An amendment sheet has been circulated. I have had to disallow all of the amendments in accordance with Standing Orders. I have written to the Senators concerned to this effect.
Social Welfare Bill, 1983: Committee and Final Stages.
Section 1 to 10, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 11
Question proposed: "That section 11 stand part of the Bill."
On section 11, rather than deleting the £8 given in this case perhaps the Minister would consider £8 plus the inflation rate. I know £8 is not a lot of money, but it is a gesture to the poor wife who might need it. This Bill is anti the poor. It ignores the poor person who might avail of these grants. I have to object to this section. The Minister might consider bringing back this maternity grant at some stage in the future with a suitably inflated clause to give the benefit of the amount involved to a poor person.
I assure the Deputy that the maternity grant will still be paid to persons on low incomes. As the House is aware, about one-third of the population qualify for medical cards, and since that is the criterion generally used by the health boards, that £8 will continue to be paid. The average payment on the maternity allowance is between £500 and £900. The £8 has become an anachronism. It has not changed for very many years. Even in terms of administrative cost, it is wise to withdraw it at this stage.
I asked the Minister a question earlier and I am sorry I was not here for his reply. What capital does he expect to accrue as a result of the abolition of the £8 maternity cash grant? What is his answer to the question I put in connection with the people who were in receipt of the £8, the unemployed housewives who were in receipt of this £8? Has he built anything into the Bill to substitute for it? They are the people who will be penalised under this section? The employed are dealt with under the scheme the Minister outlined in the Bill. What will those people get in lieu of the £8 they will lose?
The £8 is a once-off payment. The amount of money involved in the withdrawal of the grant is very small. By and large the money is not the issue. The previous Government also proposed to withdraw the grant. It involves about £250,000. At the moment some 35,000 persons receive maternity grants. Of these 15,000 receive two grants, one on both their own and their husbands' insurance, while the remaining 20,000 receive one grant on either their own or their husbands' insurance. Persons on low income will continue to have availability to the maternity grant payable to medical card holders through the health boards. The amount of money involved is very small. The general provision in the Estimate for maternity allowance — I can give it later on if Senators wish — is very substantial and has no relativity to the maternity grant. It is as much an administrative anachronism as anything else.
It is not the amount I am concerned with. I am concerned with the people. As I said earlier, £8 may not be a lot of money, but I guarantee it is a lot if you need it. The people we are talking about will not get £8 in the future. They will not get any assistance whatsoever under the new Bill.
That is correct, but in terms of the general allowance and the particular scheme, the ordinary increases in social welfare will also apply, namely, the 10 per cent and the 12 per cent. In fact, we will still be spending a good deal more money. There may well be developing in the public mind a wrong impression that the maternity allowance is affected and that the social welfare increases are affected. We should distinguish sharply between the maternity grant and the general scheme of maternity allowance. That sort of confusion should be avoided.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 12.
Question proposed: "That section 12 stand part of the Bill."
May I ask the Minister in relation to children's allowances whether he has given consideration to the problem of a child between 16 and 18 years who is potentially self-supporting but in fact unemployed? There seems to be an increasing problem in the reality of the situation for many young people. We give an allowance to a child who is still in education at that stage, but for the child who is unemployed and does not qualify for unemployment assistance because of age, there is no provision for children's allowance. I wonder whether the Minister had given consideration to this.
This was a rather difficult decision for me. I examined it very carefully because it was one of the budget estimate decision which the previous Government had taken. I had to re-examine that decision. The Bill, as we know, provides for the withdrawal of children's allowances from apprentices who are between the age of 16 and 18 years. It is true that children between 16 and 18 years who are in full-time education, or who are disabled, continue to qualify for children's allowances. The point made about apprentices is that, generally speaking — and we have checked the data with AnCO — about 4,000 apprentices are involved. Apprentices generally earn between £30 to £35 a week in their first year, and £40 to £45 a week in their second year. In view of these earnings, and in view of the fact that unemployed workers between 16 and 18 years automatically lose entitlement to children's allowances, it was felt that there should be a cut-off point. About 4,000 apprentices would be excluded from children's allowances.
