This Bill gives effect to the substantial improvements in social welfare rates of payment announced in the budget. It introduces new income support measures for carers, special rate pensions for people with pre-1953 insurance, and a new widowed parent grant. It also provides for exemptions from PRSI for low paid employees, a radical reform of the method of assessing capital for social assistance purposes, and improvements for farmers and people making the transition from welfare to work.
Before addressing these measures in more detail, it would be useful to review with Senators the context in which I have been improving and modernising the social protection system. Over the past few years, Ireland has experienced extremely rapid economic growth. Our performance has been exceptional by international standards and in terms of our historical experience. In terms of GNP, Ireland has grown by an annual average of almost 8% between 1993 and 1999. This compares favourably with the rest of Europe where average growth rates of 2% per annum were recorded during the 1990s.
Unemployment has now fallen to below 5% from a peak of almost 16% in 1993. Our unemployment rate is now below the European average. Annual inflation averaged less than 2% between 1993 and 1999. A number of factors have contributed to Ireland's success over these past few years. First, prudent budgetary policies have been followed by successive Governments. The budget has been brought into surplus, thus reducing our debt-servicing burden and releasing resources previously devoted to interest payments for more economically and socially desirable purposes.
Second, social partnership agreements have combined moderate wage increases with tax reductions and higher social expenditure. The moderation of wage pressures at a time when the economy was experiencing an increase in growth also enhanced our competitiveness.
Third, a relatively young population, net immigration and the increased participation of women in the labour force ensured that the labour supply was available to meet the demand created by strong economic growth. Fourth, significant investment in education has increased the productive potential of the labour force. In the 1990s we were reaping the full benefit of expenditure on education which began in the 1960s.
These factors, combined with low inflation rates and favourable corporation profits tax, have helped to attract a disproportionately large amount of foreign direct investment. This investment, most notably in the pharmaceutical, com puter and electronics sectors, has contributed significantly to our performance.
This year will see further growth in output and employment. Although the pace of growth may slow slightly, economic growth in Ireland will be yet again among the highest in the world. It is worth noting that GNP growth is now projected at 6.3% and GDP growth at 7.4% and this year employment is projected to rise by 3.3%, bringing the unemployment rate below 5%. Prudent budgetary policies should result in a budget surplus of around 3% of GDP.
While prospects remain good for 2000 there are signs of emerging supply-side pressures which, if not addressed, could undermine Ireland's long-term potential output growth. In the labour market there are emerging shortages of skilled and unskilled labour. As a result wage pressures are above those of our main trading partners. The new partnership agreement, Partnership for Prosperity and Fairness, seeks to address these issues through sustainable wage increases and taxation reform.
While headline inflation has risen in recent months, this increase should prove temporary. A key challenge to secure ongoing growth is to ensure that this temporary increase does not become embedded in the economy. As a result of our rapid growth, infrastructural bottlenecks have become increasingly apparent. Public infrastructure needs to be improved significantly if we are to sustain economic growth. The national development plan sets out how these matters will be addressed over the next six years through an ambitious programme of investment totalling £40.6 billion.
Although Ireland is currently benefiting from favourable demographic conditions it is estimated that over the next 20 years the number of persons aged over 65 will double. This will put pressure on the public finances at a time when potential growth will be much lower. To prepare for this the Government has decided, starting this year, to set aside 1% of GNP annually to partially pre-fund future pension costs.
The new Programme for Prosperity and Fairness forms a solid basis for further economic prosperity and promoting greater social inclusion over the next three years. It commits us all to creating a fair and inclusive society for everybody. Under the programme all rates of social welfare will be increased in real terms and substantial progress will be made towards a target of £100 per week for the lower rates of payment. For pensioners the new agreement confirms that the level of old age pensions will be improved in line with the commitments given in the review of the Government's action programme. For families, substantial progress will be made towards a target of a monthly child benefit rate of £100 per month for the third and subsequent child.
