Deputy Harney is confusing matters in criticising the Taoiseach on the decision not to take parliamentary questions during the summer recess. He referred this morning to the best way in which a person could carry out research during the Dáil recess. The extract from which she quoted relates to the role of the Opposition in keeping a Government accountable for policy decisions and actions. They are two distinct roles. If we are to have a serious debate on accountability, openness and transparency we should distinguish between what are essentially the blood sport antics that can emerge about Question Time and the real need to make a Government accountable, open and transparent.
It is unfair to judge the Government simply on its performance in the House. I have had many years of experience in Opposition and Ministers in this Government have given far more open, detailed and transparent replies than was my experience when I tabled questions to previous Ministers, both in the Progressive Democrats Party and the Fianna Fáil Party. One should also consider the manner in which the Government does its daily business. When initiating new policies my Department engaged in a wide range of consultation with non-governmental organisations and the voluntary sector. On my own initiative I offered, on a number of occasions, to go before the Select Committee on Social Affairs to discuss major reports produced by my Department or other agencies. If we are to have a balanced debate on the question of transparency, openness and accountability, we should examine the total package and operations of the Government and not narrow the focus to parliamentary questions.
This debate provides the opportunity to review the work of the past year and to look to the tasks ahead. In common with all Government Departments, the annual Estimates of the Department of Social Welfare for 1996 were framed against a background of a successful and well-managed economy.
Sensible and effective management of the national finances coupled with the support of European Structural and Development Funds have brought about the creation of a significant number of new jobs. Inflation is low and stable. Short-term interest rates are at their lowest levels for 20 years and mortgage rates are at their lowest for 30 years. This makes the pound in the pocket more valuable and leaves more for discretionary spending or saving.
There is another side to the coin. Side by side with a successful economy, we also have an unacceptably high number of people living on the margins and excluded from participating fully in our society. While economic success can be measured through indicators like interest rates and inflation rates the real measure of our success will lie in the extent to which we can ensure that the fruits of a successful economy are shared by all sections of society and not confined to those fortunate enough to be in secure, well-paid employments.
The Estimates for my Department for 1996 amount to more than £2.6 billion. When the additional amount of some £1.7 billion which will be provided this year by employers, employees and the self-employed by way of PRSI contributions is taken into account, the full extent of social welfare spending in Ireland this year adds up to £4.35 billion.
Some 900,000 people are in receipt of weekly payments from the Department of Social Welfare and nearly one-and-a-half million people, including dependants, benefit from these. More than £1 billion pounds a year goes directly to supporting families, more than £1 billion to pensioners and a similar sum to the unemployed. Of course, much of the expenditure that goes to the unemployed, to pensioners, and to people who are ill, helps to support families. Some 315,000 children are dependent on recipients of pensions, disability and unemployment payments. In addition, child benefit is paid monthly to nearly half a million families.
The Department of Social Welfare does far more than dispense weekly and monthly payments. It supplies vital employment support services and assists many voluntary and community groups. It also makes an impact on the labour market through the social insurance system, which provides a range of entitlements for insured workers, through the family income supplement which supports low-paid workers, and through the way in which it assists unemployed workers. This impact on the labour market is being enhanced substantially by the pro-employment measures we have introduced over the last year and I intend to continue to make improvements of this kind.
In framing this year's budget, we had two primary objectives in mind in the social welfare area. First, we set out to consolidate the gains achieved in 1995 by again providing for substantial increases in child benefit and by providing for increases in general social welfare payments considerably in excess of inflation. Second, we set out to tackle the problem of long-term unemployment through a cohesive and imaginative package of measures, intended to enable people to participate actively in the labour market.
Our social welfare system must be flexible and capable of responding to the changing nature of work today. It is not enough for the system to provide income support to those in need; it must also be capable of providing a springboard for those seeking to enter or reenter the labour market. In this context, I turn now to the recently published report of the expert working group on the integration of the tax and social welfare systems.
This report recognises the fundamental importance of balancing the need to maintain a strong and transparent incentive to work with the equally important objective of ensuring an adequate income for all. An important feature of the report is the statement of the principles underlying its recommendations which the expert group consider should be a guide to future policy: there must be a reward for working; the transition to work should be facilitated; tax on the lower paid should be reduced; the tax and social welfare systems should be simpler and tax and social welfare reforms should be coordinated.
In charting options for future reforms, the report provides a highly significant contribution to public debate in this area. It makes it clear there is no panacea to the problems we face and goes on to identify where our main priorities must lie. The report identifies reform of child income support and tax reform as two of the key issues to be tackled.
This Government has already taken steps to reduce some of the disincentive effects associated with the current structure of child income support. We have improved child benefit and reduced the relative importance of child dependant allowances, an approach which is endorsed and recommended by the expert group.
The group's report makes it clear that reform of child income support must continue, although it did not recommend one approach over another. Instead it put forward a number of different ways in which the overall system of child income could be improved, highlighting the advantages of each approach. The Government will look at these options very carefully, to develop the best strategy for continuing reform in this area.
