As a member of the Joint Committee on Women's Rights, I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a contribution to this debate and, indeed, it was gratifying to hear the favourable comments of Senator O'Brien on the report because the members of the joint committee did put a lot of diligent work into its preparation. The Joint Committee's first report dealt with education and the Joint Committee selected the area of social welfare for its second report because so many people in this country today are dependent on social welfare. The vast majority of the people who are dependent on social welfare are women.
Today there is a very high number of people registered as unemployed and drawing unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance. In addition to those two social welfare schemes, there are approximately 30 other different schemes of payment. It was the view of the Joint Committee that, during the next number of years even if there is a reduction in the unemployment figures, a very large number of people will still be dependent on social welfare and that a large percentage of the people who will be dependent on social welfare will continue to be women. When the Joint Committee was examining the social welfare code, they heard evidence from representatives of various groups and they also received quite a number of written submissions both from groups and individuals throughout the country. Many of the submissions received by the Joint Committee dealt with areas of the social welfare system where people experienced difficulties or, indeed, with areas where improvements are needed.
Before I move on to deal with the various sections of the report, I want to refer to an article which appeared in the Irish Independent of Friday, February 7 1986. This article was concerned with “The welfare fraud”. In this article it was suggested that more than £150 million a year is being lost through direct fraud of the social welfare system. It was also alleged in the article that women were the prime offenders. Examples were given of areas of the social welfare system where this fraud is alleged to be taking place. I quote from the report:
Duplicated children's allowance books and dishonesty in claiming unmarried mothers', deserted wives' or disability allowances and benefits as well as third level students signing on for the dole are amongst the most simple methods of swindling for women.
It was also suggested in the report that there is an over-representation of married women among disability benefit claimants. It was alleged, too, that some couples go to the extreme of a wife taking out a court barring order against her husband so that she will qualify for a deserted wife's allowance, even though the couple continue to cohabitate.
I want to say at this stage that the Joint Committee did not in their examination of the social welfare system receive any evidence or find any evidence that the situation as outlined in that report exists. It was agreed that there is a perception that there is some fraud in relation to the social welfare system. This report, even though it makes those serious allegations of fraud and particularly the very serious allegations against women, does not substantiate any of those allegations. I believe that before allegations of that nature would be made in a newspaper article there should be hard evidence to substantiate the allegations; otherwise they should not be made. The Department of Social Welfare employ a number of special investigation officers. The function of these investigation officers is to be vigilant in relation to abuses of the system and I believe that these investigation officers are as successful as it is possible for them to be in relation to the stamping out of abuses of social welfare and I do not accept that fraud to the extent alleged in this article exists in the social welfare system. Neither do I accept that there is any widespread fraud as far as women recipients of social welfare are concerned.
Everybody recognises that expenditure on social welfare has been increasing very rapidly in recent years. The total expenditure on social welfare is now approximately £2½ billion a year. This represents about 25 per cent of current Government spending. In other words, £1 in every £4 spent by the State is spent on social welfare. This is the equivalent of approximately 14 per cent of the gross national product. It is in everybody's interest that this vast amount of money is well spent and that it goes to the people who rightfully need it. There is a perception that some claimants of social welfare are not genuine and in order to deal with that perception and so that it will be seen by the general public that there is not widespread abuse of the social welfare system and so that it will be seen that the money is going to the people who are properly eligible for it, the Joint Committee agree that strict accountability and control are necessary but the Joint Committee would not like to see too great an emphasis placed on control to the detriment of the service provided to the general public.
As a result of the recession and the increase in unemployment in recent years, many families find great difficulty in meeting their commitments and many families who, a few years ago, knew nothing about social welfare or about the social welfare system, are now very much part of the system and they have to depend totally on social welfare for their most basic requirements. The only money going into many households is provided by social welfare and, of course, this puts an extra burden on married women who have to try to make ends meet in a situation where they have no income other than what they receive through social welfare.
