Joint Committee on Gender Equality debate -
Thursday, 27 Oct 2022

Recommendations of the Report of the Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed)

Chairman

Members have the option of being physically present in the committee room or may join the meeting via Microsoft Teams from their Leinster House offices but may not participate in the meeting from outside parliamentary precincts. I ask members joining on Teams to mute their microphones when not making a contribution and to use the raise hand function to indicate. All those present in the committee room are asked to exercise personal responsibility to protect themselves from the risk of contracting Covid-19.

Today we are considering the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality regarding care and social protection with officials from the Department of Social Protection. I welcome Mr. Rónán Hession, assistant secretary, working age and family policy division; and Mr. Ciarán Lawler, assistant secretary, corporate division. I thank them both for coming before the committee today.

Before we begin, I will read an important notice regarding parliamentary privilege. Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of the evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity in such a way as to make them identifiable.

I will now invite the officials to make their opening statements before opening the floor to members for questions and answers.

Mr. Rónán Hession

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend here today. I am assistant secretary of the Department of Social Protection with responsibility for working age income supports. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Ciarán Lawler, assistant secretary with responsibility for financial matters, legislation and pensions. We have been invited for the purposes of a discussion on the recommendations of the citizens’ assembly regarding care and social protection, namely, recommendations 4 to 12 and 13 to 19.

Recommendation 4 aims to improve the terms and conditions of those in paid employment as carers for children and adults. The Department of Social Protection does not have a role regarding the terms and conditions of those in paid employment as carers. This is a matter either for the Department of Health, where the HSE is the employer or where it contracts for services, or for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in respect of terms and conditions of workers more generally. However, in relation to recommendation 5 regarding carer's allowance, we are the lead Department.

The current basic rate for carer's allowance is €224 per week. As part of budget 2023, this will increase by €12 per week from January. Recipients of carer's allowance will also benefit from the double-week payments made last week and due again in December and, along with other carers, from the payment of a cost-of-living lump sum of €500. As members will be aware, the basic rate of carer's allowance is means-tested subject to an income disregard. The citizens’ assembly recommended an increase in the disregard for carers and this was implemented in budget 2022. The general weekly income disregard for carer's allowance was increased by €17.50 for a single person from €332.50 to €350, and increased by €85 for a couple, from €665 to €750. These are the highest disregards in the social welfare system and mean, in the case of a couple, that earnings of up to €39,000 a year are disregarded. Changes were also made to the capital disregard.

It is acknowledged that the ultimate beneficiary of carer’s allowance is the person who receives care, with carer’s allowance being paid as an income support to assist a carer to provide the necessary hours of care. However, in acknowledging this fact, it is also recognised that there needs to be a reasonable balance between meeting the requirement for providing full-time care to the care recipient and the benefit to the carer from engaging in employment, training or education. Accordingly, while it is a condition of receipt of carer’s allowance that the carer must be providing full-time care and attention, with full-time being defined as not less than 35 hours per week, provision is also made to allow carers to work, train or study. In response to calls from carer organisations, the hours those in receipt of carer’s allowance can work, train or study was increased in 2020 from 15 hours to 18.5 hours per week. Our Department also provides a range of training and employment supports to carers, including the introduction of new measures under the Dormant Accounts Fund to support carers.

Recommendation 6 relates to an individualised pension solution for carers. As members will be aware, the contributory State pension system recognises caring periods of up to 20 years outside of paid employment. PRSI credits, homemaking disregards and home caring periods are used when calculating the pension rate of payment. Last month, the Government announced its response to the recommendations of the Commission on Pensions, which included the development of a scheme to ensure long-term carers can be attributed with contributions for gaps in their record arising from time spent caring. This scheme will be developed over the coming months and implemented from January 2024.

Recommendation 7 relates to the carer’s support grant and the provisions of respite services. I should clarify for the committee that respite services are not within the remit of the Department of Social Protection. However, in terms of the carer’s support grant, this was increased by €150 to €1,850 in 2021 and is now at its highest rate ever. Importantly, this grant is not means-tested and is not limited to carers receiving a social welfare payment.

Recommendation 8 relates to childcare matters that fall under the remit of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. That Department is also responsible for the issues regarding statutory leave for parents, including the terms under which this leave is available and its duration. When the current durations of maternity, paternity and parent’s leave are combined, this adds to 42 weeks of paid leave for a two-parent family. This will increase to 46 weeks by August 2024. The role played by the Department of Social Protection is the payment of the associated social welfare benefits in the form of maternity, paternity and parent’s benefit. The rate of working age payments will increase by €12 per week from January as part of measures to support working families in budget 2023. This will increase the rate of maternity benefit, paternity benefit and parent’s benefit to €262 per week.

Recommendations 10 to 12 relate to a range of measures regarding the care of older people with disabilities. While the matters identified within the report do not fall within my Department’s direct responsibility, it does have an important role in providing income and employment supports and we are happy to discuss those further with members.

Recommendation 13 relates to individualisation. This is a core design question for the social welfare system, which has been explored in key recent analysis, including from the National Economic and Social Council, NESC. This is a complex issue with wider implications across the social welfare system and we are happy to explore those further with the committee.

Recommendation 14 relates to the level of social protection payments. As for State pensions, the Government recently announced that a benchmarked and indexed rate of State pension payments will be introduced as an input to the annual budget process and will be submitted to Government by our Department each year. This process will begin next year. The Department, as outlined in the roadmap for social inclusion, has also committed to preparing a report for Government on the potential application of the benchmarking approach to other social welfare payments. Now that the Government has approved an approach in relation to pension payments, this process can begin.

This recommendation also addresses the issue of staff training. This is an important priority for our Department. Our staff learning and development encompasses relevant training in relation to dignity and respect. This is delivered both directly and through accredited learning programmes with the National College of Ireland and OneLearning, which is the Civil Service shared service.

Recommendation 15 relates to a universal basic income. The work in Government on this issue is led by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with the Low Pay Commission. There is also a basic income pilot in relation to artists under the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

On recommendation 16, our Department provides a range of supports to lone parents to assist with training and employment. However, the childcare issues are not under our responsibility.

Recommendations 17, 18 and 19 relate to a range of pension matters. The State pension system currently gives significant recognition to those whose work history includes an extended period of time outside the paid workplace, often to raise families or in a full-time caring role. As outlined earlier, this is done through the award of PRSI credits, the application of the homemaker's scheme and the application of home care periods. Since April 2019, contributory State pension applications are assessed under all possible methods with the most beneficial payment rate paid to the applicant. The Commission on Pensions estimated that a universal State pension would cost somewhere in the region of €2 billion to €3 billion per year. Implementation of a pension automatic enrolment system is well under way, with a project team in the Department of Social Protection progressing a range of elements in an overall plan. This work includes the drafting of a Bill to establish the automatic enrolment system on a statutory basis, with a view to introducing this draft Bill into the Oireachtas in early 2023.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before it today. I hope the information I have set out has addressed the issues of interest to the committee. My colleague and I will be pleased to take any questions members may have.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Hession for that very clear and succinct statement, and in particular for being so practical in addressing each of the relevant recommendations in turn. I am very grateful to Mr. Hession for that because we have taken the view that our role as a committee is to ensure the implementation of the 45 recommendations of the citizens' assembly. We are looking at how to implement them, rather than looking at the substantive policy issues behind them.

Before I invite members to contribute, I must alert the witnesses to an issue that we discussed in private session, which is that last night in the Seanad, a social protection amendment Bill was introduced, which is a Private Member's Bill, namely, the Social Welfare (Surviving Cohabitant’s Pension) Bill 2021. In response to it, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, referred to this committee as having a role in considering the issues under consideration. The officials may not be aware. My colleagues might like to ask the officials about clarifying what the Minister meant by referring a Bill to this committee. Clearly, we cannot consider a Bill. We do not have that role and we have a time-limited function in considering just the recommendations of the citizens' assembly. The substance of the Bill, which seeks to provide protection for cohabitees where sadly, one cohabiting partner dies, does come within some of the social protection recommendations. I do not know whether the officials would like to comment on that or if they are aware that of the Minister's comments in that regard.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

I did not see all of the debate last night but I saw some of it. When speaking on the Bill that was introduced yesterday evening, the Minister may have been referring to the requirement for a more holistic examination of all of the issues involved, even beyond the social protection code, which includes areas such as tax or inheritance, as well as consultation with the Attorney General and other Departments. This committee has submitted an interim report - and we are familiar with that - and is due to submit a final report. I am aware that the committee has discussed this issue quite extensively over a number of months. I believe what was meant was that this final report would include recommendations or commentary or both in respect of the issues raised in the Bill, and that these would form part of the consideration of the response to the Bill.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Lawler for the clarification. We may come back to that in the questions.

