I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this Bill which implements the budget changes in social welfare services. I note that in her speech the Minister opened up quite a far-ranging debate. She appeared to wish to have the House reflect on the general underlying issues of our approach to social welfare. In that context she referred to the forthcoming report of the Commission on Social Welfare. I should like to make a number of comments on the Minister's speech in this regard.
First, I felt there was a lack of urgency in the way in which she referred to the broader issues and to the forthcoming report of the Commission on Social Welfare. As has been noted, her speech is not paginated but, in referring to the commission she simply stated:
The commission is due to report shortly and I expect that its report will provide a valuable positive contribution to the debate on this complex area of national importance.
I may be unfair to the Minister in seeing in that a lack of a sense of urgency and importance. But one of the difficulties in establishing a commission such as the commission which has been studying this matter for a couple of years now, is the time lag that can ensue once the commission has reported. The report will undoubtedly be of great importance and significance, but will require urgent, immediate attention at Government level. I would have preferred if the Minister had indicated an urgent anticipation that the Government are waiting, not just to receive and then ponder on the report of the commission, but to take it and run with it with a view to implementing — in the lifetime of this Government — the broad range of proposals, presumably on the basis that they would be acceptable to the Government. In other words, that it will not be like the Committee on Marriage Breakdown.
That committee reported this time last year, and we have seen what happened — a very desultory debate in both Houses of the Oireachtas, better in the Seanad than in the Dáil. Nonetheless, it was a slow debate on such an urgent and important area. There is not a sign of any draft legislation yet on the very many broad recommendations for reform of family law that were contained in that report. Are we going to see legislation in the lifetime of this Government in that area and, more directly and immediately, are we going to see an urgent response to the report of the Commission on Social Welfare?
First, it would be useful if the Minister of State in replying to this debate could indicate when the report will be due. We have heard quite a bit in recent months in various debates, including the debate on the report of the women's committee on social welfare, that the report is due shortly, but at this stage it would be desirable that we know specifically when the report will be due. That is my first broad comment. I would like to see more urgency. I would like to know when the commission are going to report, and I would like to have a sense that the Government intend, during their remaining span, to introduce broad ranging, radical reforms of our social welfare code.
This brings me to my second general comment on the Minister's speech on introducing the Bill. She raised some issues in relation to apparent consensus on social welfare but there was an ambivalence in that consensus. As I read and reflected on the Minister's remarks I was struck by their rather narrow focus. It does not seem possible to have a radical reform of our approach if it is narrowly within the confines of the existing values that underlie our social welfare code. Let me point to an example in the contribution of Senator Higgins. He is looking for a very different approach to the whole issue of farmers' dole. He wants to transfer it to a different Department. He wants to give it dignity. He wants it to be looked at as part of a development programme. That is a very interesting suggestion which is worthy of further attention but it should not be confined to farmers' dole. There is no reason to forget the other components of the 238,000 unemployed whose profile is so low, whose sense of their own worth and potential for self-development is undermined and negatived by the approach which we adopt to unemployment benefit and assistance, disability and the whole range of welfare benefits. It is time that as a country we looked at the way in which the code impacts on our society and at the moment further divides and stratifies our society. I hope that there will be a substantial element of that in the report of the Commission on Social Welfare. That report is overdue at this stage. I hope it will be forthcoming in the very near future, that it will be debated in both Houses at least within a month of when it emerges with a view to making progress on the necessary proposals for legislation and that then we will have the legislation which will have to follow on it.
I come to another issue which the Minister touched on briefly and which was raised by other contributors to the debate. That is specific problems in the administration of social welfare and in particular the problem of delay in relation to appeals under the social welfare code. It is worth looking at the "Annual Report of the Ombudsman Ireland 1985" just published because that is one way of monitoring complaints about social welfare. Any public representative is deeply aware of dissatisfaction on the ground and of complaints about delay, but here we have an office and a public official established to monitor complaints against various Department of the Civil Service. It is worth noting that in his report the Ombudsman makes it clear that the reports filed against the Department of Social Welfare comprised by far the largest number of complaints. On page 11 of his report he points out that the total number of complaints to the Ombudsman against the whole range of the Civil Service was 2,881 and of those 1,677 were complaints about the Department of Social Welfare. The next in this league, so to speak, were the Revenue Commissioners at 529 and other Departments had at most a couple of hundred complaints lodged. Therefore, almost half the complaints were against the Department of Social Welfare.