Social welfare also involves stress for recipients. Already they have the stress brought about by unemployment or by the difficult situation in which they find themselves, but there is the further stress of having to deal with social welfare officials some of whom — a minority I would say — can be insensitive at times to the situation in which those social welfare applicants find themselves. There is also the difficulty of understanding and coping with official forms and official communications. Very often those official forms and official communications are very complicated and it is beyond the capacity of ordinary individuals to deal with those forms, and the Joint Committee feel that all communications and correspondence to the general public in relation to social welfare should be written in a language that is simple and easy to understand.
There is also the problem that many people do not know what their entitlements are under the social welfare code. The joint committee agreed that there should be a booklet written in simple language, which the committee described in the report as a social welfare passport, which would outline particulars of the various schemes available and the conditions of eligibility for those schemes.
There is an increasing number of people who have to rely on charitable and voluntary organisations to supplement the payments they receive from social welfare because the general level of social welfare payments is inadequate. In the case of most payments, the level of payment is hardly sufficient to meet the basic needs of the individual or the family, and because of this fact unemployed women and mothers who are depending on social welfare are finding it increasingly difficult to cope.
There is also the problem that unemployed women are finding it increasingly difficult, too, to re-enter the workforce because there is a tendency on the part of many employers to give a preference to men when jobs become available and this leads to a situation where, in the case of women, they must exist in many cases for longer periods on social welfare payments than men.
There is another area with which the Joint Committee dealt and an area which causes quite a number of problems. That is the area of means testing. Many of the social welfare payments are means tested payments. The Joint Committee agreed that means testing today is not carried out in a uniform manner. Different criteria are laid down for different payments and the means testing is carried out by different officers. Neither is there any uniformity between the means testing and the method used by the health boards in assessing eligibility for medical cards or for the different schemes which are operated by the health boards and the means tests which are carried out by the Department of Social Welfare. The members of the Joint Committee felt that there should be a uniform system of means testing for all the various schemes so that when a person's means have been assessed for a particular scheme that he or she should be furnished with particulars of their means as assessed and that this should be sufficient for the various schemes irrespective of whether the individual is applying for a payment operated by the Department of Health or by the health boards or a payment operated by the Department of Social Welfare.
Another area which the Joint Committee examined in detail was that of living alone allowances. Senator O'Brien has already referred to the section of the report which deals with this. As Senators know, certain categories of social welfare recipients qualify for a living alone allowances and, if they are eligible for these allowances, they also qualify for other benefits, such as the free telephone rental allowance. It was the view of the committee that at the moment there is too rigid an interpretation of the term "living alone" or of the living alone condition. The committee agreed that somebody such as a relative, who does not reside permanently with the social welfare recipient but who might stay with that social welfare recipient at night, should not debar that social welfare recipient from receiving the living alone allowance and for qualifying for the other benefits which depend on a social welfare recipient being alone. We had evidence of cases where social welfare recipients lost their living alone allowance because of the fact that somebody such as a very young person — a grandchild, in one particular case — went to stay with that social welfare recipient at night. The person involved was an old age pensioner and that old age pensioner's living alone allowance was withdrawn as were the other benefits which that pensioner had been receiving up to then. The committee feels — and there was unanimity on this — that there should be a more flexible interpretation of the living alone condition.
As Senator O'Brien said, the committee went into considerable detail in the section which deals with women in the home. There are many women who have spent all their lives in the home either as housewives and mothers or as single persons caring for aged relatives. These people were referred to in many of the submissions received by the Joint Committee. It was the view of the committee that women in this category need greater support from the social welfare system than they are getting at present. It was also the unanimous view of the committee that dental and optical benefit should be extended to all such women.
The committee also felt that the single women's allowance, which is paid to single women between the ages of 58 and 66, is totally inadequate. There is also a very severe means test applied to applicants for this allowance with the result that many such women do not qualify for the maximum allowance. In fact it is only a minority of women who qualify for the maximum allowance. The committee felt that the single woman's allowance should be at least the same as the non-contributory pension for a widow without child dependants and that it should be paid at 55 years.
The prescribed relative allowance was also looked at. The condition which lays down that there should be no other adult in the household makes it very difficult for many pensioners to qualify for this allowance, because it is also laid down in the conditions that the prescribed relative must not be a married person. I would agree with everything Senator O'Brien said in relation to the prescribed relative allowance.