These commitments amount to a £1.5 billion investment over the three years in social inclusion measures. Under Partnership 2000 the commitment to social inclusion measures over and above normal Exchequer funding was £5.2 million and, therefore, over a shorter period – two years and nine months – we are committing three times the amount committed under the previous partnership agreement. In addition, the commitment of £5.2 million under the previous partnership agreement was more than doubled when payments over the three years of the programme were included in social inclusion measures. This investment represents a clear demonstration of the Government's priority in ensuring that the fruits of our new found prosperity will be shared equally among all our people.
The ongoing process of modernising social protection in Ireland is taking place in the context of a European-wide debate on the key issues. After a four year period of consultation, the EU Commission, in its communication last July, identified four broad objectives of a modernisation strategy as follows – to make work pay and provide secure income, to make pensions safe and pension systems sustainable, to promote social inclusion and to ensure high quality and sustainable health care.
While each member state will remain responsible for its own social protection measures, a proactive co-operation process of exchanging information and identifying best practice is now envisaged. This new process will be supported by the European Commission by an enhanced report on social protection in Europe to be produced annually.
I will be supporting an emerging consensus that priority attention should be given by social protection Ministers to the pensions and social inclusion objectives – the health care objective would be receiving attention from health Ministers and the work objective has already been receiving significant attention under the ongoing European employment strategy.
The adoption of the two priority objectives regarding pensions and social inclusion for concerted EU examination is appropriate and timely from Ireland's point of view. Pensions will have to be both financially and socially sustainable into the future and the current Social Welfare Bill and particularly the Pensions Bill planned for later this year will aim to underpin such future sustainability here. The Government is also committed to a significant investment over the coming years in measures to promote social inclusion under the national development plan and the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness agreed with the social partners.
The problems of the socially excluded are many-sided but social welfare Ministers in general and my Department in particular will continue to have a key role in addressing them. Ireland has much to learn and much to offer in this new process of co-operation. Apart from focusing on modernising and improving social protection systems, we will also have a keen interest in any emerging proposals for special measures in the social inclusion area which can now be initiated by the EU Commission, whose competence in this regard was clarified in the Amsterdam Treaty. Senators will recall the significant influence of the early EU poverty programmes on the innovative approach taken by my Department to community development over the past two decades.
As Senators will already have considered the Bill in detail, I will focus on a number of its key provisions. Securing the future of older people continues to be a key priority of the Government. Since we took office, we have taken significant steps towards our objective of building an inclusive society. In our recent review of An Action Programme for the Millennium we set priorities in a number of key areas, including the attainment of a minimum rate of £100 to all social welfare old age pensioners by 2002 and to increasing these pensions in line with increases in average industrial earnings.
The Bill delivers on these commitments. It increases all pensions to older people by £7 per week bringing old age contributory and retirement pensions to £96 per week. Last year in the UK old age pensioners only got an increase of 75p; in this country they got an increase of £7. Bringing the pensions up to £96 is well ahead of the commitment we made in An Action Programme for the Millennium, which gave a commitment to raise the pension to £100 by 2002. As we have reached £96 in 2000, we hope to pass the £100 limit next year. We are on target to exceed our original commitment to a rate of £100 per week for those pensions in next year's budget.
The rate of payment to widow/widower's contributory pensions for those aged 66 or over increases to £89.10 with the old age non-contributory pension increasing to £85.50 – both on target to reach £100 by 2002. These increases represent real increases for pensioners well ahead of the expected rise in average earnings.
The Government is also committed to substantial increases in other social welfare payments. The personal rates of social welfare payments, other than those for older people and invalidity pensioners, are being increased by £4 per week. This represents an increase of about 5.5% for most payments – the same level as the wage increase agreed in the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. A special increase of £5.90 per week is being made in the standard rate of invalidity pension to bring it into line with the new £81.10 rate for widow/widower's contributory pension. This will assist approximately 40,000 people.
