four on £136 a week; the present rate of unemployment assistance to cover both spouses and four children?

The recent publication, The Adequacy of Income and Family Expenditure by Joe Murphy Lawless for the Combat Poverty Agency showed that the average family — two parents and two children — with a weekly wage of £242 spent just over £60 a week on food, 25 per cent of income, whilst a similar sized family on social welfare of £130 a week could only afford £44.95 on food or 34 per cent of their income. The comparisons for expenditure on clothing and footwear was startling also. The average family spent £10.29 a week on clothing and footwear while the family on social welfare could only spend £2.64 per week. This survey found that the family on genuine social welfare could not afford to run a car, purchase adequate clothing for family members, decorate their homes, purchase normal household goods or take a holiday.

The Government have commenced a dangerous and totally unfair attack on PRSI contributors. Workers and employers who between them contribute approximately 20 per cent of the total wages bill to the PRSI scheme are aghast at the breach of promise by the Government who are now changing the goalposts after the game has started. Workers contributed to this scheme on the understanding that if they lost their jobs they would get unemployment benefit, their pensions would be available when they retired and their disability benefit would be paid if they got sick.

The 1992 Social Welfare Act has signalled a new and dangerous direction for PRSI contributors. The following are the major changes: (a) the non-payment of the first nine weeks unemployment benefit for workers who receive a certain but, as I understand it, yet undetermined level of redundancy payments; (b) part-time workers will lose the pay-related aspects of their unemployment benefit, which is worth a maximum of £17 per week — this change will greatly affect workers in companies such as Waterford Glass and the shoe industry where erratic export orders dictate that work cannot be guaranteed for any given period; (c) some maternity benefits have been reduced — in some cases women on unemployment assistance will have to call to the unemployment exchange to sign up to and after their confinement; (d) there is a major change in the calculation of means for unemployment assistance — means will now include any earnings relating to part-time and casual work. This is a major disincentive for social welfare recipients who try to get work for themselves; (e) the new agreement, announced here this morning, between the Minister for Social Welfare and the Irish Dental Association by the Minister will provide dental care for workers who, I understand, earn less than £25,000 per year, and their spouses, but each participant in the scheme will have to pay 30 per cent of the total cost of the treatment.

Thus, there will be a great reduction in the value of the PRSI scheme to contributors. Many people feel they are being cheated from receiving the benefits to which they are entitled. Fine Gael opposed these proposals during the debate in the Dáil on the Social Welfare Bill. However, because the Government put a guillotine on the Bill only one-third of the sections were dealt with. The question on most peoples minds today is: what will the next turn of the screw do and will there be any further erosion of PRSI benefits?

The non-appearance of the report of the National Pensions Board and the austere utterances by the Minister have frightened people. I cannot understand why that report has not been published. The Minister told me three months ago that the report would be published "very shortly". The Government have no right to blame PRSI contributors for the ills of the economy. How can workers who toil hard and long over a lifetime to make a living and contribute hard earned money to a scheme introduced by the Government of the day be blamed if there is a shortfall in the level of finance in the State pension funds? If the State pension schemes are under-funded who will take the blame? Will the economic planners, the economists, the Exchequer analysts and their political masters take the blame or will they shrug their shoulders and distance themselves from all responsibility? Will low paid men and women who have worked for years in monotonous jobs have to carry the can once again?

There is now a real need for the Minister to wipe away all pretence and let people know where they stand. I have heard rumours that the current PRSI contribution can only pay people who are now on retirement pensions. The crunch will come when there will be more elderly people relative to the working population in ten years time. Can we guarantee workers who will retire in ten years' time that they will receive the benefits which were available when they joined the scheme? It is far to easy for the Government to load the elderly with the problems of the economy while remaining in a state of paralysis about creating an economic environment which will enable people to earn a decent living for themselves.

The issues of social welfare, taxation and job creation are inter-linked. The elimination of the so-called poverty trap and the creation of a community-based plan to provide an opportunity for people in receipt of unemployment assistance to carry out actual work is vital. This work would be of great benefit to the community and at the same time give people the opportunity to recreate within themselves a pride and discipline which would change their entire outlook on their role in society. The Government are ambivalent on this vital issue. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Social Welfare in a gush of great publicity announced measures which would provide incentives for people to come off the dole and become involved in various community activities. Paradoxically, the Minister for Social Welfare in the 1992 Social Welfare Act changed the assessment rules for unemployment assistance eligibility; he steamrolled the legislation through this Chamber, so that any income earned by a dole recipient will be taken into account when their eligibility for unemployment assistance is being reviewed. In plain language, this obnoxious legislation will have the effect of preventing a person on the dole from signing off the unemployment register for even one day's work per week. Such a person will readily realise that his day's pay will be used to reduce his unemployment assistance. How does this scenario give people an incentive to get back to work? The Minister for Social Welfare will have to understand that there has to be more flexibility in the system in this respect.

I wish to refer to the case history of a young man who fell foul of the social welfare system, and I will raise this issue again and again until we change this system, which was designed more for famine relief and workhouse conditions in the last century than for a country which has to grapple with community problems which can only be solved by adopting an entirely new approach and new mentality. This young County Galway man who lost his job had commenced to draw unemployment benefit. After a long time job hunting he was offered a decent position with a company provided he undertook a special ten weeks' course in Dublin. He was anxious to do the course but as it cost £350 he asked an official at the local employment exchange to transfer his unemployment benefit claim to Dublin. He was told that because he was technically unavailable for work he could not be paid unemployment benefit. This crazy decision meant he could not do the course, as he did not have the money to pay the fees and keep himself in Dublin. It now seems he will be in receipt of social welfare for a long time. This is a crazy decision. If a genuine political will existed to help people get off the dole this young man would now be employed and his contribution to society could help many of the unfortunate people on social welfare who are living from hand to mouth.

Fine Gael have carried out extensive background work on measures which they believe will encourage people to come off the dole. Our proposals, which are outlined in the document The Jobs Economy, will redress many of the anomalies in the current system. I wish to refer to some of these. They propose that persons on unemployment assistance should no longer lose pound for pound for any part-time job opportunities they obtain. They propose to provide a working dividend payment through the PAYE system which will guarantee take home pay of £25 per week over and above the equivalent social welfare rates for all those working over 20 hours per week. They also propose that the present family income supplement scheme should be integrated into this scheme. They will strive to introduce a single means test and to remove the bureaucratic impediments which prevent many people from getting their social welfare entitlements. Finally, they will introduce a new work-to-be-done scheme which will replace the present social employment scheme. Opportunities will also be provided for non-profit institutions to take on additional workers for up to three years to assist in their work.

One of the meanest decisions taken by the Minister for Social Welfare was to deny certain categories of old age contributory pensioners up to £12 per week, married, and £6 per week, single. These payments arose from an adjustment in rates due to the EC equality legislation introduced in 1986. In order to level the playing pitch the Government introduced certain additional payments to cushion the effects of the fairly drastic reduction in social welfare to certain categories of recipients. In effect, successive Governments have, by means of a regulation order made on an annual basis, continued these relatively small payments at a reducing level of payment. In practice, social welfare recipients who had the benefit of the additional £10 per week in 1987-88 have had this figure reduced by £1 per week per year. All such recipients were under the impression that payment would continue on a reducing basis for the remaining six years until this payment was wiped out.

All the recipients in this category are elderly — they had to be more than 65 years of age in 1987-88. Elderly people who have worked hard and contributed fully towards the PRSI pension scheme stand to lose up to £580 over the next five years. The Minister did not mention this restriction during the debate on the Social Welfare Bill, and the distressing news has come to people like a thief in the night. Nobody knew about it until they were told that the payment would be stopped on 24 July. Lest the Minister might think that we are concocting this story I would point out that I have received many letters on the matter, as I am sure have the Department. I will give examples of two people who will be affected. A 79 year old pensioner from Kimmage——

I, too, received representations about that person who is in my constituency.

——who worked until he was 70 years of age will have his pension cut by £9.50 as of 24 July. Another elderly pensioner from Dún Laoghaire says he dreads the thought of 24 July because the reduction in his pension will create hardship for him. That man very sensibly asked why the Government would not continue the payments until they are phased out as it would not cost very much? This person is crying for help from whatever quarters to fight this cruel cut.

It is significant that the Department of Social Welfare are using the radio network to alert women to their rights concening arrears of payment of social welfare under EC equality legislation. This is overdue and is welcomed. It is worth noting that the Government did everything they could in his regard and nobody can have doubts about the importance of equality in Europan law. However, during the very week that that announcement is being made, conveying good tidings, many elderly pensioners are being harshly and unfairly treated. They are genuinely upset as a result of the recent statements made by the Minister. There is no doubt that, listening to the Minister's statement this morning, he intends to proceed with this action.

I agree that there is a huge problem in this area but because Government policy ensures that people cannot come off the dole even when they want to work more and more people will stay on the dole. The definition of "work" will have to be changed in future. I hope that the community-based pilot projects introduced by the Minister will work, but we should not have to wait a few years to decide whether they have been successful. What has been done in the past under all Governments is not good enough for the future. I understand that today more people will be joining the unemployment register. In those circumstances we will have to do something to solve the problem. People should be encouraged to do work they would not normally do, thereby reducing the number of people on the dole. It is only when we succeed in that regard that we will know we are winning the case.

My advice to the Minister is to clear the air on social welfare matters which are genuinely causing anxiety and frustration to elderly people. We should remember that as people grow older they are easily upset. A humane approach should be taken to this matter to ensure that elderly people are the last to be hurt. As I have said, it is absolutely necessary that we ensure better targeting of social welfare payments, that every effort is made to encourage people to come off the dole and that a single means test be introduced and people on the dole be allowed receive their entitlements with dignity.

Having listened very carefully to the Minister's speech I was rather surprised that he omitted to refer to one of the most controversial subjects that has arisen for many years. I remember as a young boy my father saying to me during election times that he would not vote for certain parties because they took a shilling from old aged pensioners. That stuck in my mind and I waited to see how the Minister, in his speech, would deal with the reduction in benefits. However, very cleverly he omitted to make any reference to it. Deputy Connaughton made the point that hardship will be created for the elderly in particular and for the sick, but this measure will have an equally devastating effect on certain categories of married couples. I will refer to one case and, with the permission of the person concerned, I will read his name into the record so that his case can be examined by the officials. He is Mr. Joseph D. Martin, 98 Chord Road, Drogheda, County Louth.

Would it not be sufficient to let us have the PRSI number or the appropriate social welfare number?