There is the situation where an incapacitated pensioner is being looked after and cared for by a daughter-in-law who has no blood relationship with the pensioner and yet that daughter-in-law is excluded from the prescribed relative allowance scheme and the pensioner cannot qualify for a prescribed relative allowance in respect of that daughter-in-law. The committee felt that this condition in relation to the prescribed relative allowance should be re-examined and relaxed because, were it not for the care and attention which is being given by persons who are described as prescribed relatives and were it not for the care and attention that elderly and incapacitated pensioners are receiving from such persons, then many of those elderly pensioners would require institutional care. This would be much more costly on the State.
We also dealt with the situation of older women. There was much evidence before the committee that many women, particularly women between the ages 60 to 66, the age at which women normally qualify for old age contributory or non-contributory pensions, have to depend on voluntary and charitable organisations to supplement their incomes. The Joint Committee would like to see the low levels of existing old age contributory and non-contributory pensions raised. They would like to see the qualifying age reduced progressively to 60 years.
Widows find difficulty in coping, particularly in the early years of widowhood. We gave particular consideration to those widows whose late husbands, because they were over 66 years and in receipt of old age pension, were also in receipt of allowance such as the free electricity allowance. Then on the death of the husbands their wives were not of pension age and consequently those allowances were taken from them. The members of the committee were unanimous in recommending that widows in this situation, under 66 years whose late husbands had been in receipt of free electricity allowance, should be allowed to continue to receive the free electricity allowance for a minimum period of at least two years. The members also agreed that women who had spent their lives in the home and who had given a lifetime of service in the home should be entitled to receive a non-contributory pension in their own right and should not be regarded as dependants of their spouses. At the moment they are regarded as dependants of their spouses. When their eligibility for old age pension is being assessed whatever income or pension their spouses might have is taken into account and such women in many cases do not qualify for old age pension in their own right. It was the view of the committee that such women should be entitled to receive an old age non-contributory pension and should not have the means of their spouses taken into account when being assessed.
Senator O'Brien also referred to the section of the report which deals with social welfare payments and the delay in processing claims for social welfare payment. The committee noted that the first annual report of the Ombudsman referred to the fact that almost half the complaints against Government Departments related to social welfare. The report also referred to the hardships which people suffered because of delays by the Department of Social Welfare in paying people. The committee were very unhappy about these long delays. While we understood that because of Government restrictions on the recruitment of staff certain sections in the Department are shortstaffed at present and that this is contributing to delays in processing of claims, we felt that the Government should make every effort to improve the overall staffing position in the Department either by relaxing the embargo on recruitment in the Department itself or by transferring officials from other Departments to the Department of Social Welfare. Only when this happens will there be a more speedy and efficient service available to social welfare recipients.
It would also help if decision-making powers were extended to local social welfare officers. At present the situation is that the majority of claims have to be referred to Dublin for a final decision. This leads to long delays. If decision-making powers were given to local social welfare officers the processing and payment could be speeded up considerably.
The committee also considered the inadequacy of the facilities available at many social welfare offices. Many social welfare offices are located in old buildings with no facilities for women who wish to bring their children with them when they have to attend these offices. The committee feel that the provision of such facilities in these offices is urgently required. They urge that priority be given to the provision of such facilities. The committee feel that there should be a better standard of accommodation in all employment exchanges.
On page 39 of the report the recommendations of the committee are set out. A total of 23 recommendations were put forward. I agree with Senator O'Brien that some of the recommendations have cost implications which in some cases are quite significant. However, the Joint Committee felt that they would not be dealing adequately with their brief were they not to make these recommendations. Other recommendations made by the committee have no cost implications and could, in the view of the committee, be dealt with fairly easily. If many of these recommendations were implemented they would give the social welfare system a more humane face particularly as far as women are concerned.
The committee spent many hours considering the various oral and written submissions which were received. They worked very hard on the preparation of this report and I was pleased to hear Senator O'Brien's favourable comments on it.