In addition, the Bill provides for special increases in the rate of qualified adult allowances for this year, as part of an overall strategy to increase the allowance to 70% of the main rate over the next three budgets. This Bill represents the first step in this strategy by providing for a minimum increase of £3.80 in the general qualified adult rate. The qualified adult allowance for old age contributory and retirement pensioners is being increased by £4.70 per week – giving a total increase for a pensioner couple of £11.70. The rate for old age non-contributory pensioners, where the qualified adult is aged over 66 years is being increased by £7.50, with such couples gaining overall by £14.50 per week. There are also higher increases for those rates currently below 60% of the relevant personal rate. The combination of personal and qualified adult increases mean that couples will receive a minimum weekly increase of £7.80 per week – an increase of almost 7%. That is a minimum payment. The increases in the weekly payments will take effect from the first week of May next, four weeks earlier than last year. Next year, I intend to bring forward this implementation date to coincide with the start of the tax year in early April 2001.
The Government acknowledges the importance of child benefit in providing financial support to families and in reducing child poverty. The Bill provides for substantial improvements in the monthly rates, resulting in a full year investment of £106 million extra, which represents an overall increase of 23% in the cost of the scheme. This will bring the total child benefit in the year to approximately £575 million, the largest increase in the history of the State in any one year. Child benefit rates will be increased by £8 per month in respect of the first two children and by £10 per month in respect of the third and subsequent child. This means that a family with three children will receive £141 per month, an increase of £26 this year. It is my intention over the next few years to continue to provide substantial increases in child benefit in line with the commitments in the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, with a priority focus towards £100 per month to the third and subsequent child.
Sections 8 and 34 introduce key reductions relating to PRSI and the health contribution aimed at improving the position of low paid workers, following on the discussions of the new partnership agreement, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. Under section 8 employees earning £226 or less per week will be exempt from paying PRSI. Employees earning more than this will continue to pay PRSI on earnings above the PRSI allowance of £100. Over 460,000 employees will gain from 5 April up to £5.67 per week from this additional measure at a cost of £50 million in a full year.
The earnings limit for exempting employees from the 2% health contribution levy is also being increased under section 34 from £217 per week to £280 per week. All employees earning between £217 and £280 per week, and all self-employed people earning between £11,250, the current annual threshold, and £14,560 will benefit by up to £5.60 per week at a cost of £52.6 million in a full year. In effect, there is an extra sum of £102 million in a full year being put into the pockets of approximately 660,000 employees. This is on top of the increases in wages which have been agreed under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
A table in one of yesterday's newspapers indicated that someone on a minimum basic wage of £170 per week will gain a minimum of £12 per week this year, £11 extra next year and £9 extra in the following nine months. Obviously people on higher wages will gain more. Substantial wage increases are being made available to people and in some cases people will also gain up to £5.60 per week from the changes I have announced in the Social Welfare Bill.
Sections 8 and 9 provide for an increase from April next in the earnings ceilings up to which contributions are payable by employers, employees and the self-employed and for a reduction of 0.7% in the employer's rate of social insurance contribution to compensate for the introduction of the new training fund levy later this year.
The Bill contains a number of measures aimed at improving the incentive to work and alleviating certain unemployment traps. Section 7 increases the weekly income thresholds for family income supplement from May next by £13, which will lead to an increase of approximately £8 per week in the average family income supplement payment. I also intend to increase by way of regulations the minimum payment provided under the scheme from £5 per week to £10 per week.