I know it is not normally the practice to read names into the record but I thought it was important for the purpose of giving the example. This gentleman's wife works in the clothing industry and is not a high earner by any means. He is in receipt of £6 per week plus £5.25 for each of his children. He has been on invalidity pension-disability benefit for a number of years and will never work again. From the end of July he will lose a total of £6 for himself and £5.25 for each of his children. It cannot be said that there will be any benefit to his wife because she is working. There will be a net reduction of more than £11 in social welfare for this family. If that happened when the Labour-Fine Gael Government were in power in 1982 soldiers would have been outside Leinster House with fixed bayonets because there would have been revolution on the streets.

In 1982 there was national uproar in relation to the Social Welfare Bill put forward by the Coalition Government. The 1992 Bill, by comparison, is 100 times worse in terms of the effects it will have on the whole social welfare system, particularly in this area. I am very disappointed with the manner in which the Department and the Government have handled this whole affair. As Deputy Connaughton said, during a marathon debate of 16 hours on Committee Stage of the Social Welfare Bill, not one reference was made to the proposal to withdraw that benefit. I am particularly interested in this benefit because it was I who negotiated it on behalf of the Labour Parliamentary Party in November 1986 with the then Minister, former Deputy Gemma Hussey. It was introduced for a specific purpose in lieu of payments withdrawn because of the EC Directive.

Coupled with that was the payment to relieve mortgage and hire purchase repayments and I ask the Minister when replying to state that that benefit will not be withdrawn. I have had difficulty getting a straight answer on that from the Department. This alleviating payment is £12 although a reply from the Minister's Department last week indicated it was only £6, but I believe I have demonstrated here this morning that it is substantially more than £6. In a case where a husband is unemployed, is on disability benefit or invalidity benefit, whose wife is working and where he is receiving payments in respect of the children, the total amount is being withdrawn. This represents a savage attack on a family's income.

I have had a stream of people visiting my office in relation to this benefit as I am sure the Minister had over the past few weeks, and the shock on the faces of old age pensioners is unbelievable, so much so that I became very depressed listening to them. They could not believe what was happening. I do not know who was responsible for this arrangement or who organised it within the Department, but pension books were simply sent to old age pensioners with the last payment due for 25 July, with no indication as to what would happen after that date. It was only when I queried this matter with the Minister's Department, having tried several times to get an explanation, that I discovered there would be no further books issued and that payments would cease that week.

It is not good enough to treat the elderly and the sick in this way. To take £12 away from them is bad enough but to do so without telling them or offering an explanation is very unsatisfactory. It was only when it was challenged in this House that the Minister told us what was happening. This is the meanest cut that has ever been implemented under the social welfare code and it was done in the meanest possible way. I ask the Minister before it is too late to rethink this issue. I would remind him again of what my father used to say about a previous Minister: "I would not vote for that fellow because he took a shilling off the old age pensioners." I would not like to see the Minister fall into that category by taking £12 off pensioners and in some cases, taking it from young married couples who are in the lower income group and, therefore, in one of the hardest hit categories.

I realise that abuses must be dealt with but I ask the Minister how many employers have been prosecuted and convicted in court for abuses of social welfare? I would like the Minister when replying to have that information for me. I know of an employer who went into receivership or, perhaps, liquidation recently owing the Department £400,000. Some of his employees were in receipt of family income supplement, yet the Department allowed that employer to run up a bill of such proportions. That was stealing, not only from the Minister's Department but also from the people who were working for him. Will that employer be prosecuted?

He probably got an amnesty.

He probably did get an amnesty. I know of a case where a young man in my own constituency was charged with abusing the social welfare system, convicted in court and fined £10,000 — he had been marking the results in a bookies shop — while, in the same area, an employer goes out of business owing the Minister's Department £400,000 and gets off scot free.

The emphasis on abuse is in the wrong area. Social welfare recipients are being hounded and every day on the radio there are warnings to employers to ensure that their returns are made. This problem can only be tackled if the general public see that employers who are not making returns for their workers are dealt with severely because that is where the abuse is. How much money would the Minister's Department have if they could collect all outstanding moneys from employers who have gone into liquiidation? Nothing is being done about this problem and employers are merely setting up business again and making rude gestures at the Department and at the Revenue Commissioners. As I said during the debate on the Social Welfare Bill, the old system of employers going down to the Post Office or local exchange, buying stamps and stamping the employees cards was a good system. Employees could go into the office, ask for their social welfare records and see that their cards were stamped up-to-date.

Computerisation was introduced with new methods of collection and P60s and P45s, pieces of paper that are worth nothing. All of the workers I referred to earlier had P60s and P45s which indicated the amount of the contributions they had paid but none of which had been forwarded to the Department. The Minister must introduce a system whereby all PRSI contributors will be informed at the end of each year whether their employer has made the appropriate returns to the Department. An employee has no means of verifying this other than writing to the records section of the Department requesting details of his payments. That would be a very inefficient way to deal with the problem. A once-off notification from the Department to each person in employment on 1 January each year indicating the level of contributions returned would eliminate 99.9 per cent of the abuses overnight because social welfare contributors, trade unions and shop stewards on the factory floor would deal with the problem and if not, the Department would be forced to take on employers and not simply walk away from their responsibility.

I want to refer again to the position of young people. There has been a new development of which I will give the Minister an example. In my town of Drogheda and in the town of Dundalk, two of the largest provincial towns in the country with 25,000 and 24,000 people respectively, and approximately 7,500 houses in each of the two urban areas, there is not a single house available for renting.

Last week I ascertained from each of 14 auctioneers that none had a house available to rent, a point which by coincidence was highlighted by my wife at a recent county council meeting. Because of the Department's means testing of young people living at home whereby the earnings of the parents are taken into account, many young people are being refused social welfare benefit. This results in young people moving out into rented accommodation costing up to £100 per week and where there are usually four to a house. These people then qualify for unemployment assistance and for a subsidy of up to £35 from the Department of Health through the community welfare officer. That is crazy and the net result is that married couples cannot get a house to rent.

The situation at the moment is very lucrative for landlords because they can rent a house to three or four young people who will share it. They do not have to go on the council's housing list nor do they have health inspectors or housing officers calling. They can put the money in their pockets and not make any tax return. Married couples cannot get accommodation because we are not building any houses and private houses which they could rent will not be rented to them. It is the Department of Social Welfare, through their policy, who are causing the problem, not alone in Drogheda and Dundalk but throughout the country, particularly in provincial areas. It does not make sense to take a young person from the family home, away from parental control or supervision, and allow them to rent a house because they are paid full dole and a subsidy. The Department of Health, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Social Welfare should get together to sort that out because the problem is very serious.

During the debate on the Social Welfare Bill the Minister promised to consider the plight of widows, whom I consider to be treated worst of social welfare recipients. They are the forgotten people. A woman who loses her husband also loses his income and must survive on a widow's pension. She does not get the subsidiary benefits for which other social welfare recipients qualify. The widow is the least catered for in society. Those people have worked in the home taking care of their children and have made the greatest possible contribution to the State. I would be prepared to swallow quite a number of sour pills if the Minister put this grave injustice right, as promised. I will remind the Minister of his promise every time I talk about social welfare and I am sure widows will also remind him of it.

I do not know how the Minister will deal with the question of tax on social welfare and redundancy payments. Recently, he said he hoped to have early consultations with the social partners. Has the Minister had those consultations and if so what was the outcome? Many people in the workplace are negotiating redundancy packages and early retirement deals without knowing where they stand. The sooner we get this clarified the better to relieve the minds of people who have worked for a long time but who are considering early retirement.

I appeal to the Minister to reconsider the withdrawal of the alleviating payment. The old and the sick were prepared to reluctantly accept a reduction of £2 to coincide with the increases provided by the budgetary measures in the Social Welfare Bill, but they were not prepared for the withdrawal of the £12 social welfare payment. They will never forgive the Minister or the Government for this.

I congratulate the Minister on his appointment and thank him for his help in the past couple of months. He supported any constructive proposals put to him about removing anomalies in the social welfare system.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Employment and I am concerned at the high level of unemployment which is partly responsible for the very high Estimate for the Department of Social Welfare. The amount of the Estimate before the House is an important reminder of the urgency attached to the work of that forum, and the need to take effective action to reduce unemployment.

One factor driving up our unemployment rate, and which will make it difficult to bring it down rapidly, is the demographic factor. Because of our population structure, and on the assumption that there will be no emigration, we need to create 25,000 jobs annually just to cater for new entrants to the labour force. This will continue to be the case until the end of this decade. To start reducing unemployment in the absence of emigration we will have to exceed those rates of job creation. This represents a great challenge to the Government and the country over the next decade.

In the past we have only managed on a couple of occasions to secure employment growth of this magnitude. In the 30 years between 1960 and 1990 total employment here only increased by 71,000. In order to make progress on the unemployment front over the rest of the decade we will have to outperform our past job creation performance. This is the background against which the Joint Committee on Employment are carrying out their work. They will have to look at a whole range of policies and factors which impinge on employment and unemployment. They will need to produce recommendations on long term strategies to deal with the problem. In the short term they will have to look at measures which might be usefully adopted or intensified in order to make progress. These will have to be consistent with the long term strategy, otherwise they will ultimately prove counterproductive.

Unemployment here is a long term problem which requires a long term strategy to deal with it effectively. In dealing with the problems of unemployment in the short term it is important to focus on the long term unemployed who have become marginalised in society. They have great difficulty in getting back into the workforce. I appeal to all Ministers to concentrate on introducing schemes to help the long term unemployed return to the workforce. I appeal to all Ministers to concentrate on introducing schemes to help the long term unemployed return to the workforce. This must be one of the duties of the jobs forum. I welcome the participation of the political parties and the social partners. Even at this late stage I appeal to the Fine Gael Party to come on side and help us bring back into society the people who have been marginalised for the past number of years. It is important that we focus on the marginalised sector in our community because this is now a very serious problem.

The statistics for last October show that 108,000 people have been on the live register for a year or more and what is more worrying is that some 50,000 people have been unemployed for three years or more. This situation cannot be allowed to persist. Long-term unemployment of this scale represents not only an economic problem but also a major social one. Unfortunately many of these people are not now in a position to compete effectively in the labour market and we must look at ways in which we can prepare them to compete effectively for the available jobs. We need to consider the possibility of expanding and refining schemes, like the social employment scheme, to give the long term unemployed work experience. I compliment the Minister for the help he has given to those who wish to form partnership schemes. This novel idea is targeted at the marginalised sections of our community. I appeal to the Minister to monitor very carefully the progress and results of the 12 area partnership schemes that have been set up throughout the country.

