Vol. 534 No. 3
36 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the initiatives taken by his Department to support unemployed workers and their families in view of the impact of the foot and mouth disease crisis on employment in the food industry, event management, tourism, the film industry and other services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10491/01]
38 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if he will report on special arrangements put in place to support immigrant workers temporarily displaced from work by the foot and mouth disease crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10493/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 36 and 38 together.
My objective in the foot and mouth disease crisis has been to ensure that my Department's services provide a speedy and effective response to our customers both in the areas most affected and nationally. My Department is also co-operating with the other State agencies involved to ensure that a co-ordinated and effective response is made by all agencies in the present situation.
Employees who are laid off as a result of foot and mouth disease may qualify for unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance subject to satisfying the usual conditions for receipt of payment. A full-time worker who is laid off due to a cessation of work would normally satisfy the statutory conditions of being available for full-time work and genuinely seeking work. Consequently, he or she would qualify for an unemployment payment subject to satisfying either the contribution conditions for receipt of unemployment benefit or the means test for receipt of unemployment assistance.
In regard to lay-offs arising from the crisis, deciding officers in my Department's local offices would have regard to the temporary nature of the lay-offs, to the expectation that employment will be resumed once relevant restrictions are eased or lifted and to the fact that, in the circumstances, the persons concerned may not have had an opportunity to consider other employment opportunities.
Persons whose self-employment has ceased due to foot and mouth disease may also qualify for unemployment assistance for the duration of the lay-off. As this payment is subject to a means test, income from all sources is taken into account in the assessment.
In the event that a person does not qualify for an unemployment payment, he or she can apply for supplementary welfare allowance at the local health centre and the application will be determined on the basis of the person's present circumstances and immediate needs. I have initiated a range of special measures to facilitate people who need to avail of my Department's services at this time, in order to streamline the process to the greatest possible extent. In addition, I established a special task force to review the range of responses required in the areas most directly affected by this crisis in County Louth. The task force is overseeing a number of practical measures to address this situation and will report to me shortly in regard to the full range of activities required to address this issue. A considerable number of the measures already indicated by the task force and discussed with local groups have already been put in place.
A non-EEA national who has been allowed into the State to take up employment on foot of a work permit would not, in the event of becoming unemployed, satisfy the statutory condition of being available for employment and would not, therefore, have an entitlement to an unemployment payment. The work permit issued by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment confines a non-EEA national to employment with a specific named employer. This condition of the work permit implies a restriction on the availability for work of the person concerned.
My officials are involved in ongoing discussions with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to see whether some mechanism can be put in place to allow non-EEA nationals to qualify for an unemployment payment in the event of involuntary unemployment. A non-EEA national may, however, be entitled to supplementary welfare allowance where his or her means are insufficient to meet his or her needs.
On Question No. 36, will the Minister indicate the number of people in receipt of UA and UB as a direct result of the foot and mouth disease crisis? Will he further indicate what he expects this figure to rise to by the end of 2001? Does the Minister agree with the President and General Secretary of SIPTU that the real impact of the crisis will only become clear in the coming months as holiday bookings continue to be cancelled? A conference which was supposed to take place in a nearby hotel in the last few days has been cancelled. People such as chefs, waiters and so on working in the tourism industry will be laid off and there will be a further downturn in the food industry. Will the Minister agree that this will be a problem in the coming months?
Will he agree with the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed who carried out a very interesting survey of employment exchanges which seemed to indicate that a few weeks ago over half the offices had not received specific instructions to be flexible? Will he agree the three day rule, in particular, is very harsh on workers affected by the foot and mouth crisis because one receives no payment for the first three days after signing on? All one can hope for in the first week is approximately £38. Will the Minister agree that his track record in this regard is very bad? This time last year I asked him specifically about problems being faced by seasonal workers in the south-west region of Cork and Kerry. Lollipop men and women wished to receive payments during the time they were off school and seasonal workers wished to receive payments during the slack period. At that stage, officials of the Minister's Department were strictly enforcing the regulations, and this is how he is now reacting.