As announced in the budget, the tapered qualified adult allowance arrangements, which relate to the treatment of spouse's earnings is being improved and extended to include people on invalidity, old age contributory pension and retirement pension. At present a qualified adult allowance is payable where the qualified adult has earnings or income of less than £60 per week. A reduced allowance is paid where his or her income is between £60 and £105 per week and, in such cases, child dependant increases are payable at 50%. The improvements announced in the budget provide for an upward adjustment of the income range from £70 to £135 per week, improvements in the rate of withdrawal and the full payment, rather than 50%, of child dependant payments until the spouse's earnings exceed £135 per week. Section 20 implements the latter measure. These were issues which were of concern to many people, particularly female spouses who were carrying out extra work and whose husbands' social welfare payments were being docked pound for pound as a result of the extra income into the household. This will be of particular benefit to families where the head of the household is claiming social welfare and the other is engaged in part-time work. A family with two children, where the spouse has earnings of £90 per week, for instance, will be better off by £38 per week from May next by comparison with the current system.
I am also taking steps in section 26 to improve the treatment of people on rent supplement who take up part-time or casual work opportunities. Under the existing arrangements, any increases in earnings are currently clawed back in full by way of reduced rent supplement payments. From April next, a £25 income disregard will be introduced to ensure that there is a positive return from work for those who avail of part-time work opportunities. The section also provides for a disregard of additional income arising from participation in training courses, such as a FÁS skills training course, for people in receipt of rent supplement. This measure will take effect from April next and some 2,500 people are expected to benefit.
The valuable role of carers in our society is irreplaceable. No other Government has been as committed to supporting carers as this Government. We have delivered on a wide range of measures, both in terms of income support and in terms of services provided. This is reflected in the increasing numbers of carers in receipt of carer's allowance, whose numbers are up by 60% from 9,200 when we took office two years ago to more than 14,200 at the end of this month. We expect the number of those in receipt of carer's allowance will be in the region of 17,000 by the end of this year, which will be an even greater increase. Expenditure has also increased substantially and will be more than doubled from £36.5 million in 1997 to £78.3 million this year.
In addition to improvements in the carer's allowance, I have extended existing schemes to carers, such as the free schemes, and announced new support measures, such as the respite care grant. I am providing for an increase of £100 in the respite care grant this year to bring it up to £300. However, despite these major improvements, more needs to be done and the Bill extends our support to a new group of carers. As I announced in the budget, I am introducing a radical and innovative benefit scheme, non-means tested carer's benefit, to enable carers to give up work temporarily to care full time while still retaining their employment rights. This will ensure that our social insurance system caters for a very important contingency with which many of us are familiar.
I am pleased the Government has agreed to extend the duration of the carer's benefit and associated leave from 12 months, as originally announced in December, to 15 months. The new scheme, to be known as carer's benefit, involves two central elements, both of which are regarded as essential to the recipient. The first of these is a weekly income support payment of £88.50, to be operated and paid by my Department. This will be a social insurance benefit and will, therefore, not be means tested. It will be paid provided the relevant PRSI contribution conditions have been met.
The second entitlement is the protection of the carer's employment rights for the duration of the caring period. This will require the introduction of separate legislation by my colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Kitt, who has special responsibility for labour affairs. This new scheme will become operational from October 2000, following the enactment of this legislation. Sections 10 to 12 of the Bill outline the main features of the new scheme. The new benefit will be based on a person's PRSI contributions and the maximum claim duration will be set at 15 months in respect of any one care recipient. This time period should be sufficient to facilitate carers who have to leave the workforce temporarily to care for an elderly or infirm person or to make alternative long-term arrangements.
In addition, it will allow for the protection of the carer's employment rights, which is a key feature of the scheme. In the event of the carer's benefit expiring and the need for income support still existing, the carer will be able to apply for the existing carer's allowance. Although it will not be means tested, the new scheme will be closely linked to the means-tested carer's allowance in relation to other conditions. The same medical criteria, residency and part-time working conditions will apply. The scheme will cover all insured persons paying social insurance with the exception of the self-employed, Class S, and those earning less than £30, Class J.
The scheme will be available to people in employment for at least three months immediately prior to claiming benefit who have at least three years' contributions and are working for a minimum of 38 hours per fortnight prior to commencing full-time caring duties.
The weekly rate of payment will be £88.50 and additional increases for child dependants will be payable, where appropriate. The Bill also provides for an additional payment in cases where a carer is caring for more than one person, as applies for carer's allowance and for payment of a respite care grant.