While the social welfare system is critical in providing people with an acceptable standard of living, it is at times inflexible and is proving to be a disincentive to people to return to employment. The twelve area partnerships set up under section 7 of the Programme for Economic and Social Progress are exploring new ways of linking up the community and public agencies to provide a more responsive public policy. From the beginning it was recognised that the disincentives in the social welfare scheme had to be removed before the long term unemployed could benefit by going back to work. The Minister has responded to the proposals put forward by the partnerships and a number of new schemes is progressing successfully.

We need also to focus on measures to improve the educational qualifications of the long term unemployed. Undoubtedly, measures like this cost money but we need to remind ourselves of the cost involved in supporting people on the live register. The size of the Estimate before us is a reminder of this cost.

These schemes are playing an important role in the operation of centres for the unemployed. Those centres are making a major contribution in encouraging people back to work but there are difficulties, anomalies and barriers to which the people operating the centres are subject. They have to pay PRSI charges and the personnel employed there are working on a contract for 52 weeks. The people supervising these schemes do not get any extra benefits. I appeal to the Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Labour, to take steps to give the people who operate these centres an incentive to continue their good work.

When Deputy McCreevy was appointed Minister for Social Welfare, my party said he was a man of undoubted ability but we also expressed the fear that his approach to the job would be that of an accountant rather than a carer. I am afraid our worst fears and those of many people on social welfare have been realised.

The first five months of his term of office is characterised by swingeing cutbacks, the likes of which have not been seen since the worst days of the mid-eighties. The cuts have not received anything like the media attention — and sadly the media are not in the Gallery today — given to earlier cuts in social welfare, even though they are every bit as serious. What is more ominous is that the Minister has made it clear that he is only starting and that his overriding aim is to reduce spending on social welfare, irrespective of the consequences.

The Social Welfare Bill, introduced within weeks of his taking up office, was indicative of things to come. It represented a fundamental change in direction of public policy on social welfare. It was an outright assault on the principle of an insurance-based social welfare system and a complete rejection of the approach recommended by the Commission on Social Welfare. It also pushed the date of the payment of annual social welfare increases back further than before, but most of the cutbacks were implemented straightaway.

Following the intoduction of this Bill, the Minister concluded a deal with the Irish Dental Association which will mean that insured workers will have to pay up to 30 per cent of the cost of dental treatment which was available previously free of charge. It is clear that the entire insurance-based welfare system is now under attack and employees who are making substantial contributions in PRSI payments each week are finding that their entitlements are being systematically withdrawn and whittled away. Workers and their families are being asked to pay more to finance the very substantial increases in dentist's fees. People pay PRSI on the understanding that their contributions entitle them to a certain level of benefit, should they need it but their entitlements are being unilaterally changed.

The PRSI contributions are going up all the time, while the level of benefit is being decreased. For example, in this year's Social Welfare Bill those earning more than £25,000 per annum had their entitlement to dental benefits taken from them and in addition everybody else who pays PRSI will now have to pay up to one-third of the cost of dental treatment. Pay-related disability benefit was discontinued and occupational injuries benefit was reduced to the level of disability benefit. Pay-related benefits were withdrawn from those working on a week-on week-off basis with a resultant loss of £17 per week to these workers. I would like to remind the Minister that those working on a week-on week-off basis do not do so out of choice and they would be glad to revert to full-time employment but they are now being doubly penalised: first, by the loss of a week's wages and, second, by the cut in pay-related benefit.

One of the nastiest changes in the Bill was directed against pregnant women. On the pretext of amalgamating different maternity schemes, the Minister actually abolished maternity benefit for women who, althouth they meet the PRSI requirements, were in casual employment and do not have a job to return to. My party alone saw through the Minister's device and voted against section 19 of the Bill. regrettably, we did not get support from any of the other parties nor, sadly from any of the women Deputies. The result of the measure is that pregnant women in those circumstances have to go to employment exchanges and sign on for unemployment assistance right up to the time of confinement and immediately after giving birth. If a woman were due to sign on on the date of the birth of her child she would have to be at the employment exchange or she would lose her payment. That is the position for some pregnant women under the social welfare regime initiated by the Minister, despite all we hear from the Government about the special role of motherhood and the way we as a society must care for our women and their children. One should have to be caustic and ask whether it is any wonder that more women are resorting the abortion trail to Great Britain.

Everyone is concerned about the overall cost of social welfare. It is a cause of particular concern to taxpayers, who have to foot most of the Bill. However, it has to be said that social welfare is not a charity. One of the biggest groups in receipt of social welfare assistance are the unemployed, and if the Government could provide the jobs they would be in work. They would be in employment were it not for the failure of Government policies to help create employment. There are also the old and the sick, those who have made a contribution to society by paying taxes. Those groups receive social welfare assistance because, due to one reason or another, they are not able to financially care for themselves. They must not be abandoned or left behind by Irish society — they are our citizens.

I welcome the recent publication by the Combat Poverty Agency of the report which showed a huge gap of income levels between families on social welfare and those on the average industrial wage. I hope that report will help focus attention on the appalling level of poverty still to be found in Ireland. The detailed information given in the report shattered the myth promoted by conservative commentators and politicians that life on the dole is easy and that there is no incentive to work. The report's publication was particularly timely, given the Minister's plans to further savagely cut back social welfare payments. The report demonstrates that, rather than cutting back, we need to allocate more resources to ensure that those dependent on social welfare are able to live out their lives with some dignity and in a reasonable degree of comfort. As a priority the Government must set about implementing the minimum income levels recommended by the Commission on Social Welfare.

There has been evidence of the extent of poverty in this and earlier reports but the problem has received little attention from successive Governments. For example, the word "poverty" did not appear in the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats Programme for Government published in 1989 or in the review of the programme published last year. There has been virtually no specific proposal designed to assist those on low incomes, whether on low pay or in receipt of social welfare assistance.

The problem of poverty must be placed at the top of the political agenda because, apart from the physical hardship caused to families, unemployment and poverty are having a demoralising effect on communities. That was highlighted by the very poor turnout from low income areas in last month's referendum. There are now hundreds of thousands of people who have been alienated from the political process and for whom the great debate about the Maastricht Treaty had little or no meaning. They have effectively been marginalised, and we are aware of the effects of marginalising communities in other countries. I urge the Minister to recognise this terrible development in our society, because social unrest is the inevitability of a marginalised society, of which we have many comprising hundreds of thousands of people, particularly in urban areas such as our capital city. Recent events, particularly in the United States, have shown that when huge communities are marginalised social unrest follows.

The only long term solution to the problem is to get the maximum number of people possible off social welfare assistance and working in decent jobs. Pending that, the Government should be compelled to introduce a comprehensive anti-poverty programme to address the income gaps highlighted in the report of the Combat Poverty Agency.

I have been shocked at the direction taken by the Minister in social welfare in the five months he has held responsibility for that portfolio. By any standards he has left an indelible mark, particularly in the minds and in the pockets of the beneficiaries of social welfare benefits. In the past five months the Minister displayed a callousness and, for a Minister for Social Welfare, an uncharacteristic lack of realisation of the plight of the poor. A litany of the victims of his cuts, which started with his 1992 Social Welfare Bill, would take ten minutes of the debate, and as I have only one minute left I certainly shall not be able to recite what I would have liked to have included in the record. The litany of cutbacks enacted under the Minister's leadership shows that the Minister is attacking the most vulnerable in our society. He is attacking the sick, the unemployed and large numbers of women. One should consider his treatment of old age pensioners. This week the Minister deprived some of them of their alleviation payments. Does the Minister even know the meaning of the word "alleviation"? Does he realise what it is that the previous Government tried to alleviate? Does he care? Does he even know what the alleviation payment was designed to achieve? That payment was designed to alleviate the pain of poverty. The Minister is now pulling the rug from under the feet of at least 10,000 of our poorest citizens, who are, in the main, old and infirm and on disability benefit.

I must ask the Deputy to conclude his contribution.

Unfortunately, the Minister has driven a coach and four through the concept of social insurance schemes. I should like to repeat a statement I made during the debate on the Social Welfare Bill: the Minister is driving the nail in the coffin of social insurance policies. By increasing the obligations of workers, who have to pay 7.75 per cent of their income towards social insurance, the Minister has increased the income going into his coffers but he is giving less in return. The net effect of that will be a complete loss of confidence in the social welfare system. More workers will rebel against a double taxation base — one being taxation and the other being the taxation of benefits.

Acting Chairman

Deputy, I have been lenient. Please conclude.

I thank the Chair for his leniency. It is unfortunate that we are not allowed more time. If we were we could develop our arguments. I consider that ten minutes is too short for those who want to speak on issues as important as this.

(Carlow-Kilkenny): I suppose the House will have to accept the ruling of ten minutes' speaking time. Deputy Dennehy, on the other side of the House, has always spoken ahead of me and I have replied to him but I regret very much that today I will not be able to do so. I am sure he will remind us of certain things now that he has the opportunity to reply to me.

For the first time.

(Carlow-Kilkenny): For a change, that is true. Two minutes of my time has gone; that is a demonstration of Fiann Fáil tactics.

And the "real left" took another two minutes from the Deputy.

(Carlow-Kilkenny): I recognise that in my ten minute contribution it will be very difficult to develop any argument, as the previous speaker said. However, I intend to repeat statements I made about anomalies and difficulties within the social welfare system, issues about which the Minister will know. This debate presents another opportunity to highlight these difficulties. Perhaps the Minister, with the aid of his civil servants who will be holding his hands — probably behind his back some of the time — will be able to deal with them.

My first point is very simple. We should do everything possible to encourage honesty in social welfare, and I say that in a positive way. When people are honest enough to sign up for two days' work and give their details at the employment exchange that should not be held over them afterwards like the sword of Damocles. I know people who two years later got a note stating that on unnamed dates between 20 June and 30 June 1989 they worked while still signing. That is an outrageous practice and it happened twice in my experience. I told the people involved to ask the Department of Social Welfare to provide the exact dates on which hey were supposed to have worked. As a result, the issue did not come to a head. Those people week after week reported to the exchange that they would be signing off on one day because they had a job for one day each week. On that basis they would receive a note two years later accusing them of working. That kind of thing should not happen because it is very difficult for a person to remember where he or she was two years ago. Of course an employer could make a mistake and put down the wrong day which could cause problems.

Another problem is that at the beginning of the following year persons can be regarded as having an automatic income if they had been working during the year. I gave an example of two painters who had been assessed as earning £25 per week because they had painted two houses during the summer. They were regarded as self-employed. I will not develop this point but the Minister should take note of it. Of course if someone wilfully deceives the Department of Social Welfare he or he should be punished. I have not come across people who are drawing the dole while working but I know they exist and they should be punished.