Deputy Sorca Clarke

I welcome the witnesses. As the Chair has said, we are a time-based committee and this is our last public session. The committee has been very fortunate to have had some very interesting conversations with various different Ministers and Departments. A discussion on social protection is a good way to end the public sessions. I will focus on two specific areas in the first round of questions. Reference was made in the opening statement to the education supports that are available. In our previous public hearings we heard quite strongly from those in the education sector that in some ways, the lack of gender equality is a huge barrier when it comes to career progression. We heard from younger members who came in to speak with us that what is almost pigeon-holing of students, right back to second level schooling, has had a real impact on their careers as they go forward. From the Department's perspective, I want to focus on those education barriers.

In September, the Minister announced a fund of €2 million to support and improve employment opportunities for family carers. In relation to those education barriers, can the officials give us an idea of the training and employment supports that are available? How does the Department measure and quantify the success of these training programmes? How does the Department of Social Protection interact with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to ensure that the training available is actually what is reflected by the demand, both from the user of the training and also from the potential employer of a person coming through those employment and training programmes?

Reference was made in the opening statement to some other important issues. I want to focus on the cost of disability research project that was carried out. Has the Department conducted a budgetary exercise on the implementation of the outcome of that research project? We had heard from the Disability Federation of Ireland, Independent Living Movement Ireland, Disabled Women Ireland, and a vast array of representatives. It also came through very strongly in the citizens' assembly report that those who have a disability should be adequately supported and resourced to live independently for the duration of their lives, and the move by someone under the age of 18 to being a person over the age of 18 should be seamless: the disability does not go when a person's birthday falls and his or her age changes. What work has the Department of Social Protection carried out to ensure these clear and consistent pathways throughout the lifetime of somebody with a disability? I also want to hear about the personal assistant services.

Mr. Rónán Hession

Looking first at the educational supports, I will speak to two main cohorts and if I have not covered anything then please let me know. Deputy Clarke referred to carers. We have a budget under the Dormant Accounts Fund, which is primarily spent with two main groups, namely, Family Carers Ireland and Care Alliance Ireland. We have met them to discuss their projects and to engage with carers, many of whom have been out of the workplace for quite some time. First, it is about identifying where people are at in their lives and identifying what they are looking at preparing for. There is no job-seeking obligation on them. It is not our initiative to try to move them into work but there is definitely an appetite in that regard among carers, for financial reasons and for their sense of themselves and their sense of independence, and for keeping in touch. We have had some good progress with those groups. Originally under that measure we had focused on disabilities for a number of years. In response, the carers' groups had come to us and told us they felt that they could make a difference in that space and particularly for younger carers who are often forgotten about. We ran a programme, we got the responses, and those projects are going very well. We received some feedback as part of an annual carers' forum. Zoe Hughes and some of the other people who ran some of the projects gave us some good feedback. There are a lot of issues coming out of that, some of which are around training deficits, some are around people being unsure of their own worth or attractiveness, and there is definitely a confidence issue when people re-engage.

Some of it is about building up people's confidence and appetite. In terms of lone parents, it depends on the payment a person is on. If a person is on the one-parent family payment, there is not necessarily an obligation to engage, but there are training supports when the youngest child is over seven and a person goes onto the jobseeker's transition payment.

We are doing a pilot project at the moment in the north east, from our Dundalk office. It is a collaboration with One Family. There are parallel projects being done in Finland and Greece. It is about experimenting with what works. We are open to ideas. It is difficult when there are cohorts that have family requirements and people trying to do blended work. We know from internal analysis we have done on what type of supports lone parents need that a significant number are working. Half of the people on the working family payment, for example, are lone parents, and many of the people on the jobseeker's transition payment are working. We contacted people and said we would like to talk to them about employment opportunities and they asked us if they had to take a day off work to do that as they were already working. We have formal supports in terms of the education system. For example, people can get the back to education allowance, which means they can keep a proportion of the payment for two years when they go back to education. Likewise, for people who start their own business, we have a parallel scheme called the back to work enterprise allowance. Other than that, it is about working with a case officer signposting SOLAS or other training and educational opportunities, assessing people's CVs and their experience and trying to connect them with the opportunities. It is an area where we are trying a few things, usually in partnership with a stakeholder or NGO group that works closely with these communities. That is how we work it.

Deputy Sorca Clarke

I am aware there is a midlands regional task force on which the Department has a representative who attends, in conjunction with local industries across that geographic area. How important is such collaborative work to ensure what the Department plans on doing is suitable for a person who wants to re-engage on any level and to ensure the potential employers have their needs met? This new initiative seems like a very good one, but how do we build on it to ensure those who find themselves in a position to return to education and training are returning to quality education and quality training?

Mr. Rónán Hession

I completely agree with Deputy Clarke's point on collaboration. That is essential to what we do. Our case officers are involved at the point where that is drawn together. The regional task forces and groups exist throughout the country and our teams are locked into them. The point about employers is important. We have an employer relations unit in the Department, which we have been building for some years. The vast bulk of employers are small employers. We ask them to tell us about the people they need and we assure them we will put good people in front of them. We also run interview campaigns. We use our offices for the interviews. We reach out to people who are on the live register or other payments to make them aware there is an opportunity coming up. I used to work in this area a couple of years ago. When the homeware chain, The Range, arrived in this country, we found much of its recruitment in Dublin, for example, when it opened the Coolock branch. We got those people through customers in our Department.

Deputy Sorca Clarke

Does the Department correlate and graph the entry-level wages these people get when they move into employment? Low pay has also come up as a significant issue at this committee. Those who may be leaving caring, in caring, or perhaps with a disability find themselves almost locked into low-pay employment with very few opportunities for progression or to move to a higher level of pay. Education plays a key role in that.

Mr. Rónán Hession

I agree with Deputy Clarke. We do not have good data on what happens to people when they leave our system other than if they are on one of our payments. For the purposes of checking eligibility, we have access to Revenue to know what they are earning and what their correct disregards are, but we rely on them if they leave our system entirely. When we have relationships with employers and we run a recruitment campaign, we try to track how many people are recruited, how many stay on and so on, but it is trickier. I agree with the Deputy that one of the problems we have is that if people leave our schemes to go into employment, we do not want them going into precarious low-paid, short-term employment. We must try to make sure it is quality employment.

I know we are stuck for time, but I have yet to address the Deputy's final question on the cost of disability.

Chairman

Mr. Hession should please go ahead.

Mr. Rónán Hession

For anyone who is not familiar with it, the cost of disability report was done by Indecon for the Department. It is the biggest survey of its kind ever done in Ireland. It surveyed not just people on our schemes but also disabled people throughout the country to establish the cost of disability. The cost ranges enormously depending on the level and type of disability. Many people with disabilities have more than one disability.

A number of recommendations came out of the report. The first is that there is a significant cost of disability, which ranges from approximately €9,000 to €12,000. The way to address it requires a mixed approach - income supports, grants and services. Social welfare is part of it, but it is not the only element.

Another point that emerged is that there is very low participation in employment for disabled people in Ireland, not just compared with non-disabled people but also compared with disabled people in other countries. Addressing all of those results together, a few issues emerge. The report was referred to the national disability inclusion strategy group, which is a cross-government group that is chaired by the Minister of State, Deputy Anne Rabbitte, who has responsibility for disabilities. It covers issues such as housing, health, children, education and social welfare and pulls them all together. The Minister of State has already outlined that she will bring forward reform proposals to try to respond to the cost of disability. We got money in the budget to reform the reasonable accommodation fund. That is the money a person gets if he or she starts work, to provide adaptive equipment or support needed for employment. It can go to either the employee or the employer. There is also a review of the wage subsidy scheme, which is the subsidy employers get to recruit disabled people.