The general intention — and, again, it is not so much a question of money; there is very little money involved in it — was to remove the anomaly which existed between unemployed young persons and young persons paid as apprentices. In the examination I made of it, I had difficulty in considering any reversal of this decision.
The anomaly remains and it is more evident between the young person between 16 and 18 who is in full-time education and whose parents are entitled to children's allowances, and the unemployed and, therefore the severely disadvantaged young person between 16 and 18. The apprentice is getting the allowance for apprentices and is in a different category but there is a very serious situation here. There is a presumption of employment. The word "self-supporting" is used and there is a kind of underlying value there that somehow somebody of 16 is either in education or disabled and, therefore, in need of the benefit or employed but the reality is that there is a significant number of young people between 16 and 18 who do not fit into that category and who should be of particular concern. It is not a question of removing an anomaly, it is a question of recognising a real need.
I accept the point made by Senator Robinson. It is a valid point. During the coming year I intend to examine very carefully the question of children's allowances and the real distributive effect of children's allowances. There is need for an urgent examination.
We are not worried if they are apprentices, we are not worried if they are in school or if they are incapacitated, because they will benefit in some way. We are worried about the fact that they are not in any of these categories, that they are unemployed and many of them will not qualify for unemployment benefit because they are reckoned to have an income of some description by virtue of the fact that they have a benefit by living in their parents' house. They are also too young. There is now an anomaly because they have been cut out. We would not worry if they were apprentices because they would have some income or if they were in school. The Minister can appreciate the reason for our concern.
Will the Minister accept that as a general rule it is the children of the better-off parents who continue in full-time education after 16 and that it is the children of less well-off parents who go into apprenticeships?
As a general observation I would certainly accept the comments made here which point out the anomalous situation in respect of some areas of children's allowances. There are about 129,000 children aged 16 and 17 and of these, children's allowances are already paid in respect of 85,000. There is no information available as to how many of the remaining 44,000 children in this age group are either unemployed or are not receiving unemployment benefit. They could not be receiving unemployment assistance as it is not payable under the age of 18. It is likely that a large proportion of that 44,000 would qualify for children's allowances if the scheme were extended in a general way to 18 years of age. If all the 44,000 children aged 16 and 17 not now getting children's allowances were to be paid, the cost would be about £6 million in a full year. In the context of an examination of children's allowances, that data and the budget consideration would need to be taken on board. It is an area in which I do not think we have done a great deal of research.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 13.
Question proposed: "That section 13 stand part of the Bill."
This is a section we will be opposing strongly. Our opinion is that in the light of what we know some system similar to the notional system will have to be introduced to ensure that the very small uneconomic farmers are given assistance. We all know that the deciding officer calls, then there is an appeal but the whole thing can fall down totally and will not be availed of by many farmers. The incentive is being taken away from farming. The whole concept of this particular section is one that we are opposing strongly.
I understood the High Court judgement of 30 July was the subject of an appeal to the Supreme Court. If that is the case, should the matter not be considered as being sub judice and, therefore, is it necessary to dispense with the notional assessment at this stage?
Was the national system debated in any way? If it is unconstitutional, who does the prosecuting? Who brings the case? It was not an issue in the courts because another issue was being dealt with at that time. This is a disadvantaged area and it is a supplementary allowance for a disadvantaged area. I do not agree that it is unconstitutional. Who will be the prosecutor in the event of it continuing in the Bill?
We have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that the High Court in July 1982 declared unequivocally that the rateable valuation system was unconstitutional and, therefore, on that basis the Attorney General has advised me in very clear terms that assessing unemployment assistance for smallholders' allowances on the basis of PLV is now unlawful. I am constrained to follow the advice of the Attorney General. I should make the point so that it will not appear that we are being Cromwellian or Draconian on this aspect that my decision is that the top 2,000 cases, about one-seventh of the total, mainly persons on the top valuation should be assessed first.
