Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed)

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Deputy Willie O'Dea

I am irreconcilably opposed to this Bill. Not only am I opposed to the unseemly haste with which it is being rammed through this House by the use of the guillotine, I am also fundamentally opposed to its provisions because they form the centrepiece of this Government's third regressive budget in a row.

In the budgetary context, when an adjustment is needed and money is taken out of the economy, a progressive budget would be one which takes more from the rich than from the poor. The three budgets introduced by this Government do precisely the opposite; they have taken more from the poor than from the rich. In this budget there is no pretence whatsoever of progressivity. The comfortable are left comfortable and the afflicted are further afflicted. In other words, the burden falls mainly on those who can least afford it.

We had a well-rehearsed script which was played out in some of the papers last Sunday. The script is familiar to us all now at this stage. I refer particularly to last Sunday's The Sunday Times in which we were told by unnamed Labour sources that it could have been much worse. We learned from The Sunday Times, wherever it got the information, that apparently Fine Gael had proposed a list of cuts to social welfare which, in the words of one Labour source, "would have been awful". Another source with perhaps a better command of the language described the Fine Gael proposals as a nightmare list. That was scene 1. Fine Gael was coming along, as usual, to crush the poor in this country. The scene ended, the curtain came down or whatever and everybody was extremely worried but in scene 2, St. Joan of Arc rode in on her white steed and rescued the poor at the last possible moment. It is a script we are fairly used to but it loses nothing in the retelling. It is running now as long as the "Forsyte Saga". We will be forced to conclude very soon that all those broken promises which got the Labour Party so many votes were almost worth it because they put the Labour Party into power as part of the Government and prevented the wicked, dastardly Blueshirts having their wicked way with the poor in this country.

If the Minister for Social Protection thinks that this Social Welfare and Pensions Bill represents some sort of vindication of her efforts or that she deserves praise for her efforts as a result of producing this Bill, she is sadly deluded. The changes to social welfare payments for those under the age of 26 means that the casual debasement of young people by this Government continues apace. The entire process is being presented as some sort of character-building measure in that if these people's social welfare is cut sufficiently and they are squeezed sufficiently they will be forced out into training, education or employment. It is not a question of lack of jobs or lack of education or training places; it is a lack of ambition. The snide inference is that the young people of Ireland are too lazy or too shiftless to seek out opportunities. They have to be forced out. In fact, it is no longer an inference. Some of the Minister's backbenchers have painted a picture of people lolling on couches watching flat screen television seven nights a week. The clear implication is that those people have to be forced out.

Let us look at the situation in reality in respect of places for training and education. All the experts tell us that 21,000 people under the age of 26 will be affected by these budgetary measures. The number of extra places being provided for those people is just over 3,000. I put a simple question to the Minister. If, for the best reason in the world, someone cannot get a place in training or education, how will more employment be created here by slashing their social welfare? It seems to have entirely escaped the Government's attention that many people who are languishing on social welfare have more than adequate training and education. Some of them are honours graduates with an MA or a PhD, and others are people with professional qualifications. What they lack is opportunities to get employment; they do not need training places. I ask the Minister again, in respect of those people, what is to be gained for the economy of the country or how will it create more employment if the already meagre social welfare payment for those in that category is slashed?

As regards employment opportunities, again, it seems to have escaped the Government's attention that there are 32 applicants for every vacancy. In fact, from my experience in my city I believe that is somewhat understated. As the demographics show, the unemployment problem in this country, particularly among young people, has been outsourced to the four corners of the world.

The thinking behind these provisions in this budget is not that it will help people into education or into a non-existent employment but that it will encourage people to emigrate. It is a fact that emigration is now a fundamental tool of this Government's policy to bring down unemployment figures. The youth cohort as a percentage of the Irish population has decreased from 16% to 12% over recent years. Where are they? They are in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the four corners of the globe, and every measure taken by this Government regarding young people has only one objective, that is, to speed them on their way to the nearest airport.

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed states that the way to prevent young people drifting into long-term unemployment is not to cut their income supports but to have imaginative activation measures that work. We are a very long way from that.

We are not just talking about welfare cuts here. It beggars belief that the Government is now proposing that FÁS apprentices will be asked, for the first time, to pay a pro rata student contribution for the time they spend in institutes of technology. I thought the philosophy behind the Government's proposal was to give people more to encourage them to come out of unemployment. We are talking here about people who have done that, yet the Government is saying it will force them to pay up for the first time. How does one explain, in the context of the Government's philosophy, the decision to remove the €20 per week bonus from long-term unemployed people who decide to get out from in front of the flat screen TV and participate in FÁS, VTOS or Youthreach programmes? Surely this is a disincentive. The Minister is making them worse off for coming out even though her philosophy is to encourage them to come out by making them better off.

The princely sum of €14 million has been ring-fenced for the youth guarantee scheme. All the experts tell me that to have a proper youth guarantee scheme, which will cost approximately €6,500 to €7,000 per head for the unemployed youth, would cost approximately €300 million. I estimate that €14 million would cover about 2,000 places, which I suppose is to be welcomed, but if we look at it in the larger context, with 1,600 people per week emigrating, it will handle emigration for nine or ten days. To add injury to the insult already heaped on this demographic cohort, there is a cut of €1 million for youth work services which are stretched to the limit.