I also want to refer to delays in assessments and appeals which take much too long. I know of a person receiving disability benefit who, having had two years' care under a specialist, was found unfit for work three months ago. My argument is that if she has been found unfit for work after two years' treatment by a top specialist in a modern hospital, she must have been unfit for work two years ago. I contacted the Ombudsman in this regard but he does not want to interfere in a dispute regarding the medical profession as he does not have medical knowledge. I do not want to be unfair to medical referees but they antagonise me because I envisage them in cold, barren rooms, doing all kinds of tests and X-rays in a matter of minutes, as a result of which they can decide that someone is fit for work. If they can overrule the findings of specialists in a top modern hospital we are wasting our money building such hospitals and encouraging people to specialise. I know that medical referees must do their job and I do not want to be unfair to them but sometimes they are not in a position to make medical decisions. In cases of this kind social welfare payments should be backdated to the time when the person was first found unfit for work. I also know of a case of a man who had been turned down for four years for an old age pension because his family provided him with money and fuel. The Department of Social Welfare took the view that the man was being looked after. However, on appeal recently, he was awarded a pension, which he should have received four years ago. The Department of Social Welfare insisted that he had income. Of course he had, it would be a poor thing if this great Christian country would see a parent starving to death because he or she did not have a pension. Reprehensible decisions are being made in the Department of Social Welfare.

I accept that I do not have to lecture the Minister in relation to widows. However, since we last spoke on this issue a problem has arisen in relation to children's allowance payable to widows. In June 1990 a letter was sent to widows stating that they would not receive children's allowances until the children went back to school in September. Nothing seemed to happen in June 1991 but, this year, the same thing is happening unless the widow writes to the Department to say that the children will be going back to school in September. Somebody in the Department of Social Welfare is going out of his or her way to make everything as complicated as possible. It is very hard for widows to feed their children during the summer holidays, especially if they are third level students, who eat you out of house and home. The widow in question says she did not receive any payments in 1991 for the summer holidays but the Department of Social Welfare said that people did receive children's allowances. The Department should make up their mind in regard to the treatment of widows. I can imagine the work involved in the Department in relation to changing rules and regulations.

The family income scheme is a great incentive to people to stay at work.

Acting Chairman

The Deputy has one minute left.

(Carlow-Kilkenny): That is very hard to believe. However, I accept it is true. I wanted to refer to many things, including the carer's allowance. I should also like the Minister to reconsider the death grant of £100.

It is part of our democratic system that Deputy Bell — who was part of the administration from 1982-87 — can criticise the Minister about alleviation payments. Perhaps he made his comments tongue in cheek but I do not think so. During the 1982-87 period the Government refused to implement the 1979 Equal Treatment Directive from the EC which led to the need for these payments. I cannot remember whether Deputy Bell was the Labour Party spokesman for social welfare at that time but when things went wrong at the end of 1986 they brought in a limited system of payments but, fortunately, as a result of the change of Government in February 1987 the payments were increased.

Deputy Byrne was ólagoning because he did not have time to make a full case. However, he received a four page reply on this issue during the week from the Minister which explained the situation. It pointed out that £60 million is owed by the State as a result of the refusal of Deputy Bell and his colleagues to implement that directive. I am glad we have a democracy and that he can come back in here and attack the Minister brazenly today on the same issue. The Deputy mentioned the possibility of people with bayonets at the gates of Dáil Éireann. In other countries if he tried that kind of stunt he would be at the end of the bayonet himself. Thanks be to God we do not see things that way.

He would be delighted to hear that.

I ask the Minister to look carefully at something that has been tackled in the past four years. We have had two bites at the cherry but there are still difficulties. People who worked in State and semi-State companies and whose insurance contribution status changed, faced massive difficulties regarding their pensions when they retired. As I said there were two attempts at remedying that. We brought in a pro rata pension scheme and a fixed pension scheme, but there are still anomalies. Some people are struggling still and have real worries, particularly about adult dependants. There are people who qualify under the new scheme but many have not sufficient contributions. People who had hundreds of payments pre-1954 and who are now deprived of their pension consult me about their record. I ask the Minister to reconsider that. I acknowledge the steps taken in that regard and the progress made. Canvassing for many years for other candidates for the Dáil, I met people who were left without a pension. Many of these people are dying off without having received a pension.

The key factor in the whole social welfare debate is employment. The figures the Minister gave in his speech indicate that unemployment is the major factor in deciding the budget for the year. There are many changes. In 1990-91 net emigration was down to 1,000 people from a high of 44,000 or 45,000 in one year. If a Minister or someone else on this side mentions that in the Dáil, we are told we are trying to export them. We are not. The fact is there is a difference of 40,000 plus in the number of people leaving the country. Deputy Cullimore was right: the committee set up to study the situation and find avenues for new jobs must get full support. I appeal to the Fine Gael spokesman here to get off the stool and become involved in this area.

I will saw the legs off that stool.

Everybody in this House has a role to play in this, everyone else cannot be wrong and only one party right. I have never stirred the political pot much in here, but I appeal today to the Fine Gael Members to become involved. They have nothing to lose. If Deputy Browne was following me I might mention the figures in the polls, but I will not do so today.

I will look after that.

Drastic changes are necessary even in our thinking if we are to make any impression on the numbers requiring jobs. Every possible avenue must be looked at. There are old fashioned ideologies, old fashioned work practices, many impediments to opening up the future for young people. Every one of those must be examined critically in the context of the thousands of people looking for work. Deputy Cullimore mentioned the long term unemployed. I agree with him that it is totally demoralising for a person to be more than 12 months unemployed. The Minister is being honest in pointing out the overall figure for social welfare and the difficulties facing future Ministers in trying to meet it. People might pick out tiny aspects of different schemes and complain or look for improvement as I have done with the pension scheme, but overall our social welfare schemes are good. Governments down the years have ensured this is so. There has been steady progress, and the figures for the past three or four years particularly have been ahead of inflation, which means a net gain for the social welfare recipient.

There is nothing pleasant or clever about being a social welfare recipient, though I accept there may be people fiddling the system. The vast majority of people are genuine claimants and would not be looking for money if it was not necessary or they were not entitled to it.

I take up the point made by Deputy Browne and say again that the medical referee examination needs consideration. Everybody involved in politics is aware of people bluffing the system. There are many methods of beating the examination and all have been used. On the other hand, people have been deprived of benefit when they should have got it. I know of a young lady who was hospitalised under the direction of a top specialist in Cork, who was called for examination and found to be not incapable of work. That is scandalous, a bureaucratic system working against the genuine case. There is the two-minute examination as against senior consultants' evidence. I am not talking about a GP giving a casual certificate, but about senior consultants giving evidence that such-and-such a person is in their estimation incapable of work giving the reason and maybe hospitalising that person. There should be an automatic entitlement. There is a reluctance to hospitalise people at present unless there is great need for it. If somebody is put into hospital by a consultant that more or less proves the person is entitled to benefit because they are not capable of work. This leads to a great deal of aggression. There are cases of people losing benefits to which they are genuinely entitled and to some extent the system is being brought into disrepute. At the same time I sympathise with the people who are doing these examinations and trying to distinguish the frauds from the genuine cases. Talking to people in our clinics we have been led astray in such matters.

I congratulate the Minister on his appointment. I am not worried about his declarations on the future. He has been honest about the situation facing us. Without honest assessments we will go nowhere. The Minister has brought very good thinking into the Department and has been progressive. I wish him well for his period in office.

I hate to be abrasive but I am surprised when Deputy Dennehy indicates how worthwhile it is to be on that side of the House, full of good feeling and fellow feeling and imbued with a sense of direction, straight up front honest and so on. The reference to the 1984 equality and alleviating payments etc. made me wonder why, when his party were in office between 1979 and 1981 and could have taken a decision which would have cost very little, they did not do so.

At present we spend more than £9 million a day on social welfare. That is an indication of just how serious the problem is. We must, therefore, look at the cause of the problem which is, as a number of speakers have said, unemployment. The Minister stated in his speech that payments to the elderly amount to £2.6 million per day; payments to the unemployed, £2.6 million per day; payments to the sick and the disabled, £1 million per day and family income support and other miscellaneous allowances, £2.4 million per day.

Let me say to Deputy Dennehy, before he leaves the House, in response to his heart rending appeal to the Fine Gael Party to take part in the Committee on Employment that there is a difference between a committee and a forum. The New Ireland Forum was the forerunner to the Anglo-Irish Agreement but it should be said that a forum is not a committee. The Government often use committees to ensure that the various other political parties share the blame for the situation is which we find ourselves.

I know the party opposite would never do such a thing and that Deputy Dennehy would not like to see Fine Gael share the blame but I have to say that if a jobs forum is established, Fine Gael will take part in it. After all, it was Fine Gael who first highlighted the need to establish such a forum. It was considered that the position within the country was so serious that a forum should be established; in this case I contend that the problem of unemployment is so serious that another forum should be established. We should avoid double talk and get down to basics.

We should decide what we can and cannot do. I should say that I feel sorry for the Minister because some of his colleagues are literally getting away with murder. The Minister for the Environment in particular has saddled this Minister with the responsibility to provide supplementary welfare payments and so on. The Minister's Department have to shoulder the cost of not enough houses being built and of people on low incomes requiring supplementary welfare payments. As Deputy Bell mentioned, young people are being driven out of their homes because they cannot qualify for social welfare due to means testing. This gives rise to a number of problems, the first of which is that in some cases elderly parents now find themselves living alone and, second, these young people are no longer under parental control.

Last year the Eastern Health Board spent in the order of £10 million on supplementary welfare payments in connection with housing. If the Department of the Environment had provided the necessary funding to build houses in the first instance this problem would not be half as bad. The Minister stated that almost 40 per cent of the total population are in receipt of social welfare payments of one kind or another. As a result a heavy burden has been placed on those at work.

As I have said already, £2.4 million out of the total of £9 million goes on family income support and other miscellaneous allowances. We could avoid the need to pay this money if other Departments did their job and we attracted investment to this country to create the jobs that are so badly needed to reduce the numbers on the unemployment register.

We must continue to make payments to the elderly. We have a responsibility and a duty to do this and there would be no sense in making an attempt to make savings under that heading. As has been mentioned already, the alleviating payments are to be withdrawn. It is horrendous that elderly people in receipt of pensions should suddenly receive a letter stating that their incomes are to be reduced by between £7 and £12 a week. It is all very well for people to say that they will not be affected but elderly people with a tight fixed income will find this news hard to take. It is therefore, in the Minister's interest to find different means of dealing with the matter because the people who will be affected will become very cynical and annoyed but one can appreciate and understand their problems. I am aware that the Minister understands them fully also given that he has been visited by some of the people who will be affected. I ask him to look at the matter again and find another way of removing the payment and to do so over a longer period.