There is no question of social welfare officers going into townlands and arbitrarily picking on smallholders or discriminating in any way. The cases for factual assessment will be selected on an even basis throughout the designated areas and will be drawn first from those who have the highest valuation and, secondly, the least number of dependants. That is as fair as one could go. It is true that that group of persons will be reassessed in the near future, in a matter of four months. It is true that the system was questioned by the farming community and those in Wexford brought about the change. That is part of political folklore. I make the point, particularly in respect of those who opted for factual assessment, that by and large a substantial number of them obtained a higher increase. In my Estimates I am not assuming any saving: I am talking about 20,000 smallholders — £36 million. I examined very carefully if I would have a reduction in actual budget expenditure, by virtue of the change-over. On the basis of detailed evidence and advice to me, the indications are that there would be no great net saving in the change-over. That is advice which was available to the former Minister, who accepted that advice and accordingly prepared the Estimates. I must confess I thought that there would be a substantial saving by virtue of factual assessment. The methodology of factual assessment is such that it is not possible at this stage to say which smallholder will gain or lose by this High Court decision. Certainly, if I can be of any assistance to any Deputy or any Senator in providing further information on this matter in the months ahead, I will willingly provide the information and there is, of course, an appeals system for assessment. But there is no doubt now that this year a substantial number will be reassessed and this reassessment will have to be completed within a period of three years. In fact the Attorney General and the Department of Finance regard a change-over period of three years as generous. It will certainly, however, take that long.
I would like to welcome the commitment that we have now got from the Minister that there will not be an automatic suspension of social welfare payments to smallholders and that he will process this in a progressive way by taking out first those at the top of the rateable valuation. From my knowledge of the working of this system — and I have quite a lot of experience as a member of an old age pensions committee — very many smallholders qualify under this factual assessment situation. Many smallholders are used to having to produce details of their incomes and outgoings on small farms and the vast majority of them do, in fact, qualify for non-contributory social welfare pensions which it would be quite difficult for anybody else to get who is not in a rateable valuation situation. Small farmers have been quite fortunate in the application of this system in the determination of their old age non-contributory pensions.
Equity must be seen always to run through all our future legislation because of the dilemmas which have been created in the past. In equity, there must be a proper, humanitarian approach by those carrying out the inspection and now the Minister has given the commitment that he is not going to cut off all automatically unless it is proved that they are entitled to it. If there is a humane approach to it on the ground people will, in fact, benefit from this assessment. On the previous option they were given, those who did opt for factual assessments got more than by retaining the notional system. We cannot have it both ways, because the farming organisations were at pains to ensure a High Court decision along these lines and a great deal of money was saved for the farming community by way of rates. Many of us always felt that they were an anomaly because they ignored a person's ability to pay.
These small farmers have also benefitted greatly because they have not been paying the health contributions which are also assessed on the same basis. There is no question whatsoever of that being used again by the farming organisations, so it would be inequitable to produce now a case for continuing to use it for this purpose. There are anomalies here also. There are people who are paying this system with small valuations, with very intensive units from various degrees of agriculture. People can have quite small valuations and still have very intensive production of pigs, chickens and so on, on small valuations. If other people have to subject themselves to a means test why not these people, especially as it is being done in a humanitarian way by taking the top portion first to see what that will produce and then extending it over the next group? They will be happy at the end of the day, and if they get it by this process, everybody else will be assured that they are entitled to it. Everybody now feels that he is not entitled to it at all. When the figures for the assessments come out many of these people will get more than they are getting now and we will all be happy that they have been proved to be entitled to it.