We had a debate on the elderly in this House during the week and I said then much of what I wanted to say on that. Suffice to say that the relentless, continuous, pitiless assault by this Government on the elderly for the past two and a half years is something to behold. I outlined in that debate 17 measures aimed directly at reducing the living standards of the elderly, and that list was not exhaustive. It has now culminated in the slashing of the fuel allowance by a Government that committed in its programme for Government to ending fuel poverty. We have had the removal of the free telephone rental allowance, with all the associated problems of security and isolation that will cause, the slashing of the respite care grant, the continuing slashing of the budget for supplementary welfare allowance and - the final insult - the removal of the bereavement grant. The Minister for Education and Skills thinks there is not enough competition among funeral undertakers. I presume he envisages a situation now whereby somebody who becomes a widow or a widower will engage in some sort of tendering process and invite undertakers to make competitive bids. It is simply a cut, another blow, and source of worry to the elderly in this country.

Maternity benefit has been cut again. The House will recall that last year the Minister for Finance decided that for the first time in the history of the State maternity benefit was to be taxed at the marginal rate.

This year, in addition to that imposition, the basic rate of maternity benefit for 92% of people who receive it is to be reduced by a further €32 per week. That means that in less than 12 months, this Government has taken a total of €3,500 from expectant mothers. The supreme irony is that less than a week before the budget, the expert advisory group on an early years strategy recommended that the period for maternity benefit be extended from six to 12 months. The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Fitzgerald, said she accepted that and would fight for its implementation. Excuse me if I am not brimming with confidence and optimism about the possibility of the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, succeeding in doubling the period of time for maternity benefit seeing as she has presided over such devastating cuts for the period of time for which expectant mothers are paid already. Did pregnant woman cause the crisis in our economy? If not, why does the Government persist in demeaning and devaluing them?

There are many so-called "minor" measures, or at least the Government must consider them minor because one finds them in the footnotes and the accompanying documentation rather than in the main budget announcements. The Minister elaborated a little in her speech on the provision for recovery of illness or injury benefit paid to people who are compensated through the courts or through a settlement for injury suffered. She mentioned the fact this is happening in every other country but in most other countries to which one can point, one has a civil law jurisdiction and a completely different scenario in assessing damages for injury. I warn the Minister that this could have the most profound consequences for people who had to have recourse to social welfare and who are subsequently awarded a sum by way of damages. From what I can gather and from the attitude of the Tánaiste this morning, we will not have time tomorrow to debate it properly.

Deputy Joan Burton

The Deputy was offered the time but turned it down through his Whip.

Deputy Willie O'Dea

Currently, if somebody is forced to rely on illness benefit, the first three days are not paid. The employer is supposed to handle that. That has been extended to six days. There are two possibilities here. If the employer has a sick pay scheme, he or she will have to pony up. This will result on an extra cost on employers at a time when there are 32 applicants for every available job and when the Government is forcing young people to take non-existent jobs. This will do nothing to boost employment - in fact, it will do the reverse. If the employer does not have a sick pay scheme and if he or she is not prepared to pay up, the employee will be left for three further days without social welfare. What is the Labour Party's justification for that? The Minister will surely say the person can go to the community welfare officer if he or she is stuck. Unless he or she goes very early in the year to the community welfare officer, he or she will be referred to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul or some other such society on the basis that the budget has been exhausted.

I refer to a person aged 65 on invalidity pension. Somebody who has reached the age of 65 is not young, and somebody who is getting invalidity pension certainly deserves it. One has to be pretty ill to be awarded invalidity pension. From here on in, a person who reaches the age of 65, who would have been on invalidity pension and would have expected to get €230 per week, will now get €193 per week. What is the justification for that for somebody who is elderly and ill?

I will not dwell on the single parent allowance because it is more a matter for the finance Bill but suffice it to say that it is socially desirable that couples, post separation, should both participate in the welfare and upbringing of their children. This measure will be a disincentive to that. We have already got hundreds of e-mails which demonstrate that.

The changes to lone parent allowance continue apace. The earnings threshold is being reduced again. The age under which the child must be has been changed back to ten years since July. All these changes in regard to lone parents are based on the extraordinary proposition that the less a lone parent has to gain by going to work, the more likely they are to do so.

At the end of the Government's three regressive budgets, one has the following situation. One in six, or 16% of people, are at risk of poverty. This is despite the fact the measurement of risk of poverty - the income from which risk of poverty is determined - has dropped 10% since 2009. Almost one quarter of the population, or 24.5%, experience two or more enforced types of deprivation. The consistent poverty rate is almost 7%. Some 19.5% of children up to the age of 17 are in the risk of poverty category - almost double the OECD average. The basic social welfare payment for a single person is more than €25 per week below the poverty line. If that single person happens to be under 25, one can imagine how far below the poverty line they are.