The expert group also signaled the need to pay attention to the taxation of people on low incomes. This Government has already made some progress on reducing the tax burden. In the past two budgets, the personal tax allowance for a married couple has increased by £600; the general exemption for a married couple has also been so increased by £600 in the two years. Substantial progress has also been made on widening the tax bands.
The integration group also dealt with the issue of PRSI, a subject close to my heart and one on which my Department has been for some time preparing a discussion document. I was pleased to see the group reach a consensus on the need to maintain the contributory principle which forms the basis of the social insurance system and is a fundamental principle for the trade union movement and many others in our society, although obviously not for the Progressive Democrats if we are to accept what their leader said here today, and what they have said in their published policy documents. I agree with the group's recommendation that both the employers' and employees' contribution should be retained and that it should continue to be based on earnings. I also endorse its recommendation that the principle of an Exchequer contribution to the social insurance fund should be maintained to reflect a commitment to social solidarity. In recent years, social insurance contributions from employers, employees and self-employed have met almost all of the cost of social insurance payments. However, the remainder continues to be met by the Exchequer and this residual contribution will not necessarily be static. For demographic and other reasons, it is low at present, but we have to be prepared for it to rise again.
The level of Exchequer funding of the overall social welfare system is a very significant expression of social solidarity by the general taxpayer. It amounts to the equivalent of more than half the yield from income taxes each year. Any reductions in PRSI contributions by employers, employees, or the self-employed would have to be converted directly into increases in taxation, in order to meet the Exchequer's increased obligations to the social insurance fund. For this reason, changes in PRSI cannot be viewed in isolation from general tax reform, and the long-term implications of major adjustments in PRSI must be studied very carefully indeed.
As already mentioned, I will publish a discussion document on social insurance shortly as a contribution to public debate on these issues. The information and analysis it contains, together with the views of the integration group in this matter, will form essential reading for serious commentators as well as for policy makers and I trust both documents will receive widespread attention.
I must respond again to Deputy Harney on this matter. I fail to understand why the leader of any political party would stand up in this House and criticise a Government for undertaking serious analysis of problems, for preparing serious reports on these problems and for presenting them to the public and the Dáil for discussion to seek the best way forward.
The idea that Deputy Harney seems to promote is that one should go into a darkened room on one's own, look into one's heart and come up with a solution with regard to the facts.
In addition to its practical support for workers, pensioners and families, the Department of Social Welfare plays a significant and increasing role in developing policies and strategies for long-term social and economic development. It is responsible for three important organisations — the Pensions Board, the Combat Poverty Agency and the National Social Service Board — each of which contributes to policy formation and planning for important aspects of society's present and future needs.
In the past year the Government, on foot of my proposals, has established a national anti-poverty strategy and a Commission on the Family. Under the strategy, a detailed assessment of the institutional and other changes required to overcome poverty is being carried out. The Commission on the Family is considering the future role of the Government in relation to families, given the many changes that have been taking place in Irish family life and the need for an integrated strategy to strengthen and assist all families to function effectively in future. It will make an interim report to Government in October of this year and a final report in June 1997.
As with any Government, there have been issues in the past year that might have been handled differently, especially with the benefit of hindsight, but in general the Government is successfully tackling old problems avoided by Fianna Fáil Administrations and new issues that inevitably arise. The commitment by this Government, by all Ministers and by each of the three party leaders to discussion, consultation and consensus is what distinguishes this Government from many of its predecessors and is the key to its success.
Through this way of working, we have been able to tackle change without the sort of bitter infighting that led to the fall of the past two Governments, and, as I have said on several occasions, the dynamics of a three-party Government, as opposed to a two-party Government, are positively conducive to political stability and effective decision-making.
This Government has much to be proud of. We have introduced the biggest ever increases in child benefit to the direct benefit of half a million families. We have ended the disgraceful discrimination against married women in social welfare with £260 million being paid out to 70,000 women. Long-term unemployment has been put at the top of the national economic agenda with a major programme of job initiatives put in place in the last budget; it is also being placed at the top of the European agenda by us during our Presidency of the EU.
More than 600 net new jobs have been created every week that this Government has been in office. Inflation has been kept under control and mortgage rates are at their most sustained low levels for 30 years; everyone is better off, in real terms, as a result. Tens of thousands of low-paid workers have been taken out of the tax net. A successful referendum was held to remove the constitutional ban on divorce. Legislation for abortion information was introduced.
We continued with the firm, balanced, and effective approach to the peace process. While a major review of the Constitution is under way, we have also revamped the public housing programme. That is only a small sample of the Government's achievements.
As a Government, we inherited the guardianship of the peace process. We have carried that process forward with energy, commitment and good faith, and considerable success, for example in commencing multi-party talks. From the outset, the Government decided on a balanced and even-handed approach that took account of the fears and aspirations of both Nationalists and Unionists. We gave no succour to triumphalism — on any side.