I further ask the Minister to examine the important question of pension funds, in particular death benefits. Strictly speaking, they are OK but one must read the fine print.

It appears that, unlike the case of married persons, the next-of-kin of a single person may not benefit in the event of his or her death. If a single person dies while in insurable employment the management of the company or the manager of the pension fund may have discretion to decide whether the next-of-kin should benefit even though the payments had been made to a contributory pension fund. This is unfair. The next-of-kin should be entitled to receive whatever funds are due so that they can discharge whatever liabilities and so on that are involved. I hope the Commission on Social Welfare will deal with this matter in their report which is awaited.

I hope the commission will examine also the case of those who were in insurable employment, say, between the years 1948 and 1953, who then left the workforce but returned in 1986 or 1987 and who do not now qualify for a pension as they do not have the required number of contributions since 1953. Again, this is unfair as many of these people have paid a greater number of contributions than some of those who now qualify for almost a full pension. I ask the Minister, if the matter is not dealt with in the report of the Commission on Social Welfare, to proceed and find some means of dealing with it.

In relation to alleviating payments, as Deputy Connaughton said, the people who are most likely to be alarmed and at the greatest risk are those on low and fixed incomes, and the elderly. Let us take the case of a man who, say is in receipt of supplementary welfare allowance from the health board to enable him visit his wife in hospital 40 to 50 miles away. He will now find himself facing a reduction of £12 per week approximately. That would be very serious. It could affect whatever stability was in the home as the additional money might provide a cushion between that man and poverty.

I would like to comment on a number of other matters but because of the time restrictions I cannot do so. I hope on the next occasion arrangements are being made for a debate such as this on a Friday that, at least the Whips would agree that we have 15 to 20 minutes each.

I agree with Deputy Durkan. Each Deputy here could speak about this issue of social welfare for at least 20 minutes. For instance, we could address the anomilies in the system which each Deputy and each civil servant in the Department of Social Welfare not to mention the Minister himself, has to confront each day. When the Minister sat beside me on the benches some time ago he was well aware of the anomalies that arise from time to time in the case of individuals seeking their entitlements or help from the Department. I congratulate him, belatedly, on his elevation as Minister for Social Welfare. I know his attitude to these anomalies has not changed since his appointment. Unfortunately, he now works for a harder task master, the Department of Finance, who scrutinise everything that passes across any Minister's desk.

Given my background I should like to begin my short comments with the dental services. The House will be aware that the Minister recently concluded an agreement with the Irish Dental Association allowing spouses of people in benefit to receive dental treatment subject to an income limit of £25,000. That is the first anomaly. A family with both spouses earning £25,000, or less, per annum would be entitled to dental benefit, but where there is one earner, whether husband or wife, on an income in excess of £25,000 annually — they may exceed the limit by a few pounds only — the second spouse is not entitled to dental benefit. That anomaly should be rectified by the Minister and his Department. I hope the Minister will address this problem in his reply.

While on the subject of dentistry I contend — this is no reflection on the Department of Social Welfare — that dental services should be hived off to the Department of Health, who would be responsible for a comprehensive dental scheme for all citizens. At present the Department of Social Welfare deal only with people who are in benefit and the Eastern Board deal with medical card holders. Some private dental practitioners deal with private patients only and others take on social welfare patients. What we have is a hodge-podge scheme without consistency or continuity. This means that many people who fall through the net do not receive the treatment or services they need. However that is a matter for the Government rather than the Minister. The dental services should be re-examined with a view to introducing a fully comprehensive service.

I should like to pay tribute to the work of the community welfare officers of the various health boards. In the north inner city in which I work, the community welfare officers do an outstanding job. Deputy Durkan intimated that they in effect, were now the housing authority in such areas. That may be too great a claim. In my area, and in other areas of the city they are the only people who are housing people at present and doing so quickly and efficiently. The last speaker mentioned that £10 million had been expended within the Eastern Health Board region on housing assistance and I have no reason to doubt that. We should ascertain whether it would be better if the Department of the Environment were made responsible for housing people. There are people who were not catered for under the various Department of the Environment housing schemes. I am thinking of unmarried people under age 65 with children who, for one reason or another, have been removed from what were their homes, urgent cases with which the community welfare officers must deal. Domestic circumstances can arise within any 24-hour period which may mean that one or two members of a family may have no roof over their heads.

The withdrawal of the alleviating payments is causing grave distress to older members of our community. There is no Member who will not have had one, two or more constituents approach him or her, about this issue. People have received letters from the Department of Social Welfare within the past week informing them that £10 or £12 is being withdrawn from what they thought was their old age pension. If that is a legal or EC requirement it should be re-examined. If it has to be phased out it should be slowly because £12 out of an income of £81 is a large bite for those people.

The fact that social welfare benefits must be paid for is rarely mentioned in a debate on social welfare. The House will be aware that these payments are made from general taxation proceeds. There cannot be a proper comprehensive, all-encompassing social welfare system without a commensurate all-encompassing taxation system to which everybody contributes. While countries in northern Europe have the best social welfare systems their taxation systems are fairly severe. Social welfare benefits must be paid for; that comes from the pockets of taxpayers. There was much focus recently on Denmark following their decision in the Maastricht Treaty referendum and I was delighted to learn they have a very comprehensive social welfare system covering practically all citizens but their taxation system is penal. Yet that does not appear to drive the Danes out of that country seeking work abroad. We are told by economists, and others, that our high taxation system is driving people out of the country. I do not fully accept that. There may be some people very dissatisfied with our taxation system. Social welfare and taxation systems are fite fuaite lena chéile; they are two wings of the one house. When people advocate the lowering of taxes are they also talking about lowering social welfare payments?

Sometimes social welfare payments are the only check and balance of what I might describe as a Thatcherite attitude to paying wages. Constituents of mine work for less than £2 an hour and are being driven into badly paid jobs, £80 for a 40-hour week. That is taking advantage of people in the grimmest possible manner. This means also that social welfare payments are greater than what people would earn in some jobs, which is something we should examine carefully. The social welfare system cannot be used to drive people onto the employment market when, in some instances, they may be at the mercy of employers whose only interest is earning a buck for themselves.

The Minister knows I have an interest in companion travel passes for parents of children who are in care or are living at home. I am thinking of children, now becoming adults, in receipt of DPMA whose parents would not be entitled to free travel. Let me give an example of a widow living on a widow's pension and who has a seriously handicapped child who must be taken out every day. The child may have a free travel pass but the mother, on social welfare income, cannot afford to travel with the child. The result is that both the mother and the child are cooped up in the house for most of the time. I would ask the Minister to look at that problem.

I am aware that I only have ten minutes so, like the other speakers, I will merely highlight those areas that need to be looked into.

First, let me say that I know there are incredible demands on the budget of the Minister for Social Welfare. I am sure he would agree that a continuous effort must be made to prevent people who are not entitled to social welfare from ripping off the system. Hopefully savings made in this area would allow us to right some of the anomalies that now lead to injustice.

To get the positive aspects out of the way, I would like to compliment the Minister on the information leaflets that are now available and distributed widely. Information is most important. Sometimes it is the people who are most in need who do not have the required information. Therefore, everything that is done in that area is to be applauded. I am especially pleased to see the latest leaflet that has been issued regarding the retrospective payments that will be available to women following on the non-payment of these moneys for so many years.

There is still much to be done and each speaker here will be highlighting areas that have come to their attention. I would like to focus on matters that have come to my attention and also to the attention of the Oireachtas Committee on Womens' Rights. The clarion call on behalf of all women in this country, particularly mothers, is for child benefit to be paid directly to the mother regardless of any clawback that may be devised to take account of higher income families because there is no legal right to a financial reward for and no particular value placed on the work that women do in caring for their children and looking after all the demands of the household. The only acknowledgment of this incredibly important work of women in the home — which is endless, often repetitive and demanding constant attention and tolerance — is the child benefit. Wherever possible social welfare income to support children and the mother in the home should always be directly paid to the mother. If necessary let the husband's income be taxed, but for practical and psychological reasons it is essential that the mother get that direct payment. That is a cri de coeur. It should not matter what income the husband in a one income household earns. It does not necessarily mean that the wife and children are adequately looked after. We would like to think that that does not happen but unfortunately it does.

I do not know if the Minister is aware of an anomaly that was brought to my attention recently in regard to maternity benefit. If a woman has a baby in 1991, for example, and then has another baby in 1992, she does not get the full maternity benefit in 1992 because it is based on the number of weeks worked, but the maternity leave taken in the previous year is deducted, with a consequent reduction in benefit. That is not justifiable and I do not think it is done in any other area. A child centred society like ours should, as is the case in other European countries, be encouraging mothers to have children in safety and security. Mothers should not be penalised because of the times at which they give birth. That is an outstanding anomaly and I would like the Minister and his Department to have a look at it.

There is another glaring anomaly which affects sole traders and small businesses. A spouse who is engaged in a partnership or who helps with the business cannot be treated as a worker in her own right, yet if she were to do similar work for another company down the road she would be fully entitled to the full security of PRSI contributions etc. That is a denial of the working rights of spouses which mostly affects women and is a matter of great frustration to them.

Another anomaly which cannot be explained in logical terms relates to twins. If twins are born it is a multiple birth; it is not a single birth. Yet only triplets and upwards are regarded as multiple births so twins fall into a limbo, being classed as neither single nor multiple births. Thankfully, I did not have the experience of dealing with twins; one at a time was quite enough. I understand Deputy Bell had that experience and I am sure he can confirm that twins are twice the cost, represent twice the demand and so on.

It is fundamental to our attitude to unemployment, which is the running sore of this country, that we do not penalise people moving from social welfare into the workforce. At the moment there is a penalty on such people. That leaves them with two options, either to refuse to take temporary work or to go into the black economy. I am sure the Minister and all of us would really like to create a system that would encourage people to come out of the black economy. If we could set up that kind of system we would not be in the difficulties we are in now and we would have the funds to give to the people who most need them, those who cannot find employment or who, for other reasons, are not available for work.

Let me end by pleading with everybody who deals with claimants of social welfare to treat them with dignity and courtesy. It must be realised that as citizens of this country they have a right to that. They should not be patronised, denigrated or treated as some kind of subversives. I do not think anyone can stress this point strongly enough. People on social welfare suffer enough without being treated in this humiliating way.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I congratulate the Minister on his appointment and wish him well. I have great confidence that he will do a good job. I have been very impressed by his honesty in outlining the position in his Department. Many people have criticised him for doing this but I do not think he should be for giving an honest account of the position.