A question was also asked about the level of engagement with younger people. Because the disability allowance payment starts at 16, people go onto the payment quite young - younger than we can engage with them - as, by and large, they are still in the secondary school system. We have started an early engagement process, which is being piloted in five locations around the country. We are writing to people in the 18 to 22 years bracket. We have been very sensitive with the language and we have tested it. We have an internal consultative group of disability stakeholders with whom we tested the language. We are saying we are not just here for the purposes of payment but that we also provide employment and educational supports and we are available to have a conversation. We have run events. We had a very good event in Tullamore just before the pandemic, with a surprisingly strong turnout. Many people said it was the first time anyone has taken an interest in them. From the social welfare point of view, it is a mix of looking at the employer side, the level of payment and the supports back to employment. With early engagement, we hope we will nudge it on, but I think it is a long game.

Deputy Sorca Clarke

I thank Mr. Hession.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Hession for the very full response. We can be a little flexible on time this morning.

Deputy Réada Cronin

I want to put on record that we are a bit disappointed that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, could not join us this morning. The committee gave her a lot of flexibility to attend today's meeting. We are dealing with the recommendations from the citizens' assembly. People gave up their time to contribute to it and it is a pity the Minister of State is not here. I do not blame the witnesses, but those who turn up sometimes get the flak. I do not mean it in that way.

Social Justice Ireland has expressed its disappointment that increases in social welfare in recent years were non-existent and this year's increase did not bring people above the poverty line.

We have had several engagements on this issue. Poverty costs people a fortune. They cannot afford, for example, to get the good uniforms out of which their children would get a few years of use. They must buy cheaper clothes that go to rags. I am a member of the climate committee, at which we have talked, in the context of poverty, about prepay meters, which mean people are paying a premium for electricity, whereas the provider suffers no risk. Those customers should be getting a discount. It seems everything is stacked against people who are below the poverty line. These issues affect one-parent families, people with disabilities, those with long-term illnesses and carers, whom we are discussing today, in particular.

I cannot ask the Minister for her view because she is not here. Is it the view of the departmental officials that social welfare increases should be evidence-based and informed by research and expertise? Will they also comment on benchmarking?

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

First, social welfare rates are set by the Government each year as part of the annual budgetary process. This year was quite unique-----

Deputy Réada Cronin

The figures seem to be just plucked out of the air. The decision does not seem to be based on research.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

We hold a pre-budget forum every year involving the community and voluntary pillar and other stakeholders. We meet bilaterally with the community and voluntary pillar twice at official level. We receive all the pre-budget submissions and they are read and analysed. We look at research from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, figures from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, and research from the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice on the minimum essential standard of living. All of that is fed into the decision-making process in the annual budget. There are choices to be made. There is no doubt about that. There are across-the-board rate increases, which are very costly, and then there are targeted measures for specific groups of people, namely, those who are at higher risk of poverty. This year was slightly different in terms of the budget because a lot of one-off lump sum payments will be made in the current year, including two double-payment weeks and a lump sum payment to carers, people with disabilities and those on the working family payment and the living alone allowance. It is slightly different this year and the decision in that regard was taken to address the current cost-of-living crisis.

On benchmarking, I was involved in a group more than 20 years ago, the social welfare benchmarking and indexation group, that looked at this issue and made certain recommendations. It was a social partnership group. I have been involved in the issue from a policy perspective on and off for the past 20 years. One big step that has been taken recently is the response to the report of the Commission on Pensions. The commission recommended a benchmarking and indexation approach for State pensions. That was a commitment in the roadmap for social inclusion and previously in the roadmap for pensions reform. From next year, the Department will be preparing a statement for the Government on how that will be implemented and what the figure will be. The way it will work is that a benchmark will be set of 34% of earnings. We will look at that and what value it gives, we will look at inflation and what that would give and then we will produce a figure that represents the rate at which the benching should be. It might sound simple and small but it is a huge step in terms of what the Deputy is talking about in regard to benchmarking and indexation evidence using particular indicators. It has been a long time coming but it is a big step forward.

We also have a commitment in the roadmap for social inclusion to look at a process for working-age payments, which will be far more complex. There are lots of different rates of payments and they are all for different purposes and contingencies. Now that we have a decision on pensions, we can turn our attention to that issue in the coming months.

Deputy Réada Cronin

The Department engages in a lot of consultations. Is it Mr. Lawler's opinion that benchmarking might save a bit of time? The Department would not have to be ticking boxes, having consultations, meeting different groups and reading their submissions if the pension were benchmarked, say, to average earnings.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

Beyond setting the rate of payments, meeting with the groups is a hugely valuable input to the policymaking process. We learn a lot from those meetings, including from the questions we are asked, the pre-budget submissions that are made and the meetings we have outside of that formalised process. Rate-setting is just one part of social welfare policy. There is a huge amount underneath all of that, as the Deputy knows. Those groups make recommendations and suggestions and we work with them, as my colleague said, on certain initiatives. It is a collaborative approach. While rate-setting takes a bit of time, it is worth investing that time with those groups because we learn and get a lot from the process.

Chairman

Mr. Lawler spoke about the process associated with the roadmap for social inclusion. To clarify, is the Department preparing a statement on that for the Government next year?

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

From September each year, as an input to the budgetary process, the Department will calculate a figure based on the methodology that has been proposed in the roadmap for social inclusion and the national pensions roadmap and endorsed by the Commission on Pensions. The Department produces that analysis for the Government in September each year as an input to the budgetary process.

Chairman

Is a separate report being produced on the application of benchmarking to other welfare payments?

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

Yes.

Chairman

Will it be ready for the Government in anticipation of next year's budget?

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

It is a commitment in the roadmap for social inclusion. I cannot remember what the deadline is but it is something we are working on immediately.

Chairman

We will look at that because we are interested in putting timelines on the action plan for implementation.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

We had a consultation exercise on this in 2019, prior to the Covid crisis, with the community and voluntary sector and other stakeholders. We have already received views and we will focus on that process now we have a decision on pensions.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Lawler. That is helpful.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I will begin with pensions and then move on to some wider issues. While benchmarking and indexation of the State pension would be welcome, the concern relates to who will get the full pension. Changes were made to the State pension system in 2012. As of a couple of years ago, two thirds of those receiving the full contributory pension were men, with women making up only one third of the total. Women are far more likely to be on a lower tier of payment, that is, a reduced-rate or partial pension. If the benchmarking and indexation around what is essential to live on ends up setting the rate of the full State pension, everybody who is on a reduced rate will be below that level and on a lower payment.

From a gender equality perspective, I am concerned that some of the other policies the Government is pursuing may push more women below that level. The changes made in 2012 in terms of the contributory requirement saw a net loss for more women than men in weekly and monthly pension payments. Will the witnesses clarify that? It changed the tiers and levels for the reduced rate, which meant a number of women dropped a level or two within that reduced rate. While the State pension was not cut as part of austerity measures, the payment for those on the reduced rate was, in effect, cut. I am raising this in the context of being very concerned by the narrative and proposals we are seeing. We had the move from a ten-year to a 20-year requirement for the pension. It was anticipated that we might see a move to a 30-year contributory requirement. The talk we are hearing now is of seeing that go further.

The normal working life is referenced in one of the Government's responses to the Commission on Pensions as potentially being something like 40 years. In that context, it would seem we are going to see a huge drop-off. One question concerns the full State pension versus the reduced rate pension, and maybe the Department has the up-to-date figures on how many women versus men are on the reduced rate or has a gender analysis of how that might happen for a 30-year change and a 40-year change.

