I was talking earlier about the removal of third level students from the unemployment assistance register during holiday periods. There are currently 78,000 third level students, of whom 66,000 find alternative means of getting by during the summer months. Some of them find employment in Ireland and others work abroad. We should welcome the fact that some of our students benefit from experience abroad. My daughter is going to the United States and I can see nothing but good coming from that. Certainly I would not frown on it. Many families have sufficient means to cater for students during the holiday period. Some of them find that grants and loans will get them by. The students seeking unemployment assistance are very much in the minority. Some students are already in receipt of benefits, for example, disabled students and lone parents. Is this much ado about nothing and is it worth cutting off students from unemployment assistance?
As somebody who has taught in a regional college for many years, I am aware that the system was abused by students. Students from areas removed from regional technical colleges and universities claimed that they were living in these centres of population during the holiday period and sought not only unemployment assistance but a rent subsidy. This action could not be condoned if such students could be well catered for at home. There are, however, large numbers of students who find it difficult because of parental circumstances to survive on grants and student loans.
The Minister has indicated that if students want to receive unemployment assistance, schemes will have to be devised which will involve work. I see great merit in that suggestion. There must be liaison between the universities, the regional technical colleges and community groups. There is a wealth of experience and expertise among students which could be of benefit to local communities during the summer. We should look at the matter in a threefold way. The universities and the regional colleges should be asked to liaise with local bodies and community groups and to seek suggestions for projects suited to the skills of students.
Many of our students will become teachers and there is a great opportunity for them during the summer months to ply their trade in summer play schemes. Architectual students should be asked to look at a local village or suburb and to bring their expertise to bear in devising a scheme of improvement. This would be helpful to the local authorities and to community groups. A large number of students are involved in learning languages. There is a great opportunity for the State, the universities and the community to become involved in promoting language learning during the summer.
There is a problem with the suggested amount of payment. How can the Minister ask a student to work for five days and earn only £53 while an unemployed person on a social employment scheme would receive double that amount? That aspect of the scheme must be reconsidered. It has great merit but much more thought will have to be given to it.
I refer to section 22 of the Bill. Section 204 of the Consolidation Act, 1981 states categorically that the chief executive officer of a health board is the deciding officer in relation to supplementary welfare allowance. My experience is that many of the chief executive officers have conferred that right on the superintendent of community care. There is a contradiction here. Section 22 states that where somebody is found defrauding the system that person is to be cut off for nine weeks and will not be entitled to supplementary welfare benefit for that period, except for an adult dependant and a child dependant. Am I right in saying that the deciding officer of the Department of Social Welfare is now usurping the powers of a chief executive officer in a health board? Is this in fact legal under the Consolidation Act 1981? What happens, for instance, when a deciding officer disqualifies a person on the grounds of fraud? Can the chief executive officer of the health board quite legitimately state that there are exceptional circumstances here and he is using his prerogative to make a supplementary welfare payment to this particular person? I am sure the chief executive officer will say he has every right to do so. I would cite also the case of a single person who is cut off by a deciding officer. Who is to feed that person for nine weeks? Why are we closing every door? Will that person be easy pickings for a loan shark? Would such a person not be fed in prison and get an allowance? Surely a caring Minister should look at this provision again. At the end of the day why would the rigours of the law not be appropriate in circumstances where somebody perpetrates fraud?
Section 12 deals with interruption of employment. Up to now we have been calculating the interruption period from 6 April to 5 April in the following year. What is suggested in the Bill is that from here on the interruption period will be calculated from the day of the interruption so that a person could have spent 300 days and now find himself entitled to only 12 days. I see that there is a hidden difficulty here that will only manifest itself down the road and that the Minister, and each of us as TDs, will be ballyragged about it because the Minister is removing a major benefit to people on disability benefit. Surely the difficulty lies with the general practitioner who certifies the person as being sick. Maybe we should be looking at GPs who are certifying people. If there is fraud out there it is on the basis of people being certified as being sick when that is not the case. If that is so, it is the GPs around the country we should be looking at and not individuals.