What really grates is the basic dishonesty which surrounds the whole exercise. As I said before, the budget and the accompanying provisions are a masterpiece of spin. One can see that quite easily if one looks at the accompanying tables which show what one comes out with pre-budget and what one comes out with post-budget, whether young, old, rich, poor, employed, self-employed or whatever. The difference between the two is nil. One is not affected at all. The €2.5 billion adjustment must have come from outer space.

The fact of the matter is that if somebody is under the age of 26 and is now coming into the social welfare system, he or she will be 30% worse off than he or she would otherwise have been. If somebody is claiming maternity benefit after 1 January next year, she will be worse off than she might otherwise have been. Mortgage income supplement, which has virtually been eradicated and on which 13,000 people rely, will be phased out. If one is one of those 13,000 who will experience the first part of the phasing out next year, as night follows day, one will be worse off. If one has three or more children and is getting less child benefit next year, certainly one will be worse off, if mathematics mean anything. If one was relying on the measly allowance of €9.50 per month for the telephone rental, which is suddenly being snatched away, one will be worse off. If one is a working lone parent, one will certainly be worse off. This is not counting people who are paying medical insurance. The older and sicker they are, the more likely it is they will be paying above what the Minister for Finance described as the gold plated level. They will be worse off.

People who will pay property tax at double the rate previously paid will be worse off. People who will pay more for their children at third level will certainly be worse off. People, whether under or over 70, who will lose the medical card will, according to the Government's own figures, be at least €1,000 worse off, or perhaps as much as €1,300. The budget was not neutral despite what the tables suggest.

I am fascinated by the language. Some 92% of people who will receive maternity benefit will get €32 per week less than they would have heretofore. Not unnaturally, they are of the opinion that this is a cut but the Government has said this is not a cut of any kind but a standardisation. People coming into to the social welfare system who are under the age of 26 and who currently would get a certain amount, will get less but that is not a cut. It is simply moving people into a different category.

The whole thing is redolent of the line in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland - "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less". George Orwell invented the term "doublespeak" which is a variant of "newspeak". The essential definition of "newspeak" was that the words one was speaking meant the precise opposite of what they were supposed to mean. The three slogans, which headed up Big Brother's constitution, were: "war is peace", "freedom is slavery" and "ignorance is strength".

In the Orwellian world of Ireland in 2013, a reduction in maternity benefit is a "standardisation" and a reduction in jobseeker's allowance is simply "movement" to a different category. In 2008, the current Taoiseach described the previous Government's attempt to take medical cards from couples over the age of 70 who were earning more than €1,400 a week as a "Judas" betrayal. He now seems to think it is okay to take medical cards from couples earning just €900 a week. To adopt another Orwellian phrase, it is a case of "€1,400 bad, €900 good". In the real world we all occupy every day, one becomes an adult at the age of 18. In the parallel universe of the social welfare world, one does not become an adult until the age of 26.

George Orwell said that "political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind". Would that he were here today. The whole exercise - the Budget Statement, the Minister's speech this morning and the comments that were made in the lead-up to this exercise - was couched in the language of sacrifice. We heard numerous references to 1916 during the softening-up process that took place in advance of budget day. On the day the social welfare and public expenditure cuts were announced, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform referred to the Famine and the Minister for Finance quoted from one of the more morbid outpourings of WB Yeats. I remind the Minister, Deputy Noonan, that Yeats also wrote - I think it was in the same work - that this "is no country for old men". If he was here today, he could include old women in that phrase. He could add that this is not much of a country for the young either.

As a former teacher of English, the Minister for Finance will be familiar not only with the work of Yeats, but also with the work of another well-known Irish bard, Oliver Goldsmith. In view of the budget's total regressivity and its total failure to make the more comfortable sections of society carry any of the burden - it places the bulk of the burden on the poor - perhaps the Minister, Deputy Noonan, might reflect on Goldsmith's words in "The Deserted Village":

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

In 1822, the death by his own hand of the infamously unpopular Lord Castlereagh triggered a series of epithets - many of them very bawdy, some of them downright vulgar and most of them in verse - rubbishing his career. As I have said, he was noted for his unpopularity. I was tempted to quote, with suitable adaptation, some of those epithets with reference to the Bill before the House, but I will confine myself to the more sober verdicts of various organisations that are involved in this area.

In its response to last week's budget, Social Justice Ireland said: "Budget 2014 provides no guiding vision, no real sense of direction for Ireland’s future, and no sustainable solutions to the major challenges Ireland faces." In the most important part of its response, the organisation suggested: "The choices Government is making are undermining Irish society and dismantling the social model that has underpinned Ireland’s development for more than half a century." In its verdict, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul said that the budget "provides little by way of hope" for the poor, the old, people in poor health or the vulnerable. The secretary general of the Mandate union, Mr. Gerry Light, whom I previously understood to be a supporter of the Labour Party, has commented that 100 years after the 1913 Lock-out, we have been presented with "a Lockout Budget for the young the old and the vulnerable". These epithets, along with many more that are equally or more damning, will hang like a millstone around the neck of the Minister for Social Protection and that of the Irish Labour Party for many years to come.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 24 Oct 2013