The reason I am interested in the 40-year and 30-year piece is that there was mention of the recognition of care credits going up to 20 years, but there are a couple of points in that regard. One is that it used to be that ten years was enough for a pension and it was then 20 years, and when it went up from 20 years, the goalposts went out to 30 years on the new scheme that was brought in. We are recognising ten extra years of care credits but the goalposts people have to reach to get a full pension move further away. Again, it would seem that in the total contributory approach, it will be moving further away to 30 years or 40 years. Indeed, the fact that, as I understand it, there is a cap of only 20 years of credits in respect of care means that in terms of the contributory pension, if people have just cared and if they do not have ten years of employment, they will be on a reduced rate, and if it moved to a 40-year threshold and they only had care credits, they would be on a half pension.

I say that in a context that relates to the other issue. The witnesses will be aware that the citizens’ assembly looked for a universal pension and it has also looked for individualisation in regard to pensions. This is because, of course, for women predominantly, although not solely, who have been the carers in a household, they will not necessarily qualify for the non-contributory pension if their partner fails the means test. Therefore, in terms of having an individual independent source of income in later years, it is not guaranteed in that context.

The witnesses might comment on the individualisation issue, which is important in terms of finances, and also around the issue of the gender proofing of these potential impacts at 30 and 40 years. Given there was a direct negative impact on women in the 2012 changes, what measures have been taken to ensure a full analysis of the potential impacts of a 30-year or 40-year change? I know other members have an interest in the other area, which is the gender proofing of the automatic enrolment pension, and we might get a chance to come back to that. I might look at those pension questions before I bring in any other social welfare payments.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

I thank the Senator. I will start where she finished, on the 2012 changes. The Senator is correct that in the plans that were introduced in 2012, there were more bands and this reduced the rate of pension that might have been payable to people who were assessed under the career averaging rule, as it was called at the time. Since then, an interim total contributions approach has been introduced so people who have reached pension age from 2012 onwards will get the rate of pension that is the best of the averaging approach or the total contributions approach.

I am not sure if the Senator has the up-to-date figures but we are beginning to see some positive results from that approach. If we go back to 2018, just over 37% of women qualified for the maximum rate. In 2019 that increased to over 47%, in 2020 it was over 48% and it was over 49%, or almost half, last year. It is still not at the same rate as for men and the proportion of men who qualify is about 63%, but it is certainly going in the right direction. That may be a combination of the total contributions approach, with the 20 years of home caring credits. It is not a disregard; it is 20 years of credits that people have.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

That is a 30-year requirement on that total contributions approach.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

No, the interim total contributions approach is based on 40 years. The Government's response to the recommendations of the Commission on Pensions has endorsed those recommendations and that is the approach that will be adopted going forward, but it will be phased in over a ten-year period. That was the Government decision on that.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

Mr. Lawler said less than half of women are qualifying for the full contributory pension under that system.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

At the moment, but it has been increasing year on year over the last four years.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

It is still very significant. Our remit here is gender equality and making sure we do not embed further gender inequality. We are talking about a situation where less than half of women are qualifying for the full contributory pension, so, on that point on benchmarking and indexation, if people are on a reduced rate, they will be below whatever the benchmarking and indexation rate is in terms of the pensions they receive.

I know the Department wanted to answer some of the other questions. I am worried that we embed an inequality a little bit further. When the witnesses are coming back on the other pension questions, they might also come back on the question of the universal pension. The Department gave a costing for that of €2 billion to €3 billion, which is quite interesting. If, for example, we had a universal pension, one would imagine that everybody was pulled up to the full contributory pension that is benchmarked and indexed, and the Department estimates that at €2 billion to €3 billion.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

No, that was the-----

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

That is very notable as it is almost exactly the same figure that we are spending on private pension tax relief. Has there been a comparative gender analysis of the gendered benefits of a universal pension costing €2 billion to €3 billion versus the private pension tax relief, which costs almost the exact same amount per year?

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

I am not aware if there has been a specific gender analysis that compares the two systems. There are implications of removing marginal tax relief on pensions and if the suggestion is that this is taken away, that has implications in itself. The €2 billion to €3 billion was a figure from the Commission on Pensions itself in its report.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

Was it correct that the Commission on Pensions did not look to, if not removal, then removal or reform of that private pension tax relief? We know there is research that it predominantly benefits men on higher incomes and the Department might confirm that.

Chairman

I will ask Mr. Lawler to answer that one. Other members then want to come in. I will come back to Senator Higgins in a second round for the other questions, if that is okay. I call Mr. Lawler. I think the point was about the gendered analysis of beneficiaries under the private pension tax relief.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

And a gendered analysis generally on the gap between the 20 years recognised for care that I had asked about and the 40-year threshold. I am concerned that only 20 years are recognised for care but we have moved to a 40-year contributory requirement. I want to know how that gets bridged. I also want to know if there has been a very robust gender analysis of all of these measures, including auto-enrolment.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

I know the Commission on Pensions conducted a gender analysis on its proposals and it also recommended in its report that as proposals are being implemented, a full gender analysis and impact assessment be done on those, and the Department will do that.

Chairman

That is helpful to hear. We need to go back and look at that recommendation of the Commission on Pensions. There is a gender analysis included in the recommendations in its report.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

Yes.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

That does not cover private pensions.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

No, it does not.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

There was the final question on what is the Department's plan in regard to the gap between 20 years of care credits being recognised and a 40-year requirement for contributions. Of course, a 20-year working requirement is actually more than we had in 2012.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

I want to clarify that the interim total contributions approach, which will become the de facto total contributions approach, requires a ten-year minimum for paid contributions and that has been the situation for over ten years. With ten years paid contributions plus 20 years of home caring periods, that totals 30 years out of 40, or a three quarters pension. What has also been approved by the Government, and this was something that was particularly called for by carers groups and was looked at by the Pensions Commission, is a pension for long-term carers, particularly carers who have been caring for an incapacitated child or relative. All of the period of care in those circumstances will be counted towards a pension payment.

There is no cap, as it were, for long-term carers in those situations.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

There is a three-quarter level piece if we look at the ten-year or 20-year contribution whereas previously, a person only required a total of 20 years' contributions. Now, at 40 years, to get the full pension, a person has to have a 20-year employment contribution record or he or she needs this particular narrowly applied scheme.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

I am not quite sure I understand. The situation is that a person needs ten years of paid contributions over the course of his or her working life. That is the gateway, if we can call it that, to qualify for a pension. On top of that, a person can have up to 20 years of home caring credits applied for his or her pension for home caring periods, so that brings it up to 30 years. If a person has worked more than ten years, that will also be added to his or her pension. The long-term carers issue is different because that recognises the full period of care for carers who have been in those situations.

There has been some discussion at this committee as well in terms of how we might identify those long-term carers. The establishment of a family carer register seems to be the way to go. A number of Departments need to be involved in that. Family Carers Ireland has reached out to us on that, however, and we will be meeting with its representatives to discuss its ideas in that regard.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I am happy to let others come in and then I might come back on the other payments.

Deputy Réada Cronin

Mr. Hession was talking about the carer's allowance for people who are full-time carers being defined as not less than 35 hours per week. Has the Department ever considered for full-time carers the basic income minimum pay of €325 per week that was introduced for artists? Has the Department considered that as a basic pay for carers?

Mr. Rónán Hession

The basic income is a pilot scheme. It is not a social welfare benefit. It is a pilot scheme being run in the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. That is to recognise the precarious and oscillating nature of income in the arts. It is a pilot of 2,000 or 3,000 people that will run for three years and that is the payment rate that was recommended at the time by the task force, on which I sat, to be pitched at the equivalent of the full-time minimum wage with people working a 32-hour week, which is, on average, what people work.

The carer's payment is a social welfare payment, so there is a different basis for it. Social welfare payments are essentially for where a particular contingency arises. If, for example, a person cannot work because he or she is a carer, has a disability that restricts his or her ability to work, is unemployed or is a lone parent, the State will step in and provide a basic level of payment. The carer's allowance is currently €224. The base line of social welfare is €208, so it is slightly above the base line rate.

In terms of a universal income or basic income, however, the way that is being looked at is that there is a report that is being or has been done, as I understand it, by the Low Pay Commission based on ESRI analysis. That is with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and is being looked at by the Tánaiste's officials. It is not a social welfare issue per se. The carers' groups told us in their pre-budget submissions that they think carer's allowance should be pitched at the level of the basic income pilot, which is €325.