It is well known that this Government, and future Governments, will find it difficult to pay social welfare benefits if the present system is not changed and abuses eliminated. It is also well known that a large number of people in receipt of social welfare are working full time. I have been informed that a large number of farmers in rural Ireland in receipt of social welfare work full time or have businesses. These people take their social welfare forms to the local Garda station to be signed by a garda in the presence of the person whose name is on the form. I have been told that in some cases these forms are dropped in through the letter boxes in Garda stations and are signed by the garda in the absence of the person whose name is on it. This practice must be stopped. The Minister should take up this matter with the Garda Commissioner. People are entitled to sign for and draw social welfare and I have nothing against them doing that but these forms should be signed by a garda in the presence of the person whose name is on the form. The Minister should ask the Garda Commissioner to instruct gardaí to discontinue this practice. This is only one of a number of abuses which is putting a great strain on the social welfare system. The former Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Woods, did a great deal of work in trying to eliminate abuses in the system.

The cost of the unmarried mother's allowance and the deserted wife's allowance is also putting a great strain on the system. Figures issued by the Department indicate a big increase in the number of people claiming these allowances each year. The fathers of the children of unmarried mothers and the husbands of deserted wives are getting off scot-free — they do not have to make any contribution. The Minister, and his officials, will have to tackle this problem. I have nothing against these women — as a public representative, I have helped many of them — but it is unfair that the taxpayer has to pay for these allowances. The British Government were preparing legislation to deal with this problem and I do not know if it has been debated by the British Parliament.

The Estimate for the Department of Social Welfare for 1992 is in excess of £1,853 million. This does not reflect total social welfare spending this year which is estimated to be £3,353 million. Income from PRSI this year is expected to be approximately £1,500 million. This means the balance of £1,853 million must be met by the taxpayer. The cost of the social welfare system this year shows a vast increase over the cost in previous years. It will be about £9 million per day or £3,353 million per year. This figure may be broken down as follows: payments to the elderly, £950 million; payments in family income support, £870 million; payments to the unemployed, £960 million and payments to the sick and disabled, £390 million. Approximately 12,000 farmers receive weekly assistance at an annual cost to the Exchequer of approximately £44 million. The Department of Social Welfare have an important role to play in guaranteeing the continuation of the payment of social welfare benefits, especially to genuine people, and at the same time, to continue their efforts to eliminate abuses in the system.

I wish to refer to the carer's allowance scheme, introduced by the Department in 1990, which gave recognition to the valuable work done by people who care for elderly and incapacitated people on a full-time basis. I have been informed that this scheme will cost £10.4 million this year. When the Minister was appointed he expressed strong reservations about this scheme. I was pleased to hear him say he would discuss the matter with his colleague, the Minister for Health. He said the scheme should be changed or abolished because it was not working satisfactorily.

I wish to refer to a case of the mother of a mentally handicapped son who had her application for a carer's allowance approved and was granted a weekly allowance of £50. On the day this woman received notification from the Department that she was to be paid this allowance, her husband, who was in receipt of social welfare assistance, also received a letter from the Department informing him that his allowance would be reduced by £40 per week as his wife would receive a carer's allowance. The purpose of this scheme was to give recognition to the good work done by people who look after their elderly relatives or incapacitated people on a full-time basis. However, the Department gave no recognition to the work done by this woman who took on the job of looking after her handicapped son 24 hours a day. I believe that is the reason the Minister has strong reservations about the scheme. If this woman decided to put her son in an institution instead of looking after him herself it would cost the State between £300 and £400 per week. I call on the Minister to amend the carer's allowance scheme so that people who are prepared to look after their elderly relatives or an incapacitated person on a full-time basis will not be discriminated against in this way.

There is an urgent need for a full review of the social welfare system. It is important that schemes be introduced under which funds can be transferred from the Department of Social Welfare to provide jobs for the many people on social welfare. Many people on social welfare would prefer to get up in the morning and go to work.

The chilling fact spelled out by the Minister that £9 million per day is spent on social welfare highlights the number of people who have to depend on this system. We may think that the figure of £1,853 million per year is large, but the figure of £9 million per day brings home to us the extent of the problem. This is a desperate indictment of our society which has failed in recent years to provide jobs for people.

Like other speakers I would stress the need for caution in what the Minister says in the context of his Department's budget, whether with regard to reduction in pensions or his concerns about being able to provide on an ongoing basis for all the people who are dependent on social welfare. After the last Social Welfare Question Time I received a number of calls from old people who were terrified that if not their full pension certainly a significant portion of it would be taken away and that they would be left impoverished. Many old people who are completely dependent on pensions are insecure because they can remember the bad days of the forties and fifties when people did not receive pensions they could reasonably live on. I know it is not the Minister's intention to frighten old people but I would ask him to be cautious in future in terms of his public statements. I would like to say again, as I always do in these debates, how much I appreciate the information from the Department of Social Welfare. Their leaflets generally are of a high standard and every effort is made to ensure that people receive their entitlements in a humane way.

I thank the Minister for his attention to the matter I raised recently about payment of unemployment assistance to pregnant women. This is an issue that arose since the Social Welfare Act, 1992. Many women would have been entitled to maternity benefit on the basis of having 12 weeks' contributions in the previous year but that benefit was abolished in the Social Welfare Act, 1992. The Minister said at the time that only about 100 women were involved, but a number of these women who are now seeking benefit discover that there is no provision for them. I received a letter from a woman who was concerned that she would be unable to sign on the week she was expecting her baby and the following week. This woman's husband was on a social employment scheme and they could ill afford the loss of maternity assistance. When this woman inquired about the matter from her local exchange she was told that it was up to her to make arrangements for the time in question and that there was no provision for paying her by cheque or postal order.

I made representations to the Minister about this matter and the letter I received from the Department was not very reassuring. However, the reply I received to a question put down on 30 June was more encouraging. Agreement has now been reached that pregnant women on assistance are excused from weekly signing for a 12 week period, six weeks before and six weeks after the expected date, and they are paid by cheque or postal order during that period. That is a welcome measure which will reassure women in these circumstances. I would ask the Minister to ensure that this information is sent out uniformly to all exchanges. It was unacceptable that a woman eight months pregnant would have to queue up to collect her benefit and I, thank the Minister for resolving this problem.

There are other matters of disappointment coming to light as a result of the 1992 Act. I have been contacted by concerned women, many of whom would not have read the Official Report of the Dáil and are not aware of the provisions in the 1992 Act. The minimum rate of maternity allowance has been reduced from £76 to £60. I know that the Minister will point out that the 1992 Act provides that part-time workers are eligible for this allowance, and we all welcome that because many of these people earn only £25 per week, but this is a poor excuse for drastically reducing the minimum payment for other categories, including those who, through no fault of their own, do not have the full rate of contributions. The Minister was ill-advised to tamper with this benefit. I would remind him that when it was introduced many years ago the minimum rate of maternity allowance was £73 a week. Now, 15 years later, the minimum rate has been reduced to £60, which is very distressing for many women.

I would refer specifically to a single mother who, having decided to go back to work, is receiving only £60 per week because she does not have the full rate of contributions. Such an income is insufficient for a single mother. This matter is only slowly becoming known to women and the Minister will hear much more about it. I would ask him to review the matter in cases of hardship because women should not be penalised as a result of the implementation of new legislation. I would like to ask the Minister whether maternity payments have been introduced for adoptive parents. That mattter was heralded in the Minister's speech introducing the Bill.

Much of the Minister's speech dealt with avoidance of fraud and abuse, a matter of which we should all be aware. Most of us know of practitioners of the black economy who maneouvre their way through life availing of every benefit and concession but avoiding the obligations of tax and levies. Some of these people are employed by big and medium-sized employers who benefit from the black economy service and it is wrong that they should collude with this deception. I welcome the recent media campaign by the Minister aimed at warning these employers and making them liable. I would question the ordinary householder or small business person who is not too concerned about requesting a VAT certificate for people who come to work for them. Perhaps a small tax concession could be introduced for people who produce receipts for work done. That would certainly encourage these people to look for basic qualifications from those who work for them and would help to prevent abuse of the system.

It was suggested recently in Relate, the NSSB magazine, that because unmarried couples living together are taxed as single people many of them are forced to stay on social welfare benefit. These people when working get no tax relief for dependants, whereas dependancy is recognised for social welfare purposes. That is a gross anomaly that should be corrected. In times of high unemployment, when so many people are on social welfare, we should not discourage anybody from working.

I am pleased to participate in this debate on the revised Estimate for Social Welfare which represents spending of £1,853,478,000. The total spending in this area is £3,353 million. That is a very large amount of money and it is very welcome. When dealing with large amounts of money, it is important to ensure that people in need receive the maximum benefit possible.

I welcome the range of benefits that are available from the Department of Social Welfare. The breakdown of payments and the manner in which the recipients and their dependants are paid is fair, though there is a number of areas that needs to be addressed and which could be improved. In the short time allocated to speakers today one cannot cover every aspect of social welfare benefits and payments though most of the previous speakers have covered areas that I would like to speak on briefly also.

I believe there is a great deal of fraud and abuse by individuals in relation to social welfare payments. The largest area of abuse appears to be in the construction industry area. The Minister has indicated that he is prepared to crack the whip to stem fraud and abuse in the area of social welfare. That has been tried in the past but all we have are failed attempts. Unfortunately, I do not have the answer but I am sure that if the problem is properly addressed by the appropriate personnel and authorities we will be able to find a solution. I ask the Minister to focus on the construction area with a view to eliminating the widespread abuse and fraud of social welfare in that sector.

One could suggest many ways to deal with this problem, for example, by going after the employer, the builder, the contractor. Previously we have tried to tackle this problem by way of tax certificates, C2 forms and so on, but these methods have failed. It is a matter we should address as there is a very large amount of money involved in abuse of the social welfare system as it relates to the construction industry.

There has been a substantial number of favourable developments by the Department of Social Welfare and they are very welcome particularly at a time of strict financial budgetary controls. In the area of social welfare we have to ensure that those in need receive the necessary support from the Department of Social Welfare. The changing attitude of the Department in their approach to developing projects, for example, by way of the availability of information leaflets, is very beneficial. I wholeheartedly support all that has been said by previous speakers in respect of the excellent and easy-to-read way in which these leaflets are produced.