The Minister was asked a question and perhaps he would answer it. That is the question of the appeal to the Supreme Court. As I know it, the poor law valuation system was made unlawful, therefore farmers do not pay rates. But surely if we are genuine and sincere about it we could still continue to use this system as a guideline to implement this section of the Bill. We are using this poor law valuation decision of the High Court just as a soft option, to get out of it and it is not good enough. We will certainly be opposing this section all the way.
I would make one brief observation. I certainly have not provided for any cut in the situation here. It will be very interesting to see what exactly will happen because the rates, as Senators know, have been frozen on a number of occasions, or have been diminished and the multiplier as Members know, has been changed also. We in the Department — and I use the collective term — would not be surprised if, in fact, in quite a number of instances we had to make additional payments. We have not provided for any savings arising out of the change-over: £36.2 million was made available in that area in the published Estimates. On the budget improvement now, it would look as though our expenditure for the year could be around £37.3 million. I do not honestly know what the expenditure at the end of the year will be, but the short answer to Senators Fallon and O'Toole is that I have no option but to obey the strictures of the Attorney General. In fact, if we had all obeyed the strictures of the Attorney General in recent months, we would not be in as much of a mess as we are in.
Oliver J. Flanagan.
I do not want to appear to be hogging it. However, the Minister will appreciate that Dáil Deputies had not an opportunity to deal with this section because of procedural agreement, debate, or whatever arrangement you may call it because this section was not reached. There were many Deputies——
Rural Deputies, in particular.
——rural Deputies and Deputies from the disadvantaged areas who wished to discuss this in depth. Had section 13 been debated, the Minister would not be here today, because they would still be debating it in the Dáil. A grave injustice will be done as a result of this. If you get a disadvantaged area grant such as a sheep subsidy or a cattle headage grant, when the investigation officer comes out will he take into consideration a grant under the EEC directive as an assessment for means in this case? If he does, does that not contravene an EEC regulation as being unconstitutional? Is the Attorney General assuming that it is not unconstitutional? What farm expenses will be allowed for assessment and how will incomes be calculated?
I pointed out earlier that because of the three year span of two people in the one townland, one could be assessed within a fortnight and the other might not be assessed for two and a half years. Although according to the Minister's submission he is not responsible, I suggest there will be discrimination. If one farmer can receive what he is receiving now and a farmer down the road is completely cut-off as a result of an investigation by a pension officer, then I believe that is discrimination. There are up to 13,000 farmers in disadvantaged areas who will be affected by it. It is a serious situation for them.
We have to look at it in perspective. I regret that there was no opportunity in the Dáil to debate the matter. I can assure the Senator that that was not my responsibility. Of the 20,000 smallholders at present there are 6,000 on factual assessment. I do not get a great volume of complaint and appeals arising out of that form of assessment. But it is true to say that headage payments, sheep subsidies and so on would have to be included.
Would have to be?
Yes, that is my interpretation of the assessment. If I am wrong I will write rapidly to the Senator concerned. I can make available to Senators the general calculations and method of compiling means — it may be useful — but I would stress that the assessment would be carefully carried out on a sample of top valuations with few dependants. There will be no discrimination and I would be very concerned if there appeared to be. The income will be assessed factually on an income expenditure basis. I repeat here: by reference to income derived from sales of stock, crops, other farm produce, including milk. Now I can see where milk could come into it on a number of holdings.
Including EEC subsidies?
Much as Deputies and Senators have been accusing me on many an occasion of not appreciating the exigencies of farming life, 90 per cent of my relations come from north Cork, small dairy farming stock. I am well aware of the situation. Certainly farm produce consumed by the family, which is normally taken into account, will be taken into account; but, as we know, there is a very limited area there. I would stress that the expenditure incurred in earning the income, such as the cost of feeding stuffs, fertilisers, veterinary expenses, hire of machinery, including interest paid in respect of any loans obtained in operating a farm — all that will be taken into account. The difference between income and expenditure will be taken as the annual means and divided by 52. The system is no different than that which operates generally outside of the specified counties. It operates quite well with no great degree of complaint. There is a measure of equity. For whatever purpose this scheme was introduced in 1966 — I do not want to indulge in any recriminations on it — the fact of the matter now is that, by a unique High Court decision, the position has changed. That High Court decision has dramatic impact on a whole range of matters, including capital taxation and other methods of taxation. It is not just a question of PLV application to social assistance. That is the position at present. Of course, there also is the appeal system.