Section 16 provides for the introduction of special rate contributory pensions for people with pre-1953 insurance. Pre-1953 contributions, while currently taken into account for certain requirements in determining entitlement to old age contributory and retirement pensions, are not counted in determining the yearly average test. Consequently many people with pre-1953 insurance have failed to qualify for pensions or only qualified for a minimum pension because their contributions were not fully recognised. Under section 16, these people may qualify for a special old age contributory pension at 50% of the maximum personal rate if they have at least five years, or 260, social insurance contributions paid under the National Health Insurance Acts or a combination of pre-1953 and post-1953 insurance.
I am also pleased to announce significant improvements in the current structure of the rates bands for the retirement and old age contributory pensions. The current structure includes five different rates of reduced pensions. This will now be reduced to three rates. Pensioners with a yearly average ranging between 20 and 47 contributions will now be entitled to a reduced rate of pension equivalent to 98% of the maximum personal rate. This change will result in 38,000 pensioners receiving overall increases of between £7.50 and £12.20 in their weekly personal rates of pension. This improvement will take effect from May next and will be implemented in regulations.
Section 17 introduces radical changes to the method of assessing capital and social assistance payments. Concerns have been expressed by Members of both Houses that the effective assessment rates under the existing system, particularly in the case of single people with relatively low amounts of capital, bear little relation to the actual returns currently available on investments. I am pleased to be in a position to respond positively to these genuine concerns. I am introducing quite radical changes to the system of capital assessment and extending this improvement to most social assistance schemes, including unemployment assistance.
The new arrangements will provide that the first £10,000 of capital will be completely disregarded. Capital between £10,000 and £20,000 will be assessed on the basis of £1 weekly means for each £1,000 of capital; capital between £20,000 and £30,000 will be assessed on the basis of £2 weekly means for each £1,000 of capital and capital above £30,000 will be assessed on the basis of £4 weekly means for each £1,000 of capital. These limits will be doubled in the case of a married couple in receipt of old age non-contributory-blind pension or carer's allowance. In other words, a couple with up to £20,000 in a bank, building society or credit union will not have their means tested social welfare payment touched.
A survey of old age pensioners with capital, undertaken by my Department, found that 88% had capital of less than £10,000. The changes being made will mean benefits for nearly 99% of all old age pensioners. The majority of non-contributory pensioners with capital will no longer find that capital assessed against their pension. This change is equitable and progressive and is considerably easier to understand from the perspective of the customer. It also provides significant gains to social welfare recipients who have capital. For example, a single pensioner with £10,000 capital will gain by £6 per week. The new arrangements will come into effect in October next. This will encourage old age pensioners to keep money in a bank or building society rather than at home because it will no longer be assessed for social welfare purposes.
Section 18 provides for a number of improvements in the farm assist scheme agreed as part of a package for the farming community outlined in the new Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. They involve a reduction in the assessment rate from 80% to 70% and an increase of £100 per annum in the income disregards for each child. Both these improvements will make a valuable contribution in supporting farmers on low incomes. It is proposed these improvements will also apply in the case of low income self-employed fishermen claiming unemployment assistance.
In the Social Welfare Act, 1999, I introduced an enhanced bereavement grant of £500. I increased it from £100 to £500 in that year. As a result of this measure, the numbers claiming the bereavement grant in 1999 increased by 80% and expenditure on the scheme increased fourfold. It is obvious that many people did not bother to claim the death grant of £1,000 but when it was increased to £5,000 in one fell swoop it was a much more sought after grant.