Another welcome development which I am familiar with in the Kilbarrack area is that the local Department offices are now very consumer oriented, very much what I would term a "one stop shop", where a person can go to their local Department office and obtain information on the various benefits. I see the Leas-Cheann Comhairle smirking at the term "one stop shop", it is a term I am fond of using; you heard me use it recently at another venue. This development on the part of the Department is very progressive as many people are unaware of their entitlements. People who visit local Department offices are now met by somebody who will introduce themselves and advise on individual entitlements, what information leaflets are available and so on.

I want to focus first on the area of DPMA recipients in residential care. DPMA recipients living at home can avail of a number of benefits, including free travel, but DPMA recipients who are in residential care can lose some benefits, in particular free travel. I would ask the Minister to consider this area and deal with this anomaly without further delay. There is only a small number involved.

Regarding the whole area of the carer's allowance, and the money being spent on home helps and by other voluntary organisations funded by the Department of Social Welfare, there is great scope for improvement. In this area of home help, carers, support services for the elderly and so on the appropriate Departments — the Departments of Health and Social Welfare — should work closely together on projects and introduce a streamlined system. At present responsibility for services is divided between the two Departments and this is very unsatisfactory. When one considers a scheme that was introduced and should have been successful, the carer's allowance scheme, one realises it has been a total flop, a disaster, a failed attempt in addressing the needs of the elderly and in endeavouring to keep them in their own homes and in their local communities. The cost to the State of subventing a person in a private nursing home ranges from £42 to £180 per week, whereas, after going through a great deal of procedure, a carer, if granted an allowance, will get the measly sum of £55. That comparison gives an idea of why the scheme is such a disaster. On the other hand, there are good services like the home help and other support services but unfortunately, as time is restricted I cannot go into the services in detail.

Another area I want to mention is that of social insurance. There is a proposal to remove dental and other benefits from the £25,000 plus income earner, but those involved will continue to pay RSI. I would ask the Minister to reconsider that proposal.

Regarding a person coming out of prison who wishes to make application for social welfare benefit, it is totally unsatisfactory that such a person, with little or no support, has to go through the normal channels to avail of social welfare benefit. How can the Minister envisage a person who has come out of prison, without a penny, being able to live for two or three weeks without benefit? That is an area we should focus on. We should devise and introduce a scheme for these individuals who are entitled to benefit but who have to go through the normal procedure. It is suggested that while awaiting benefit, they visit the supplementary welfare officer. That is unsatisfactory.

The Minister, in his speech, has very correctly highlighted the very real risk of a breakdown in the social welfare system. There is quite clearly a scissors movement in operation at the moment caused by ever increasing unemployment and the long term trend towards lower employment levels. An ever diminishing work force will have the burden of funding an ever increasing level of social welfare payments. While it is fair to say that employment has temporarily bottomed out. I would remind Members that we are facing into the Single Market next year and there is little doubt that the effects of this on employment here will be catastrophic. Looking further ahead, if — and it now seems doubtful — full European monetary union comes into being towards the end of the century, this undoubtedly will have further disastrous effects on our reduced employment level.

I put it to the Minister, and to the Taoiseach, that the present system of social welfare is totally unsuited to our needs. It was never designed to cater for a vast army of unemployed and their dependants. What is needed is a basic rethink of the whole system. First, we must ask ourselves why there are so many people unemployed. The Government and, indeed, the main Opposition parties, are not facing up to the reality that 300,000 full-time jobs cannot be created within the foreseeable future. There is a number of reasons we have this massive level of unemployment. The principal one, undoubtedly, is that much modern technology has killed jobs. A very simple answer to the unemployment problem would be to reduce the working week with a consequent reduction in gross pay. The Minister, as a matter of urgency, should ask the ESRI, or some other appropriate body, to do some costings on this. With our slender resources, we have done some very rough costings which show only a very slight reduction in nett pay to people who would work a shorter working week when all costs such as travel to work, lunches, saving in child care payments, and so on are taken into account. Job sharing is a variation of this and would greatly facilitate married couples with both spouses working who could have one spouse working full-time and one on a job share basis. Surely, our time would be much better spent in researching various combinations of reduced working hours, job sharing and, indeed, career breaks and early retirement than in using vast amounts of taxpayers money to attract foreign industry much of which disappears within a short time.

Another proposal I would like to make is the replacement of the present system of social welfare and pensions by a basic income scheme which is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis without means test or work requirement. A basic income would be paid to all adults over 16 years of age, whatever their status, occupation or lack of it, with obvious variations where a person is incapacitated.

Basic income is a revolutionary idea. It would do away with the concept of unemployment, of being in a State where one gets a fixed sum for maintenance, conditional on not doing anything which earns money and, after a time, having got businesses to write letters telling you that they do not want you.

Basic income would give a subsistence income to every child from birth, just as the present child benefit purports to do, and from the age of 16, The young person would receive an income as a citizen. Then he or she would be free to learn, using the income to pay for their keep at home. This income would continue for life, untaxed, appropriately increased for the old or those incapable of gainful work.

The Minister made reference to cracking down on social welfare fraud. Certainly, we all agree that the gross abuses of the system need to be ruthlessly rooted out. However, excessive zeal has undoubtedly been displayed by certain of the Minister's officials. For example, there is a well documented case that occurred in March of this year when families in Connemara had their dole reduced because they were growing their own vegetables. Presumably the inspector should also investigate people who keep a few hens, bake their own bread and make their own jam and clothes. Where is this going to end? This example of bureaucracy gone mad, illustrates very clearly what unemployment assistance is all about. It is a payment by the State to people provided they do not work, and now it seems that even to provide for themselves by using their own small patch of land to grow a few healthy additions to their diet will be stopped.

Another example of the Department's tunnel vision was the decision some months ago to refuse social welfare to a number of people in west Cork on the grounds that because they were highly qualified people there was no work available for them in the area. The Minister must know as well as I that even highly qualified professional people living in some of the bigger cities cannot find work. I know people in Dublin, qualified barristers, solicitors, teachers, and design artists, who are unable to find gainful employment. This is a fact of life.

The Minister may be interested to note that at a meeting of Dublin County Council on 11 May this year they passed the following resolution:

To urge the Minister for Social Welfare to continue benefits for unemployed people who move from bigger towns and cities to rural areas.

In this connection I would refer the Minister to the unique scheme being run by Mr. Jim Connolly in west Clare. Earlier this year, those involved in the resettlement scheme were invited over the airwaves by the Minister to make application to his Department for funding to allow them continue with the work of rural resettlement. This funding was and is required for administration. They asked for £40,000, a very small sum in this context. To date, they have not been told whether they are getting this funding from the Minister. They urgently require it as their staff are on notice. They have come to the end of their employment because any funding they received to date by way of donations has been exhausted. The up-to-date position about the resettlement scheme is applications have been received from 1,022 families who wish to leave urban areas, mainly the Dublin area. Those involved have managed to assist 65 families to relocate to depopulated areas. The potential for the work of rural resettlement is enormous and it definitely requires Government backing. I appeal to the Minister to have a major rethink about the whole social welfare area.

I am glad of the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Social Welfare Estimate. While I was delayed in heavy traffic through Dublin I listened to the Minister talking about his problems as Minister for Social Welfare. It may be presumptuous of me — that never stopped me before — to say to the Minister that he would be well advised to stay away from the softening-up of the public process until he has specific proposals to put forward. Much fear and concern has been generated. The Minister referred to the widespread view that his proposals to deal with what he saw as a funding crisis in social welfare involved a broad cut in many benefits. He was trying to put that view to rest. The Minister, in drawing attention to his general problems, would be better to do so in the context of a clear set of proposals so that people could react to them and propose modifications, rather than creating this general sense of insecurity. It is particularly hard for people to deal with this. This morning I was at the ceremonial laying of a foundation stone in the university in my constituency and they spoke about the contrast between life in the university world and life for others in the north city area. Those who are very lucky are attending the third level institute while in the community at large unemployment ranges from 60 to 70 per cent.

Families have barely enough to survive. When we question the level of social welfare payments let us bear in mind that a report issued last week showed that people were not able to feed or clothe themselves adequately on current social welfare payments. This should be brought to the forefront in these times of financial stringency. I do not deny that we have to accept responsibility for the changes that will have to be made but our high levels of unemployment are unique. This will continue for another eight to ten years because of the demographic trends but it should ease substantially after that. The Minister is faced with a very real set of limitations due to rising unemployment but we must put down a marker that present social welfare levels do not provide people with sufficient means and that people are seriously under-clothed and under-fed.

Families, who should be able to relax during the summer are already faced with the difficulty of finding money to entertain their children in addition to the burden of trying to put something by for school books and school clothes. That is the reality of life.

While considering the budgetary problems of the Department of Social Welfare, we have to remember the people who are dependent on social welfare. The number is uniquely large but that is the challenge facing the Department. The security of those in receipt of social welfare should not be lightly interfered with.

I am very concerned about a number of changes introduced this year. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions and our spokesperson, Deputy Connaughton, identified the major deterioration in the social insurance benefits. The Minister suggests that one way to deal with the funding problem is by increasing PRSI contributions.

I am particularly concerned about one group, who have hit the headlines in the past few weeks, those who will be affected by the drop in alleviating payments. They have had a benefit that others have not enjoyed but for any family on low income, and many of those affected would be double social welfare recipients, the loss of £12 is enormous — in some cases it is almost 12 per cent of their income. I accept that this has been forced on the Minister by Europe because if he were to continue the payment for men, it would have to be applied to women and I can see that this puts him in a dilemma. It had been planned to phase out this payment but now families will have to face this huge drop overnight and this will cause very real problems. I wonder if these families will be assisted through the supplementary welfare scheme in the short term? I do not think we can turn our back on these people because they never understood what was happening to them under the equal pay provisions.

While we have talked about our employment problem we have not come to terms with our unique position. More young people come on to the labour market each year. We will have to face this problem for the next eight to ten years and we need to take exceptional measures during this period. Fine Gael recently published proposals to deal with the jobs crisis. Our party spokesperson, Deputy Connaughton, outlined our proposals for the long term unemployed. We need to take a targeted approach to the problem. We also need to be flexible, as Deputy Garland suggested, with people who can find a little extra work. We also have to create incentives for people to take up low paid work so that they can get themselves out of the social welfare trap. People on social welfare are not living in clover but low paid work presents a very real problem for them.

We claim to cherish our children but we have the worst record in Europe in terms of supporting children either through the social welfare or tax system. Our child benefit payments and child supports are seriously inadequate and the level of payments has been virtually frozen over the past eight to ten years. It has been identified that families with children, whether the parents are in work or out of work, suffer most from poverty. We will have to deal with this problem.