I would point out, lest Senator O'Toole be under any illusions, that successive Governments have changed the system. The ultimate intention was to have everybody, all of the 20,000 — there are only 14,000 left — on a national system. If the Senator would wish to have a breakdown of the numbers in each county who are on the current notional assessment, I can get it. But he has it in a PQ reply there. In six, eight or nine months' time I can provide the data of the number of persons who have gone over to factual assessment, the average payment and so on. This is the reality. It is in the Bill and it comes in from the first week in April.
Question put.
The Seanad divided: Tá, 26, Níl, 13.
Tá
- Belton, Luke.
- Browne, John.
- Bulbulia, Katharine.
- Burke, Ulick.
- Connor, John.
- Conway, Timmy.
- Daly, Jack.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Dooge, James C.I.
- Durcan, Patrick.
- Magner, Pat.
- O'Brien, Andy.
- O'Leary, Seán
- Ferris, Michael.
- FitzGerald, Alexis J.G.
- Fleming, Brian.
- Harte, John.
- Hourigan, Richard V.
- Howard, Michael.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Loughrey, Joachim.
- McAuliffe-Ennis, Helena.
- McDonald, Charlie.
- O'Mahony, Flor.
- Quealy, Michael A.
- Robinson, Mary T.W.
Níl
- Cassidy, Donie.
- de Brún, Séamus.
- Fallon, Seán.
- Fitzsimons, Jack.
- Hillery, Brian.
- Honan, Tras.
- Kiely, Rory.
- Lynch, Michael.
- Mullooly, Brian.
- O'Toole, Martin J.
- Ryan, Eoin.
- Ryan, William.
- Smith, Michael.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Belton and Harte; Níl, Senators W. Ryan and de Brún.
Question declared carried.
Sections 14 to 17, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 18.
Question proposed: "That section 18 stand part of the Bill."
Why is it proposed to change from three to six months the length of time in which it would be open to the Minister to certify for the purpose of prosecution? This change is repeated in most of the remaining sections. It seems to me that the length of time of three months or two years, whichever expires later, is quite sufficient.
The period of three months which applied in the certificate was taken to commence from the date on which the Minister signed the certificate. The Attorney General has, however, given it as his opinion that the period should start from the date on which sufficient information becomes available to a subordinate official and the (b) provision therefore, takes account of the Attorney General's opinion and extends the period from three months to six months, mainly, I would stress to the Senator, to allow sufficient time for the completion of inquiries and the processing of any appeals during that period. There is also the alternative period of two years commencing on the date of the offence. This enables Social Welfare not to be sluggish in any way in prosecution procedures but it can very often happen that it is quite impossible to bring to justice particular offences within a short period. In many instances very detailed investigations have to be undertaken by social welfare officers. In the event, say, of a firm going suddenly into liquidation, it is very often necessary to have an extended period.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 19 to 26, inclusive, agreed to.
Schedules A and B agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment and received for final consideration.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
I should like to thank Senators for their generous co-operation in ensuring that the Bill is brought into operation. Should any Senators have difficulty in respect of the interpretation or the application of any section of the Bill I can assure them, on all sides of the House, that they are more than welcome to contact me, or the Secretary of the Department, and they will be given every possible assistance.
I should like to thank the Minister. Certain aspects of the Bill concerned us greatly. We were anxious to highlight the problems we had with regard to the Bill and we are glad to know that, at any stage, the Minister will help us out with any problem.
Question put and agreed to.