I will explain a point about universal basic income. This is not a feature of the pilot that is being run, but it is in the task force report and it is worth looking at. Basic income is basically an alternative model to our current system. Our current system works on a basis of social welfare payments and tax reliefs. Usually, the concept of a basic income is that a person does not have social welfare payments or tax reliefs. All his or her income is fully taxed and, instead, a person gets a basic income alongside that. There will be winners and losers in that. A basic income, as a concept, is a big departure from our current system. It is something that has been tried internationally in targeted ways. A basic income, as such, is not something we have looked at from a social welfare perspective. We looked at it from the point of view of income support and carer's allowance. It is means tested. We do not have enough money to pay everybody so we target it based on assessment of income.

Deputy Réada Cronin

Will Mr. Hession go into a bit more detail about the winners and losers?

Mr. Rónán Hession

What I mean by that is that, in a basic income, a person loses his or her tax credits.

Deputy Réada Cronin

There would be no means tests, however.

Mr. Rónán Hession

Basic income means everyone would get it. It is a universal basic income. At the moment, we get personal tax credits. There is a carer's tax credit. A person might get child benefit. We discussed tax relief on any pension contributions a minute ago. There is a whole raft of-----

Deputy Réada Cronin

The losers would be people who already had other income and the winners would be people who did not.

Mr. Rónán Hession

What a basic income does is make sure there is a floor on the downside. What it is probably not as good at is that when a person starts earning more income or towards average levels of income, he or she pays more tax. In terms of the overall costs, costings have been done in Ireland over the years. They are very high amounts, effectively the equivalent of the social welfare system.

It is a conceptual thing that is under debate. The Government is exploring it in two particular contexts. One is a universal basic income, on which the Tánaiste's Department is leading, and the other is a target measure in the arts, on which the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin's, Department is leading. That is not something we have put on the table for carers. It would not be a social welfare payment as such. In terms of what comes out of that analysis, however, Government will have a look at where it might go.

Participation income is a slight variation of that as well. It is basically a form of unconditional payment that incorporates voluntary activity and other types of alternatives to employment.

Deputy Réada Cronin

It would recognise carers' work, though. That might be something we could look into again.

Deputy Sorca Clarke

I want to shift the focus. We seem to have been focusing quite a bit on care and those with disabilities in education. I want to look to what is often the hidden side of gender equality, that is, the men in our world. Gender inequality is failing men and women. It is not just one side of that equation.

I want to talk for a moment about the paternity leave payment. This committee has heard from different groups, and it is what they hear from those with whom they work, that the level at which the payment is currently set - I know it increased to €262 per week in the budget - is actually a barrier to men availing of paternity leave. Primarily, if we also take into consideration that the mother of the child may not be having her own wages topped up by the employer, it reduces the family income significantly at a time when their costs are actually increasing with a new addition to the household. Has any work been undertaken to date around potentially linking the paternity leave payment to earned income in the previous period? Does the Department correlate data on the percentage of new parents, both mums and dads, who have their wages topped up by employers? The people who do not have their wages topped up by employers are the other side of the equation. My understanding is that if it is being topped up, the payment is made directly to the employer and the employer continues to pay the wages. Does the Department have a percentage breakdown around that?

On the payment of child maintenance and the child maintenance service, my understanding is that, for a single parent to qualify for the one-parent family payment, that person must prove he or she has sought maintenance from the other party. It does not take into account whether that maintenance has actually been paid. We know single parent households are more likely to experience poverty. In that regard, what is the Department's anticipated response where the other parent is not fulfilling his or her maintenance obligations? It would mean the payment of the parent who has custody being reduced by the amount of maintenance he or she is not actually receiving. Will Mr. Hession please address those two issues?

Mr. Rónán Hession

On paternity leave, as far as I know we do not have data on where it is being topped up. Within the system we know where the payment is being mandated to the employer. That will not necessarily cover all circumstances and in some cases it is done within the organisation. The numbers on paternity leave have improved in recent years, which has been good to see, and we also have parent's leave and benefit, so along with the two weeks of paternity leave there is an additional seven weeks of leave that can be taken.

On linking it to pay, there is a programme for Government commitment to look at pay-related payments in the jobseeker's space. In other words, jobseeker's benefit would be pay related. It is already pay related to some extent but not in a meaningful way. The first area in which we would look at that would be in jobseeker's benefit and there are programme for Government commitments around looking at enhanced payments in other areas for parents as a follow-on from that.

On child maintenance, the way it works is that if you are receiving a maintenance payment and it is not being paid in full or it stops, under our current system you are required to make efforts to seek maintenance. If the maintenance is not received, we can restore payments to the full amount. That was reviewed by the child maintenance review group, which has completed its work and it reported to the Minister in April. There are three social welfare issues in that. First is whether maintenance should be considered in the means test at all. Second is whether that approach of efforts to seek maintenance through the courts should continue or not. Third is a system called liable relatives, which is a way for the Department to recoup its costs through the other parent; that is not a payment to the lone parent as such. That report is with the Minister and she has indicated that she is looking to publish it by the end of the year.

Deputy Sorca Clarke

I refer to the situation where the custodial parent has to prove that he or she has sought the maintenance that is not being paid. That is an unacceptable situation when there may have been domestic violence or any form of domestic abuse. To put anybody in a situation where they need to be in contact and seeking financial support from their abuser is simply not on. From the Department's perspective, what is the threshold? Is it one week or six weeks of non-payment before the Department will consider reinstating the full payment?

Mr. Rónán Hession

First, to give the Deputy an assurance, those efforts to seek maintenance do not apply in domestic violence cases. Operationally, I am not sure. Essentially, if the payment is not received the parent can report it to us. I am not sure if it has to build up over a period of time or if we would define that. I do not know how that happens operationally off the top of my head. One thing we did during the pandemic when the courts were not functioning the way they normally do is that the money was restored to full payment and then we looked at it again after 12 weeks and checked if that was still the case. That area has been subject to a deep piece of work and that is on the Minister's desk. There should be a Government response on that before the end of the year.

Chairman

We will not have sight of that report before we get to finalise our report, when I think about the timing. However, it is good to know that is there so I thank Mr. Hession for that.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I have two sets of questions and I may kick off where Deputy Clarke left off, around lone parents and the child maintenance review group. Given that the report has been ready since April, it would be useful if it were to be published. I request that it be published in the next month or so in order that we can incorporate it into our report because it is extremely relevant. Given that the Department has had it since April, to put it into the public domain would be a useful step. It should be published and it would be useful if we could have it to inform our recommendations. The witnesses might comment on the plans for publishing that in their responses.

I refer to a couple of the other issues in respect of maintenance. The question was asked whether it should be included at all and there is a strong argument that it should not be included; that it is a payment that is separate from the other payments we have. Considering the idea to have a one-parent family payment, which is around support for the parent, versus things like child benefit that are universal, to use maintenance again would not be right. We do not use maintenance against child benefit and we should not be using it against a one-parent family payment either.

On the one-parent family payment and the jobseeker's transitional payment, it was mentioned that childcare was not an area that was seen as directly relevant to the Department of Social Protection but it is relevant in its intersection with one-parent families in particular. There is a requirement after receiving jobseeker's transitional payment that when a child is 14 years old, a one-parent family is moved to a payment where there is a requirement for full-time availability for work, yet they have a 14-year-old child and no other parent in play. Has consideration been given to extending a jobseeker's transitional payment to when a child is 18? That would allow the jobseeker's transitional payment where there is access to supports such as the pilot scheme for access to employment and where there is not the obligation of full-time availability for employment, which creates a lot of tension and difficulty for those parenting alone in that last four years of a child's childhood. It is worth noting that we do not have an equivalent measure for couples whereby we may have a spouse who is not working. There is no full-time obligation for both parents in a married couple to be working in terms of the payment of a social welfare payment plus a qualified adult increase. It seems that there is an unequal treatment of lone parents in that period of time when their child is between the ages of 14 and 18. The witnesses might comment on that.