There are two areas selected by the Ombudsman that I want to consider. One is the delay in appeals as being a very serious component of the complaints. He points out some of the reasons for these delays on page 23 of his report, and we should bear these reasons in mind. He says:
During the past year I received a number of complaints about delays in the hearing of oral appeals by Appeals Officers of the Department of Social Welfare. The hearings themselves take, on average, approximately an hour and the decisions involved are usually notified to claimants soon after the hearings. The main delay is in actually setting up the hearings, particularly in cases occurring outside Dublin. Appeals Officers go "on circuit" on a 3 to 4 week cycle and on each occasion they attempt to fit in as many cases as possible. However, if a case is not taken on a particular "circuit" it has to be put back for the next suitable occasion. In some cases delays can be as long as six months between the date of appeal and the hearing.
He goes on to say that it is not part of his function to look into the operation of the staffing of the appeals branch but he wishes to draw attention to it. It is a matter of concern to this House and we should urge it as being a priority for consideration. It affects a significant number of people. I would like to add something that is not referred to expressly by the Ombudsman. It is the absence of any proper appeals structure at all in relation to supplementary welfare. That is a very serious reflection on our sense of both priorities and how we deal with the most vulnerable section. The 1975 Act which brought in the supplementary welfare system, which is now consolidated in the 1981 Act, provided that the Minister could make regulations establishing an appeals structure. That has never been done. Ten years later there is no appeals system and the matter is dealt with internally administratively. Something very important for lawyers, principles of natural justice, simply do not appear to apply. A person does not know the basis on which his or her appeal is being considered, who is considering it or when it will be considered. Such persons get a one line letter one way or the other or are informed orally of the outcome of the appeal. That is not a satisfactory basis on which to have appeals.
Therefore, there are two areas of concern. One is the fact that the Ombudsman in his report has highlighted the incidence of delay in relation to social welfare appeals, and the other is the fact that we still have not a proper system. We have no regulations providing for an appeals structure in relation to supplementary welfare which, after all, concerns those who are most vulnerable and whose cases, therefore, should get priority and the best attention. Certainly they should get a proper structure so that they would know where they stand.
The other issue highlighted by the Ombudsman to which I would like to draw attention is the problem of the averaging of pension contributions for old age pensioners. Any public representative is aware of the harsh anomaly and unfairness of this system, and I commend a brief description of it in the report of the Ombudsman. It highlights the nature of the problem. It is unintended, but it is a very harsh problem which affects old age pensioners on contributory pension. They simply do not understand why, as in many cases, where they have contributed more over a longer number of years they disentitle themselves whereas if they contributed only from 1974 onwards rather than in the period before the break between 1953 and 1974, they would be entitled to a contribution. Two people could have worked side by side one of whom was contributing from 1974 on and who will get his contributory pension, the other who had worked longer and had contributed up to 1953 and then came out of the contribution system under the legislation between 1953 and 1974, continued contributing right up to retirement in, say, 1984, and would not be entitled because of the system of averaging contributions. That is well described by the Ombudsman on page 21 of his report where he says:
Under the "averaging" rule in the social welfare system anybody who has paid contributions, or has been awarded credited contributions, between 1953 and 1974 and subsequently applies for a pension, has their total number of contributions "averaged". The average is arrived at by dividing the total contributions by the number of years between the date of first contribution and the date of last contribution. If they do not average at least 20 contributions per year they do not qualify for a contributory pension.
This means, of course, that the system favours those who were on higher salaries in the years between 1953 and 1974 and did not as a result pay any contributions. For the purposes of "averaging", their records would only go back as far as 1974. In effect those who paid less contributions could qualify whereas those who paid more might not.
One of the most remarkable examples of the "averaging" problem was brought to my attention during the year. It concerned a man who failed to obtain a contributory old age pension because he had one stamp in 1953 and had no stamps again until 1976. Yet, the 23 intervening years were used in calculating his average number of contributions per year.