We did not seek to champion the cause of one side over the other because the resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict lies not in notions of victory or defeat, but in the reaching of an accommodation between nationalism and unionism, the two conflicting allegiances at the heart of the problem. We recognise that there are other dimensions to the problem that must be, and are being, addressed. We are fully aware that the parameters of the Northern Ireland problem extend to the Republic of Ireland and into Britain, but the Anglo-Irish war is over for generations and there is no conflict, real or imagined, between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. IRA bomb attacks in London or Manchester, bomb factories in Laois, or mortar attacks in Osnabruck do not serve the cause of Ireland however one cares to define it.
Rather they compound the problem and add to the toll of human misery. The armed struggle, as it is called, is morally wrong and no amount of IRA propaganda, Sinn Féin hypocrisy or graveyard orations long on personal abuse and short on reason can make it right.
Níl aon amhras ach go bhfuil teannas idir an pholataíocht agus an claonadh míleata laistigh den nGluaiseacht Poblachtach. Bhí sé amhlaidh i gcónaí. Tá an saol míleata bunaithe ar cheannas agus ar chinnteacht, caitear órdaithe a chur i gcríoch, gan ceist. In eadansin tá an saol polaitiúil bunaithe ar chomhráití agus ar chomghéilleadh; deintear cur agus cúiteamh ar na fadhbanna agus níl aon fórsa i gceist seachas fórsa na haragóna.
Tá Gluaiseacht na Poblachta tugtha don bhfoirneart le fada an lá. Ní ghlacann lucht an tradisiún go fonnmhar leis an athrú, agus níl an meoin míleata ar a shuaimhneas le bunluacha an daonlathais. In ainneoin sin, ní foláir don IRA glacadh le buncheart na síochána, atá ag muintir na hÉireann agus na Breataine.
The people of this island want an end to IRA violence, once and for all. Peace is their sovereign right and it cannot be denied them. Sinn Féin has a choice to make: it is the choice between democracy and violence, a choice between representing their electorate or continuing to play front end of a pantomime horse to the IRA's rear-end.
The time for prevarication is over. Likewise, the time for pretence is over. Sinn Féin cannot pretend to be merely a distant cousin of the IRA when it is intimately associated with, and acts as a mouthpiece for, that organisation. Sinn Féin cannot shout, "Up the IRA", in Bodenstown on a Sunday and act the innocent on a Monday. If Gerry Adams could tell us that they have not "gone away you know", he can at least tell us if he has asked the IRA to go away.
The negotiations are under way. Progress has been made, although it has been slow, but it is important to recognise that the negotiations do have the potential to lead to an agreement. It will not be as easy. A peaceful and democratic accommodation requires that politicians on all sides should turn their backs on the rancour and suspicion of the past. In seeking to overcome past divisions, existing differences should be acknowledged and every effort made to overcome them. The approach of politicians should be based on a willingness to compromise and on a recognition that there can be no agreement without compromise. The capacity to do so is beginning to emerge on Stormont Castle.
Terrible events have occurred in recent weeks that have highlighted the nature of crime in our society. A new generation of ruthless, professional criminals has emerged in recent years. Irish society has been rightly shocked by the extent of their criminality and by the level of violence they are prepared to employ in order to protect their interests. Some of them have enjoyed the status of celebrities in sections of the media while others have been subjected to more rigorous scrutiny, but they have now signalled, in the most brutal fashion, that they want no more media attention.
The media has declared that it will not be intimidated. This Government will defend freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Likewise, we will make it clear that there is no freedom to rob, murder, or main in this State. Crime is a serious problem and the Government treats it seriously. We are committed to ensuring that the elderly are able to live in safety and security, that women can walk safely on our streets, that communities are enabled to live free of the daily debris of drug abuse and crime on their doorsteps.
As a society we have to confront both the culture of criminality and a certain residual ambivalence towards the law and its agencies. The murders of Garda Jerry McCabe and Veronica Guerin were appalling crimes in themselves, but they were also attacks on the institutions of this democratic Irish State. We cannot, and will not, tolerate such attacks.
The anti-crime package announced by the Government this week is a coordinated and reflective response to the situation. Organised crime demands a response from Government, on behalf of the people, which is different in both degree and kind from the response required for individual crimes, even individual serious crimes. The Government's response is based on better detection, better deterrence and better prevention. That is a more effective and responsible approach than declaring a fatwa on organised crime.
Criminals today, of course, operate internationally and that is why the Government has made tackling crime a major plank of the EU Presidency. We are determined that significant progress will be made towards ratification of the Europol convention so that there will be common action to deal with a common problem.
We are seeking to place pro-employment measures and measures to combat poverty at the centre of the European treaties. If the citizens of Europe are to remain committed to, and continue to identify with, the European Union, then Treaty revisions will have to deal with issues of real relevance to ordinary men, women, and children. Jobs, a good standard of living, adequate levels of social protection and equality of opportunity are universal concerns. If we fail to maintain and develop our tradition of social solidarity at both national and European levels we are left with a framework of Government which accommodates itself to the unchecked demands and priorities of big business, whatever they might be at any given time. Europe must, and can be, more than that.