The other thing on lone parents is the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme. It was interesting that it was mentioned that half of those on the working family payment are one-parent families. The working family payment requires you to be working 19 hours whereas the ECCE scheme gives families 15 hours of childcare. There is always that gap between the 15 hours and the 19 hours and I wonder if that is something on which the Department has engaged with the reform of childcare process to look to how that gap between the 15 hours of childcare available and the 19-hour work requirement to get the working family payment might be bridged.

On leave, the witnesses will be aware that one of the specific recommendations from the citizens' assembly was to ensure that the same full year of effective paid leave would happen in respect of a one-parent family. It is good to have the targeted supports which, as Deputy Clarke said, should be improved for men or partners in paternity leave, but where there is only one parent it should be ensured that from the child's perspective, the same amount of leave is given to their parental unit in total. Measures to bridge that should be introduced.

There is strong means testing and it came into the issue with the other Bill we were discussing. I mention cohabitants. If you are cohabiting, that is strongly considered in means testing and there can be a problem there in individualisation and individual economic independence. For example, that is one of the issues that makes it hard for those who are parenting alone to cohabit. If they are responsible for a child and they cohabit, that person's means may get considered against their receipt of payments. In general when it comes to financial independence for women, means testing is a serious obstacle. It was mentioned that individualisation is complex and that it would be good to discuss it further so I would like to provide the opportunity to discuss it further because it seems to be an extremely important issue from a gender perspective.

Chairman

I thank the Senator. A range of issues have been raised. I identified four specific ones. I do not know which of our guests wants to respond first.

Mr. Rónán Hession

I will go first. I counted seven areas but I will cover them as best I can. The Senator can remind me if I have missed anything.

On the publication of the child maintenance review group report, I understand the report is with the Minister. It has been submitted. This is a very complex area and there are other Departments involved. It is not purely a social welfare issue. The consultation has been ongoing but I understand the intention is to publish the document before the end of the year.

With regard to the exclusion of maintenance from means, I understand the Senator's point. It is one of the core issues concerning the review group and will be dealt with in the report.

On the requirement to be genuinely seeking work, there were changes made to lone parent payments about ten years ago. It used to be the case that you did not have to seek work until the child was 18, or 22 if he or she continued in education. That was changed about ten years ago in response to an analysis of long-term outcomes. It was found that being out of the workforce for a long time did not result in good outcomes for lone parents. This is why there was a change to bring about the current two-payment structure, whereby you get the one-parent family payment until your youngest child is seven and go on to a jobseeker's allowance scheme when the child is 14. The decision was made at the point I have mentioned. You become subject to the condition requiring you to be genuinely seeking work. There are no proposals to change that, although we have signalled changes to working-aid payments more generally that may be helpful to lone parents in terms of flexibility.

The point on couples and the requirement to be genuinely seeking work, and that there is no obligation regarding the increase for a qualified adult, IQA links to some extent to the Senator's point on individualisation. What do we mean by individualisation? Under the current system, we can split a payment between the two members of a couple. In other words, the money can be split between the two individuals. With regard to where there is a benefit payment, namely, a payment based on contributions rather than means, generally speaking members of the couple both get a payment in their own right.

The Senator is right that there is no conditionality concerning qualified adults. If one moved to an individualised system where the qualified adult got a payment in his or her own right, the question would arise as to what that payment should be. What would the conditionality be? Should the payment be a jobseeker payment? In other words, the person would be expected to be genuinely seeking work. If there are children in the frame, would one apply something more like a jobseeker's transition payment in respect of which there is a level of engagement? That is actually the model that the NESC recommended for IQAs. Individualisation can mean different things. If it is a matter of simply splitting the payment, we can already do that. It does not happen that often, probably because it does not lead to any extra income for the household.

I want to check my understanding of a certain point that the Senator made. When it comes to individualisation, the first step is to have everyone agree on what we mean by it. In an earlier reference, on the pension side, I understood the Senator to mean that for a household with one income, which could be substantial enough to mean the other partner would not get through a means test, one would design individualisation in a way that would result in a complete disregard. Therefore, the other person would be treated as having no means. That is a possible model of individualisation but in this regard, I note the Commission on Taxation and Welfare has outlined some principles that are worth examining. There are four or five bullet points on how it would work. One will still have regard to household income. We need to consider what the individual gets but also what the household gets. Ultimately, means testing is to ensure that scarce resources are targeted at those most in need. Can the system be designed whereby everyone in a household with a high income is assessed separately and the second partner in the household gets his or her own individual payment on a means-tested basis? Yes, of course. These are all choices for policymakers. There may be very good reasons for decisions, including those concerning independence. As civil servants, our job is to make sure that everyone understands the implications.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I suppose that is where the gender analysis comes in. Probably the most relevant part of individualisation is ensuring an independent source of income rather than having one person in the household in financial control who is effectively determining the finances. We are comfortable, it seems, with a private pension tax relief, which is predominantly going to men and those on higher incomes. I absolutely agree that we should be managing our resources more carefully, but that is where gender analysis comes in. It is a question of financial independence.

Mr. Rónán Hession

To cover some of the Senator's other points, the working family payment works out as 19 hours per week. Strictly speaking, it is 38 hours per fortnight because people do shifts and spread their working hours. It is not linked specifically to the ECCE hours. One of the difficulties in public policymaking is that there are many different schemes that, in an ideal world, would be in lockstep with one another, whether they concern the housing assistance payment, HAP, the medical card scheme or the ECCE programme. There is dissonance between schemes. The issue with the working family payment is that it is intended to cover circumstances where a substantial number of hours are worked in the household in the week. It is a unique payment in the social welfare system. Essentially, it gives you a percentage of the difference between what you are earning and the threshold. It is very much linked to the hours you work. It is not directly linked specifically to childcare. That is the truth of it.

With regard to lone parents' leave, we have quite high levels of leave. The European Parliament produced a very interesting ready reckoner on the position around the EU. I have it in front of me; it is a little graphic. The current average for maternity and paternity leave in the EU is about 14 weeks. Our figure is higher. Other countries may have shorter periods but higher rates of payment, so there are all sorts of trade-offs in the blend that is achieved.

On the discussion on whether lone parents should get the same overall leave entitlement as couples, there are a couple of things to say. In this regard, let me refer to the European work–life balance directive, which is where the parental leave comes from. I am sorry to be a real civil servant about this, but the leave concerns the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. We pay the associated benefit. That said, the directive states you cannot share the leave. That is a deliberate design feature of the directive to avoid reinforcing the current burden of childcare among couples. In other words, if the fathers in couples transferred their leave to the mothers, the mothers would take on more and more of the burden.

The issue with lone parents from a social welfare perspective is that where someone is on a lone-parent payment, there may still be a second parent in the frame with an entitlement to that leave. The vast majority of lone parents are female. Let us assume, for the purpose of illustration, that the lone parent has the parent's leave, which is currently at seven weeks and needs to go to nine weeks by August 2024. The other parent will also have that entitlement. With regard to spending time with children and having family involvement, it is not straightforward to say the leave should be transferred to the lone parent. I know the Senator is not suggesting that.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I am not necessarily suggesting a transfer; I am actually suggesting that we might need an additional scheme. I am aware that, under the directive, leave cannot be shared. Therefore, there is nothing to stop us from introducing an additional scheme in respect of lone parents.

Mr. Rónán Hession

The Senator is right. One could have a specific scheme.

For social welfare purposes, a lone parent obviously cannot be cohabiting. If you are cohabiting, the means test takes into account the means of the other partner. We assess on the basis of the household income. I am not sure whether the Deputy's point was on lone parents who may be in a relationship but not cohabiting. I am not sure I picked up the point. The Senator might steer me.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

There are two or three points. One relates to those who are in a relationship. We have had stories of people being quite aggressively pursued on whether they are cohabiting and so on but even if somebody is cohabiting or in a relationship, that person is still accepted as the parent of that child. Just because a person may have started a relationship with somebody, it does not mean he or she is stepping in in loco parentis and can be considered as contributing to the particular financial needs of that household. There is also the wider test issue, which comes back to the same thing on means testing in respect of cohabiting couples, whose incomes are both considered in terms of whether they are entitled to payment but, as we saw during discussions of the Bill last night, when it comes to receiving payment, the assumption is that both people are contributing equally to the household and that the moneys of each are equally available to each person. That is an assumption being made about household budgeting, which is not always true. That assumption is being made at that point but when a household suffers a loss or bereavement, as we saw in respect of the legislation last night, it is no longer recognised as a household in the same sense. There are two issues. It seems that people are losing both ways.