I indicated it was my intention to introduce further measures in this year's Bill to address some of the difficulties and problems faced by newly bereaved people. We are all aware of the grief experienced by families on the loss of a spouse and parent. The emotional difficulties can be particularly acute as, more often than not, it means the loss of a spouse at a relatively young age. In addition, with children involved there can also be very practical problems for a newly widowed person at this time. To assist newly widowed persons with children to cope in the immediate aftermath of such a loss, the Government has decided to introduce a special additional grant payment of £1,000, effective from budget day, 1 December 1999. This is provided for in sections 13 to 15. The grant will be payable to widows and widowers with dependent children who qualify for a widow/er's contributory pension or a one parent family payment, or a bereavement grant payable on the death of their spouse. It is estimated that the payment will benefit more than 1,500 widows and widowers each year at a cost of £1.5 million.
The measures contained in section 25 deal with the problem where the six weeks after death payment is not currently made or is paid at a reduced amount. These arise in particular in households where there are two pensions in payment and in cases involving the payment of one parent family payment. There were anomalies in some instances where the survivor qualified for a continued six week payment after the death while other households did not qualify. Approximately 3,300 people will benefit from these measures at a full year cost of approximately £1.5 million. These measures will mean that a six weeks after death payment now applies in all circumstances under the social welfare code. In effect all the anomalies in the six weeks after death payment have been eliminated as a result of this change.
Section 27 implements one of the social inclusion commitments in the proposed Programme for Prosperity and Fairness and addresses a concern which has been raised many times by Members of both Houses and other public representatives. The section allows an unemployed person to qualify for either an unemployment benefit or for unemployment assistance whichever is more beneficial to his or her circumstances. This change will be of particular benefit to community employment workers who were previously long-term unemployed. They will now be able to claim unemployment assistance at the long-term rate if they revert to the live register and qualify for extended child dependant increases for school-going children up to the age of 22 and for secondary benefits such as free fuel. Until now they were not entitled to do this because they had to transfer to unemployment benefit. They will now be able to claim either unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance, whichever is more beneficial.
Part IV of the Bill contains a number of miscellaneous changes to the social welfare system. Current financing arrangements of the social insurance fund allow for the reimbursement from the fund to the Exchequer of social insurance costs arising where a person entitled to old age or widow's or widower's contributory pension or deserted wife's benefit opts instead to claim old age non-contributory pension at a higher rate. The annual cost of these payments is some £24 million.
These provisions are now being extended to other categories of payments where a person who is entitled to a social insurance benefit on foot of his or her PRSI contributions opts instead to claim certain assistance payments at a higher rate, for example, a higher unemployment assistance payment rather than an unemployment benefit payment. The new arrangements are expected to cost in the region of £22 million annually.
Section 29 also provides for the charging to the social insurance fund of expenditure incurred in relation to recipients of social insurance payments under certain free schemes administered by my Deparetment. These schemes are currently available to people receiving certain social welfare payments and other qualifying payments, or who are aged over 66 years and satisfy a means test. The schemes are currently fully financed by the Exchequer from my Department's Vote. This change will not lead to an increase in overall expenditure by my Department but will involve a transfer of charges from my Department's Vote to the fund of around £71 million annually.
The section further provides that expenditure incurred under the medical card system for dental treatment for insured persons who would otherwise qualify under my Department's dental bene fit scheme by virtue of their PRSI contributions will also be borne by the social insurance fund. This will involve a transfer of around £7 million in charges from the Exchequer to the fund.
It is logical, therefore, to charge the social insurance related expenditure, such as free schemes, to the social insurance fund. On the same principle, it is also logical to recoup from the fund any liability which exists where a person who is entitled to a social insurance benefit on foot of his or her PRSI contributions opts instead to claim certain assistance payments at a higher rate.
I note that in the recent budget in the United Kingdom the Chancellor stated that everyone over the age of 75 would now be entitled to a free television licence. Our old age pensioners have had this benefit for many years and many have the benefit of other free schemes. My Department recently estimated that anyone who benefits from all the free schemes receives an extra benefit equivalent to approximately £13 per week. What we have done for old age pensioners for many years is an example to other jurisdictions.