I am aware of similar anomalous harsh cases, cases of blatant unfairness where old age pensioners, or what should be old age pensioners entitled to contribution pensions, are deprived because of this system of averaging.
I do not think that could have been the intention of the Oireachtas in 1953, or in the carry-over provisions which are now consolidated in the 1981 Act. It has been challenged in the courts unsuccessfully and it is back now to the Legislature. Unless this harsh anomaly is redressed, then we will see the very sad and bitter experience of old age applicants being excluded from pensions because of what I believe is an unforeseen harsh anomaly in the law which requires to be changed. I hope that will be changed in the near future.
This brings me to a matter I spoke about recently in the Seanad — I cannot resist an opportunity of referring to it again—and that is the provision in section 2 and Schedule A which will introduce as of 15 May 1986 an equality in relation to unemployment benefit for married women. I cannot really rejoice or compliment the Government on this. They are 18 months late in their legal obligation and the Bill does not provide for retrospection. What about all the married women who were denied unemployment benefit since December 1984, who have their period of unemployment benefit cut off at 312 days, while all other categories, married men, single men and single women, continue to receive for a period of 390 days? Those women have been deprived of money to which they are legally entitled and I see no evidence of a willingness on the part of the Government to redress that injustice.
In her speech the Minister said she would be introducing a regulation in relation to extending the period of receipt of unemployment benefit to the full 390 days. May we have a specific indication from the Minister as to when that regulation will be adopted? The Directive that we are required to implement was passed in 1978, which means that we had six years before it was legally due to be implemented, December 1984, and we are now in the spring of 1986. I do not see any reason why the Minister has not the regulation ready. I would welcome some indication of when it is to be brought into force and effect.
I would welcome a specific indication of when the other illegal discrimination will be redressed, namely the discrimination against married women on social assistance, and when the provisions of the Social Welfare (No. 2) Act, 1975, will be brought into effect. When will that discrimination be redressed, late and all as that may be? I have already spoken at length in the Seanad on this subject but it is an appalling blight on any claim we might have to be committed to equality and equal treatment that we have not dealt with those issues. Although there is some measures of redress in the Bill, it is, in effect, very little.
I should like to refer to the nature of the legislation before us and the broader debate the Minister seeks to raise. I do so in the context of a recognition which is beginning to emerge, particularly in the law schools and even among practitioners, of the importance of social welfare law. For a long time—this is reflected in our social welfare code—this was not real law at all. It certainly was not lawyer's law and, therefore, one could have the system operating without a proper penal structure, a lack of regulations and the open commitment to the principles of natural justice and fair procedures. Now there is a much greater recognition of the importance as law of social welfare law, of the extent to which it affects people very deeply in all aspects of their lives. It affects them all the more if they are vulnerable as is very often the case for people for whom social welfare law is the most important law affecting their daily lives.
It is to be welcomed that in the law schools increasing attention has been paid to social welfare law, that there are courses on social welfare law and that there are summer programmes being mounted by the law schools which are receiving very welcome attention from other disciplines such as social workers and administrators in health boards and so on. They welcome this concentration from the academic community. It is also a subject of increasing interest to law students and, perhaps most important of all, it is a subject of increasing interest to practitioners who are realising, perhaps late in the day, the importance of social welfare law.
To some extent this may reflect the fact that there is at least some opportunity, though still too little, of having access to advice through the law centres or through the role of FLAC in drawing attention to rights under the social welfare code and ensuring that people have access where necessary to legal advice and remedies in this area. It has been slow to receive full recognition but now that there has been greater recognition, in its own way this will act as a further monitoring of the social welfare code. I hope it will be a useful contribution to the debate on the Report of the Commission on Social Welfare. To the best of my recollection there was no lawyer on that commission but I hope when the report of the commission emerges it will receive, apart from other inputs and considerations, close attention from lawyers who have interested themselves in this important area of law.
I welcome the Bill. It is one of the important measures we pass during the year. There are a number of other aspects to it that I have not dwelt on because other Members concentrated on them, but I hope the Minister will be back before the House shortly in the context of a debate on the report of the Commission on Social Welfare. I hope we will be able to consider in a more radical context the importance of reform in this area and the urgency with which it is needed.