Chairman

The point is about inequity. I see Senator Doherty wants to get in.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I will finish. I have one positive point that can be answered alongside Senator Doherty's questions. I wish to praise the important work on the minimum essential standards of living that has been supported by the Department. I note that the adequate standard of living is specifically one of the recommendations of the citizens' assembly, when they talked about a basic income. I hope that the Department intends to robustly engage around the living wage process and ensure that its research is reflected in that process.

Chairman

If Senator Doherty wishes to take up any of the points from Senator Higgins's last contribution, she can do so. Will the Senator confirm that she is in the precincts of Leinster House? She is muted.

Senator Regina Doherty

I apologise about that. I am on the campus and, hopefully, am secure in making a contribution. I thank the gentlemen for their contributions. The information is very pertinent to what we are doing.

I have two brief questions and then a matter for consideration. What is the status of the drafting of the heads of the Bill-----

Chairman

Senator Doherty is on mute again. We cannot hear her.

Senator Regina Doherty

Sorry.

(Interruptions).

Senator Regina Doherty

I refer to the incapacitated pensions legislation. Are we at draft heads stage yet? If not, when can we expect to see them? My second question is around Judge Catherine Murphy's report on child maintenance. Despite the long delay in receiving the report due to Covid - Judge Murphy worked very hard during the Covid pandemic to try to get the report to us - the fact that it has not been published yet does not instil any confidence in the recommendations being carried out any time soon. While I appreciate Mr. Hession said that some of the recommendations are interdepartmental, the changing of policy with regard to payments for people on one social welfare payment to another such payment is entirely under the remit of the Department of Social Protection. What is the status of the actions required for that particular recommendation in Judge Catherine Murphy's report?

Finally, for the officials' comment or consideration, the automatic enrolment policy that has been worked on by many people for donkey's years was finally published a number of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the model we propose to use that will go to pre-legislative scrutiny but was not put out during the straw man consultation process, which is a little odd, will continue to perpetuate the gender pension gap between women and men. I am curious about why, in a brand-new policy that has taken nearly 20 years to develop, we will continue to perpetuate a policy whose gaps we as a committee are trying to ensure we fix. A brand-new policy will continue to perpetuate those issues. What plans has the Department to mitigate that? Women, whether we like it or not, constitute the vast majority of carers for our children and parents and get cut from those pension payments at both ends of their lives. I apologise to the Chair for the little disruption.

Chairman

That is okay. To clarify, what is the Bill the Senator mentioned at the start of her contribution? She dropped out during the reference and I did not pick it up.

Senator Regina Doherty

I apologise. In the programme for Government, we established that we were going to bring forward an incapacitated parents' pension payment for all those parents who, at a very early stage in their working lives, might give birth to a baby who would need lifelong caring. Therefore, their capacity to even reach the ten-year threshold was never going to be met. It is now being assigned as something we will do. Where are we with the drafting of the legislation? Have we got the heads of Bill yet? When can we expect to see them?

Chairman

I am sure our witnesses understood the reference but I just needed clarification. I thank the Senator.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

We had a Government decision on the response to the report of the Commission on Pensions on 20 September. The heads have not yet been drafted. A significant body of legislation is emerging from the response to the Commission on Pensions that will all form part of a Bill next year. The implementation date is January 2024. We will bring forward legislation to the House next year in view of that deadline. Most of the commitments will be from January 2024. It is one of a range of measures that we need to bring through next year, many of which require new legislation.

Chairman

The second question was on the Judge Catherine Murphy report.

Mr. Rónán Hession

As I said, that report is with the Minister. It has not yet been brought to the Government. It will need to be brought to the Government for a decision around what will be done as regards implementation and what the Government will do on foot of the advice in that report. Any decisions around changes in maintenance payments generally, or with regard to the specific issue of payments between two social welfare recipients where they are either side of a maintenance arrangement all falls to be considered then. As I said, we expect that probably by the end of the year.

There was one other question on the gender impact of automatic enrolment.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

I do not know whether the Senator had a question or comment when she said that the model being proposed would perpetuate inequalities in the system. I am not 100% clear on what the issue is there.

Senator Regina Doherty

I apologise for interrupting again. It appears to me, from the details published a number of weeks ago, that when a woman is not working, her pension payments are not being made by herself, by the State or by her employer, which is perpetuating the situation we have with regard to the current contributory State pension when women do not work for years. To date, and before the new model is brought in, we do not even give women carer credits to an extent that would allow them to reach a full contributory pension. Mr. Lawler highlighted that himself, insofar as while there has been an increase in the rate of pay for pensions in the past number of years, we still have only 50% of women getting a full pension. The new automatic enrolment scheme will do exactly the same with this private State-supported pension as we have done with the State contributory pension. Why are we perpetuating an issue we all recognise through a brand-new Government policy?

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

If it is okay with the Chair and Senator, that is something I will bring back as a comment to the Department.

Chairman

Yes, that is fine. We had a discussion earlier on foot of Senator Higgins's question on the gender impact of new rules around pension entitlements. I am not sure whether Senator Doherty was present for that.

Senator Regina Doherty

I have been listening all morning. I am concerned about this issue. I said to the Taoiseach, when he appeared before the committee a couple of weeks ago, that it is a bizarre situation when a brand-new policy that is 20 years in the making will continue to perpetuate a pension pay gap, as obvious as the nose on our face, that exists with the current State contributory pension. We need to be very careful and aware, when we do pre-legislative scrutiny on automatic enrolment, that we come up with some solutions to that.

Chairman

I thank the Senator for that. Does she have any other questions?

Senator Regina Doherty

No. I am good.

Chairman

Senator Higgins wants to get in on a third round.

At this point, I wish to ask a question relating to recommendation 11. We have covered a broad range of issues within the remit of the witnesses and the remit of the committee. Mr. Hession said that while recommendations 10 to 12, inclusive, on the care of older people and the care of people with disabilities do not fall directly within the Department’s responsibility, it has a role in providing income and employment support and our guests are happy to discuss that further.

On recommendation 11, the assembly made clear that it wanted to see improved provision for those who wished to be cared for at home, including providing a statutory right for payment for home care packages as well as nursing care. I am conscious that the design and operation of the fair deal scheme is not directly within the remit of the Department of Social Protection. However, can the witnesses comment on whether their Department would have a remit or view on a new or adjusted fair deal scheme to remove the over-reliance on nursing home care and move more to a home care emphasis? Is there a role for the Department on that? It is partly because the Department administers the carer’s allowance and, obviously, that would have a bearing.

Mr. Rónán Hession

It is not something where we would have a significant amount of decision-making influence. My understanding is that the direction of policy over a period of time has tried to support people being cared for at home. The natural implication of that is there would be more people on carer’s allowance or potentially more people caring at home, so it is demand-led. Since about 2015, we have seen about a 50% increase in the numbers of people on carer’s allowance and likewise on domiciliary care allowance. We are seeing more and more people and, to some extent, the eligibility with the means test changes brought some people in and it also is better awareness. In addition, it shows the extent to which people are taking on a lot more caring responsibility at home. It is a situation where we sort of pick up the social welfare implications afterwards, if you like, in terms of what is driving it. This is more about people’s preference being cared for at home in terms of what the optimum use of the available bed space, residential space, hospital space etc. is and whether caring for people at home can be supported. We are in the follow-up of that now. We have the financial supports but if you look over the figures, it is clear that since about 2015, there has been a big jump in carer’s allowance, which is nearly a €1 billion payment at this stage.

Chairman

That is very interesting. When we looked at this when we had the carers’ organisations in with us, we saw this huge increase in the State recognition of the numbers of people caring and the implication that has for policy, as well as the gendered implications.