I do not agree with the Deputy's latter point that there has been a change in the interpretation of the regulations. As a result of the economic policy of this Government in particular, it is a fact that jobs have been available in recent years, which was not the case a number of years ago. There is an onus on officials of my Department when considering cases of people who may be laid off at different periods during the year to ensure taxpayers' money is not paid to people who could perhaps take up employment.
Family circumstances.
I do not accept what the Deputy said in this regard. I will repeat what I said in regard to these issues during our discussions at the committee meeting last week. The guidelines drawn up in regard to genuinely seeking work and being available for work are exactly the same as the guidelines proposed by my predecessor, Deputy De Rossa.
This is a crisis.
When I took up office four years ago, I merely signed off on the regulations that had been prepared. My deciding officers, who are independent of me – I do not make the decisions on whether one should receive unemployment benefit – have been instructed to take into consideration the circumstances of people laid off as a result of the foot and mouth outbreak. The experience throughout all our offices has been that a very sympathetic approach is being adopted by officials. They fully accept that people laid off as a result of the foot and mouth crisis would not be in a position to seek other work at this time. I do not accept what the Deputy has said because that direction has been given to all the offices. There has been a comprehensive response in regard to all these issues, whether unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance or farm assist. In relation to farm assist, in order to assist farmers throughout the country, partic ularly in my area, we have eased the situation in relation to the means test to ensure the payment is not based on the accounts of the previous year but on current circumstances, which is a big change.
The figures for unemployment assistance amount to 140, excluding Louth, nine for farm assist, 636 for unemployment benefit and six others, totalling 791. In County Louth, which has the highest unemployment benefit assistance and farm assist, 150 people have applied, including 35 for unemployment assistance, 56 unemployment benefit and, because of the situation in the Cooley Peninsula, 59 farm assist, bringing the total throughout the country for farm assist to 68. These are all claims, a proportion of which may not necessarily be paid at this time.
On non-EEA nationals, is it not extraordinary that just last year, at the height of the Celtic tiger, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Harney, was encouraging 200,000 plus workers to come to Ireland to take up jobs in the food industry, tourism industry and so on to supplement the workforce due to a 10% growth rate each year during the past three to four years? It is extraordinary that the Minister should come to this House following six weeks of a national crisis and tell these workers that there is no specific facility for them to access social welfare benefits. These people, whom we have all come across in every hostelry and hotel in the city, have served us with distinction and ability. Many of these people work in the meat industry and there are allegations that some of them are not being paid the minimum wage. Conditions are the same despite the raft of measures the Minister, Deputy Harney, and Minister of State, Deputy Kitt—
The Deputy should confine himself to questions.
There are allegations that the raft of worker protection measures I tried to introduce in this House are not being applied to these workers. Following six weeks of a national crisis, the Minister states in this House that there are no plans or no specific safety net for these workers. All he can do is tell them to go to their local clinic to try to draw supplementary welfare benefit. Despite the fact that the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Harney, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, made such a big play of boosting the workforce with workers from outside the EEA – we are very familiar with Latvians and so on – the Minister is stating here today that there is no specific social welfare scheme available for them. Shame on the Minister.
As the Deputy knows, all social welfare schemes are based on legislation and I could not introduce a new scheme in a matter of weeks. It is wrong of him to give the impression that there is no safety net for these people. There is the same safety net for non-EEA nationals as for our own citizens who fail to qualify for social welfare entitlements, which is the supplementary welfare allowance system. This works extremely well because community welfare officers in the health boards have complete discretion to make not just the basic SWA payments, but emergency payments which might be required. That would not necessarily be the case if they were receiving a social welfare payment. From my information, there are not many cases of non-EEA nationals making claims.
We must proceed to Question No. 37, please.
I said already that discussions are taking place between my Department and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