If we wish to have an adequate social welfare system I agree with the Minister when he says we will have to put more into it. This means that the money has to come from tax or higher contributions, and I personally would be happy with that.

I am very concerned about the changes in the 1992 Social Welfare Act as it affects maternity benefit and other benefits for women. Those who give up employment voluntarily will be disallowed unemployment benefit for a period of nine weeks. Prior to this, benefit was disallowed for the first six weeks, but I know that in many cases even though it is supposed to be a voluntary giving up of work, it is involuntary, as people have very little choice.

What happens to these people in the intervening nine weeks, if they have no other income? Can they apply for supplementary welfare benefit if they are forced out of employment by intolerable circumstances although it was ultimately voluntary? I hope the Minister will get an opportunity to reply to my question. Will those people be considered? How are they, and their families, to survive?

This month's publication of Relate by the NSSB makes very sad reading. With the exception of some improvements for old age pensioners by the removal of anomalies, the publication contains a list of reductions, limits in benefits and extensions of time for qualification. The Minister needs to seriously rethink his approach to the social welfare budget. I respectfully ask him to look carefully at the Fine Gael proposals. I hope that some day — after listening to the news at lunchtime, perhaps it will be in the very near future — we will have an opportunity to influence such policies.

Acting Chairman

Before I ask the Minister to conclude the debate, there are five minutes provided in which Members may request the Minister to clarify specific issues or ask specific questions, which he can take on board in his response. The Minister will have ten minutes to respond.

I should like to ask the Minister whether the Estimate includes a provision for the payment of the four years' arrears of unemployment benefit due to the 26 Drogheda dockers who won their case in the High Court. Several months have now elapsed but they have received no payment. I was unable to get that information from the Department.

(Carlow-Kilkenny): I had thought that as the Minister was making his contribution we would be able to interrupt him to seek clarification. We have made our contributions but we do not know what the Minister is going to say.

Will the Minister clarify the issue I raised concerning the children's allowance for widows? What will happen during the summer? Will that allowance be paid whether or not letters are provided?

I should like the Minister to clarify the position in relation to a specific issue I raised. What happens during the six to nine week period in which people are disqualified from benefit as a result of leaving employment voluntarily in the event that they have no other means of support, that is, when people do not have substantial savings or have a dependent family? In this regard, I am referring to low-income earners who could not reasonably be expected to have accrued substantial savings. I accept the stand-down period in the instance of a bank manager who left work in temper, for example. Will average employees who have left employment voluntarily be entitled to claim supplementary welfare assistance in those circumstances?

I wish to thank the Deputies who contributed to the debate. Whether praising or upbraiding the Minister, their contributions were very interesting. Many of the issues raised were also brought to my attention during the debate on the Social Welfare Bill. I should like to tell Deputy Bell that the judgment in the High Court case is being studied in my Department. In my view it would come under the provisions for unemployment benefit. As the Deputy knows, we have to guess the amount to be paid out in unemployment benefit at the start of the year. I shall check with my officials as to the position with regard to that court case. I remember the case well and Deputy Bell claiming privately, as he was the person who advised on that case, credit for beating the system. The case he made was correct. The Department of Social Welfare are involved in many court cases; some are won and some are lost.

I have read of the outcome of the case and I presume those involved will be paid as soon as possible. The payment of such arrears should not create any great difficulty because the provision made for unemployment benefit every year is a guesstimate.

I was interested to hear Deputy Browne ask about the payment of children's allowance over the summer months. I was not aware that the requirements were different from those of 1991. I shall have that matter checked because that kind of nonsense costs more in administration expenses than is ever saved, despite the legal requirement on the Department to protect the funds and so on. This seems to be much ado about very little. The Deputy said there was one set of requirements for one year, a change was made the following year and more changes were made the next year. That strikes me as ridiculous; there should be a more uniform approach.

Deputy Flaherty asked for clarification of the position when people voluntarily leave employment. Those people are disqualified for a certain period. They would be entitled to go to their community welfare officer for assistance under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. The purpose of that allowance is to have a place of last resort for people in exceptional need. Payment in such cases depends on the decisions of the superintendent community welfare officer. The scheme makes provision for people in dire need and those who do not have sufficient money to cope with an unexpected event. It should be able to facilitate those people described by Deputy Flaherty.

Many points were made during the debate and I should like to deal briefly with some of them.

On a point of order, how much of the five minutes provided for questions remains? I should like to put a query in relation to one specific matter.

Acting Chairman

Perhaps the House will be flexible on that. Is that agreed? Agreed.

In relation to the alleviating payment I referred to, could the Minister say how many people were in receipt of that payment and what is being saved as a result of the elimination of it?

I should like to deal with the alleviation payment in general. Almost all Deputies who spoke referred to the alleviation payment. On the Adjournment debate of Tuesday, 30 June Deputy Byrne raised the issue. I also replied to questions about the payment and I have spoken about the issue on many occasions. My Department have gone to much trouble to distribute information on this matter.

As I explained during the Adjournment debate last week, the whole issue — as Deputy Flaherty rightly pointed out — goes back to the implementation of the EC equality directive. If the Government of the day had made the payment on time——

And the previous Government.

It should have been implemented in 1984 but it was not implemented until 1986. That is where the crux arose.

There was still a difference in levels and that was the real crux.

When the equal treatment measures were implemented a severe reduction in income would have resulted for some social welfare recipients. I did not realise that Deputy Bell was involved as his party's spokesman in getting the Minister of the time to provide for the alleviation payments but I can recall many crises concerning votes at that time. There was trouble between the coalition partners on the issue and I recall votes at midnight when people were not too sure whether the Government would survive. I recall that because the prospect of an early election certainly concentrates the minds of all Deputies.

When the alleviating payments were introduced there were 29,000 people in receipt of the benefit and the level of payment started at £20 and £10. Over the years the payments were whittled down to £12 and £6. The Government were brought before the European Court on many occasions regarding equal treatment and they have provided £60 million to pay the arrears over the next three years, roughly at the rate of £20 million per year.

As I pointed out recently the crux of the matter is that the alleviating payments have been found to be in breach of equal treatment and if I did not abolish them the whole package of £60 million would be in danger. There will be a legal problem if these payments are not discontinued. Maybe in the past we did not take European decisions as seriously as we now do. I intend paying the arrears which will cost the State a substantial amount of money; there are threats of court cases if we do not pay this money and such payments will solve the problem once and for all. Over the years, alleviating payments have been whittled down but I accept that people had got used to a certain income. We should remember that many of the people who received alleviating payments will also qualify for the arrears package which, in some cases, will amount to £1,300 or £1,400 this year. If this problem had been dealt with in the mid-eighties it would have been far better. As I said, the alleviating payments have been found to be in contravention of equal treatment and I must discontinue them.

Since I came to office many Deputies — inside and outside the House — have said I am attacking the social insurance fund principle. I want to dispel a few myths. The social insurance fund is not self-financing; the Exchequer will make up the deficit this year of approximately £143 million. If Deputies make the case that the existing automatic entitlements should continue in the social insurance fund area, the logical extension of that argument is that the fund should be self-financing. However, if it is to be self-financing, without touching the area of automatic entitlements, one option is to increase the income of the fund which, naturally, means an increase in contributions. The only other option is to raise the ceiling limits. We cannot have it both ways, as we like to do in this country, particularly in relation to politics.

The small changes which I made in the Social Welfare Act, 1992, resulted in a saving to the Exchequer of about £15 million, much less than 1 per cent of the total growth expenditure of my Department this year. In regard to treatment benefit, I proposed an earnings limit whereby people earning over £25,000 do not qualify. I have not yet framed the regulations but I will consider the points made by Deputies that such a cut-off point would be unfair in regard to single income families. The regulations will be announced very shortly and will take account of that. In 1987 wives of insured workers were supposed to receive free dental benefit and people like Deputy Barnes, who had fought for such a concession for years, considered it a great victory. However, the snag was that we could not find a dentist to operate it. I suppose we could have gone on for donkeys' years congratulating ourselves on this victory even though no one could avail of treatment. We had to solve the dispute with the dentists and we did. When I have to fund a system of this kind I must consider the lower paid and a person earning more than £25,000 should be able to pay for their own treatment.

Deputy Connaughton referred to part-time workers and pay-related benefit. That system has existed for a long time in regard to people working for only three days per week. However, it has not been extended to people who work alternate weeks. I justified all my decisions in these areas during the discussion on the Social Welfare Act. However, some sections of the media — and indeed politicians— are giving the impression that I did not implement benefits in any area. I made improvements in the areas of automatic entitlement and income ceilings and I did not cut benefits. Nor, as far as I can recall — until today — did I ever use the word "cutbacks". I have always said that the gross level of expenditure on social welfare increases daily; we now pay out £9 million per day, two years ago it amounted to about £7 million. In the short term, unemployment will not dramatically decrease by 100,000 people, we might as well be realistic about that. We have a very high level of unemployment and a high level of dependency, which is increasing faster than in any other country.

Economies stronger than ours all over Europe have found that systems cannot remain the same. I have never said that I would cut back benefits but that we must be prepared to face reality to protect the elderly who are dependent on pensions and those on social welfare. If it is necessary to make slight adjustments in the area of automatic entitlements I will certainly do so. Perhaps people who have been brought up with this system — including the Department — trade unionists and others may say that this has been a great system. One might as well say that the black and white television system was great but, nowadays, most people have a colour set.

This is like going back to the days of black and white television.

Times change and we must change with them. We must be realistic about the sums paid through the social welfare system. One does not need to be a genius to work out that it will cost more. We must work out how we can fund it and protect people on the lowest level of income who are totally dependent on it. There is no point in making flowery speeches about the wonderful system in the past and defending it forever. That is nonsense and unrealistic. The tendency in this country is not to face reality, personally, politically or in regard to business. We are inclined to wait until the ship is scuttled before we do anything about it.

I am prepared to face reality and to defend and protect the people who depend on my Department. If that means adjusting certain schemes of automatic entitlement or targeting others I am prepared to do it. I have never said I will cut benefits across the board, that is unrealistic. I do not mind people criticising me but criticism should be based on factual information. People should not read meanings into my remarks which I did not intend. Perhaps other politicians give the impression that while they say one thing they mean another. When I say something I mean it. In my tenure as Minister for Social Welfare I hope to reflect that thinking.

Vote put.
A division being demanded, the taking of the division was postponed until 8.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 7 July 1992, in accordance with the order of the Dáil of this day.
The Dáil adjourned at 2 p.m. until 12 noon on Tuesday, 7 July 1992.
Top
Share