Mr. Rónán Hession

It would be interesting to see the new census statistics on carers, which I do not think are out yet.

Chairman

Not yet.

Mr. Rónán Hession

I would be interested to see what comes out in those.

Chairman

We will have to check whether we will have those in time for our report. I do not think we will but it would be interesting. I thank Mr. Hession for that.

If no one else is indicating, we will give Senator Higgins the last word and will just have short round with her.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I wish to pick up again on a couple of points. As Senator Doherty said, it would be very useful and important for our committee’s work if we had some sense of what the gender analysis process has been on pensions within the Department – not within the commission – in terms of its proposals. Specifically, what modelling has there been around the potential impacts of things such as the automatic enrolment scheme? The data are there, effectively, to do some analysis of what the likely impact would be. I share the concern that we might end up with gaps being created.

I also wonder whether we could get a detailed analysis around that €2 billion to €3 billion from the Commission on Pensions that was mentioned. If, specifically, we were to look to those who have a carer’s allowance and have been contributing in that way but fall short to be brought to the same threshold of the contributory State pension, what would that particular slice of money do? That is bridging that 50% of women who will not qualify for the full contributory State pension. What would specifically addressing that 50% gender gap look like?

The witnesses will be aware that there are those who are in a very particular position. We mentioned the scheme in terms of those who are incapacitated. We still have older women in the State who were affected by the marriage bar and will not be able to meet the ten-year threshold in that regard. That is something where a ring-fenced, specific scheme has been called for in the past. That is a crucial recognition of care and possibly not covered. Perhaps it will be covered by the new scheme that is coming in terms of incapacitated dependants.

Can the witnesses follow up on the minimum essential standards of living? As I noted earlier, the citizens' assembly sought to ensure that people had a level of income that was both above the poverty and deprivation threshold and specifically met particular adequate standards of living. That was directly in there. How much work has been done by the Department to make the minimum essential standard of living research available and relevant to the consideration of the potential introduction of a living wage or the adequate minimum wage directive from Europe?

That is so much but that is probably enough.

Chairman

We will have the last response.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I apologise; I have one last thing on care credits that relates to Senator Doherty’s comments There was a problem where people were not getting credits because they previously did not have a social protection record such as, for example, those who had come home from abroad to care. Has that been addressed? Are those people getting captured in terms of PRSI stamps at the moment?

Are those who do not qualify for the carer’s allowance or other payments based on means testing always nonetheless included into the system for the purposes of care credits? I worry sometimes that those who fail to get a payment may fall out of the system in terms of their crucial future contributory pension. What mechanisms does the Department have to avoid those particular gaps?

Finally, something for which I have pushed for years is that as well as care being recognised in one’s pension, care becomes a contributory allowance. For example, if a person has been caring for a period of ten years, that person has care credits in the system and could therefore access an Intreo scheme, back to education scheme or other schemes. At the moment, effectively, if a person is not on carer’s allowance, has been out of the social protection system and has not been getting a payment for a period of five or ten years - a position in which many qualified adults end up - that person is not individually visible to the system. If these people want to move back into the workplace, they do not have the one or two years in the system that would allow them to access voluntary schemes that might support them.

Chairman

We will leave the questioning there and come back to our witnesses.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

I will start on the credits issue that the Senator mentioned. Certainly, people on carer’s allowance and carer’s benefit get social insurance credits. However, that is contingent on them having a paid contribution within the two years prior to going on that scheme, so the Senator is correct there. When it comes to home caring periods and how they are counted for pension purposes, they are not actual social insurance credits and that is why it has the name that it does. They are periods that have the same effect as having a credit; it is not contingent on a person being on a payment or getting credit on a payment for those purposes.

On the minimum essential standard of living, my understanding – I am open to correction on this – is that the research had direct input in the discussions on living wage. Certainly, as the Senator knows, this Department funds that research. It is now housed as a research centre in the Society of St. Vincent De Paul. It has been hugely influential in some of the budgetary changes and policies that have been introduced. For example, the higher payment for kids over the age of 12 years came directly from that research.

Even though it has moved from the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice it is great that work is continuing into the future.

We can certainly look at the universal pension and try to get a figure for that slice Senator Higgins mentioned, which was uprating to the full rate women who are on the reduced rate. It would also be necessary to include, and I do not know if we have these figures but no doubt we can find them, women who do not have a pension at all. They would have to be part of that slice also. If that is what is required, we will try to figure that out. Certainly the uprating slice-----

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

We need that granular analysis around pensions. We need to do a deep dive on gender and pensions. It is useful to model a few different approaches to bridging the gap and treat it as a problem, which it is.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

On the care credits point, was it caring periods as a kind of a qualifying period for other social-----

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

The point Mr. Lawler highlights is a serious issue, whereby if a person does not have a previous record, he or she might not get the carer's allowance credit payment. Some people who moved abroad move home to care. They may end up staying home for ten or 20 years caring but remain out of the system in that context. That is a gap that needs to be addressed.

In regard to the other issue, sometimes it is not necessarily those who are on carer's allowance or carer's benefit, for example, qualified adults who may be caring for children at home. They are registered as qualified adults on their partners' payments or wages but they are not necessarily accruing credits in their own names. When their children reach a certain age, those people may try voluntarily to seek access to schemes such as Intreo or back to education. There are many situations where somebody who has been a qualified adult but who has not been visible in the system individually wants to access measures such as back to education or other positive and very good schemes that are available. However, for most of those schemes it is necessary to have been registered as a jobseeker for a certain period of time or it is necessary to have been in the system. The system at the moment only looks at the past two years, and if a person has not been working or no individual stamps have been paid on his or her behalf, he or she is quite invisible. It is a case of the care credits that are being accumulated and will be recognised for pension purposes also being recognised in accessing employment and education schemes.

Chairman

That is a proposal Senator Higgins is making.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

It is a proposal that has been discussed before. It is in line with the care bridge and ensuring we have access. It is in line with the recommendations of the citizens' assembly. We need a granular piece around that.

Mr. Ciarán Lawler

I thank Senator Higgins for that suggestion. To clarify one point, anyone can voluntarily avail of the services of the public employment services and the Intreo offices. That is not contingent on being on a payment. I want to make that clarification. However, the Senator is correct that, in many cases, access to schemes requires people to be on a particular set of qualifying payments for a particular duration before they enter. She is correct in that and we accept her comments.

Chairman

That is a creative proposal Senator Higgins made that would feed into the spirit of the citizens' assembly recommendations, even if there is not one specifically on that. We have seen today the real engagement, interest and commitment the members of this committee have towards seeing the implementation of the citizens' assembly recommendations, particularly those on care and social protection that we have addressed today. I thank the witnesses for their extensive expertise and knowledge and their knowledgeable and clear answers to our detailed questions. There are a number of matters they have indicated they might follow up on, notably on the data on the gendered analysis and the gender breakdown around pensions. There are recommendations in the citizens' assembly report about getting better gendered analysis of data. That is entirely in keeping with that recommendation. We may come back to the witnesses on those points. I thank both the witnesses very much, Mr. Rónán Hession and Mr. Ciarán Lawler from the Department of Social Protection, for their very extensive briefing with us today on the recommendations relating to care and protection.

As Deputy Clarke stated, this concludes the last public meeting of the Committee on Gender Equality. This is our last public hearing. We have had a very tight timeframe to conduct public hearings on the detailed recommendations of the citizens' assembly. I thank all the stakeholders and witnesses who have taken the time over the past nine months to appear before us. I thank also all those who have followed the work of the committee and who have engaged with us in person or via written submission. I thank also those who engage with us online and follow our hearings online. We appreciate that, especially the continued interest and engagement of the members of the citizens' assembly who tune in every week and who are in contact with us about our work. We will continue to meet in private session over the coming weeks to finalise our report, which we hope to launch on Thursday, 1 December 2022. We will take into account all of the submissions, representations and evidence that were before us over the course of our public hearings. I thank my colleagues for their courteous and committed engagement over the course of our public hearings.

The joint committee adjourned at 11.26 a.m. sine die.