Section 31 of the Bill provides for changes in the administration of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. This scheme is currently operated by health boards under the general direction and control of the Minister. The purpose of the amendment is to enable deciding officers of my Department to decide entitlement in certain cases. These include claims for basic supplementary welfare allowance from people who are awaiting a decision on claims made for social welfare payments such as unemployment assistance or one-parent family payment, which account for 50% of claims for basic payments, and claims for retention of rent or mortgage interest supplement from some 5,000 people who are making the transition from welfare to work with the support of active labour market programmes such as back-to-work allowance.
It is my intention to provide for the direct payment of supplementary welfare allowance by my Department in these cases with a view to improving customer service and administrative efficiency. This proposal is in line with the conclusions reached by the Comptroller and Auditor General in 1998 in his report of the value for money examination of the administration of the scheme. Someone who claims unemployment assistance but has to wait for a decision is obliged to go to the health board to claim supplementary welfare allowance to tide him or her over while the decision is made. As a result of these changes, a customer will be able to have the decision on supplementary welfare allowance made by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs and will not be obliged to go from one office to another and back again. My Department is at present consulting with the relevant staff interests in the health boards on the appropriate timescale for this change. Following these dis cussions, I will be bringing forward regulations giving effect to this transfer.
Section 32 extends the scope of the legislative provisions I introduced in 1998 for an integrated social services system to include the National Breast Screening Board on the list of specified bodies. Senators will recall that these provisions provided for the standardisation of the RSI number as a unique public service identifier, the personal public service number (PPSN); the introduction of a public service card and a payment card; and the sharing and transfer of personal information between specified public bodies for determining entitlement to certain social services and for the control of such services.
The existing list of specified bodies includes Government Departments, local authorities, health boards, the Revenue Commissioners, FÁS, An Post, the General Registry Office, the Legal Aid Board, the General Medical Services Payments Board and the voluntary hospitals.
My Department has consulted with the range of specified bodies on how the new system should work. Plans are now well advanced to launch a combined PPSN and public service card initiative across the public service to heighten public awareness of the potential it offers for improved service delivery. This initiative will include the development of a common means database accessible to agencies delivering means tested public service schemes.
Section 32 extends the existing data sharing provisions to allow data exchange between my Department and other specified bodies for the purpose of providing them with a PPSN for each person for whom they hold records. Quite recently my own constituency office received an inquiry from my local authority as to whether I, as Minister, could provide information to assist them in delivering a waiver scheme for people over 65 in relation to local authority charges. I was not able to give the information. It would have been much easier for the local authority to deliver the benefit if the information could have been given. This legislation would not have affected that situation but it will allow Departments to transfer numbers relating, for example, to people being admitted to hospitals. It will be of major benefit in that respect.
This section will also allow my Department to provide to local authorities landlord details of tenancies in respect of which a rent supplement is payable by my Department to assist them in carrying out their statutory responsibilities with regard to such matters as fire safety and accommodation standards in private rented accommodation. It will allow the Department of Education and Science to track early school leavers across publicly funded training courses so that the information may be used to develop appropriate responses in terms of outreach and curriculum development and it will allow the National Breast Screening Board to exchange data with other specified bodies, using the PPSN, for the purpose of identifying persons who, for public health reasons, may be invited to participate in their programme.
This year's package of social welfare improvements is by far the most significant ever, involving a core budget package of £403 million, increased since budget day to £428 million, to include improvements aimed at pensioners, people with disabilities and the low paid. In addition, the Bill provides for substantial reductions totalling approximately £103 million in PRSI and health contribution levies for low paid employees which it is estimated will assist low paid employees by as much as £5 per week. This amounts to a total package of £531 million. This is in addition to the existing budget of almost £5 billion.
The Bill demonstrates the Government's commitment to looking after the needs of our older people, carers and others who are dependent on the social welfare system for income support. It addresses commitments set out in our action programme, as recently reviewed, aimed at building an inclusive society and improves the living standard of everyone on social welfare.
I commend the Bill to the House.
