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Seanad Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 21 Apr 2015

Vol. 239 No. 8

Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2015: Committee Stage

Sections 1 to 3, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 4.
Question proposed: "That section 4 stand part of the Bill."

On Second Stage Sinn Féin signalled that it would support this Bill but that it had concerns about some provisions that had been raised with it by the Free Legal Advice Centres and Community Law & Mediation. In their joint submission the two organisations called for the deletion of section 4, arguing that it would do nothing but make it more difficult for carers to access income supports. They described the section as negative law-making, introducing a presumption of ineligibility for the payment which the applicant would have to overcome. The applicant must demonstrate an entitlement and the deciding officer will then make a reasoned decision from a position of neutrality and objectivity. The submission noted that the outworking of this change would see more eligible applicants having to go to the appeals office to secure their entitlements, with the lengthy wait and hardship this would involve. If we can avoid any application for a social welfare entitlement moving to appeals stage, it will be for the good because applications can become stuck in what many describe as a black hole, preventing them from being adjudicated on in a speedy and timely manner.

I understand the position from which the Senator is approaching this issue. However, there appears to be a misconception that this section will shift the burden of proof from the Department to the claimant.

It has always been the case that the onus is on the claimant, whether it be an application for the carer's allowance or any other social welfare payment, to provide any necessary information in support of his or her application to establish eligibility. There is no change in this regard. It is for the deciding officer to determine what information is required to decide on a person's eligibility for any scheme. However, I want to be clear that the deciding officer makes no presumption as to the eligibility or otherwise of any claimant for any scheme. Each claim is decided on its merits in the light of the information available to the deciding officer and in accordance with the statutory conditions for eligibility set out in the relevant legislation.

In the circumstances of the changes being proposed in section 4, they will have no impact on how these three schemes operate and will not impact on eligibility for the schemes as it is determined. I reassure the Senator as I know he has concerns about this, but the point he set out is not the intention. I accept his good intentions in this regard. This is a tidying-up exercise in the legislation. The Senator will not be satisfied with that response and will probably press the question on the section to a vote.

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I will press the question on the section, but I will not press it to a vote. All we can do on this one is wait and see how it works out in practice. If it is the case that Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, and the other organisations are right, the Minister of State might be able to give a commitment to revisit the issue. We can give him fair wind on it. We have had discussions on this issue in the Dáil and during the debate on Second Stage in this House. The Minister of State is not inclined to accept my proposal. All we can do is wait and see how it works out in practice and to keep it under review.

I thank the Senator for his co-operation. If incidents arise and he brings them to my attention, I will deal with them and work with him in this regard.

Question put and declared carried.
Section 5 agreed to.
SECTION 6.

Amendment No. 1 has been ruled out of order as it involves a potential charge on the Exchequer.

Amendment No. 1 not moved.
Question proposed: "That section 6 stand part of the Bill."

I was not able to be here for the Second Stage debate for a variety of reasons and I am not sure if my colleague, Senator Labhrás Ó Murchú, who stood in for me, referred to some notes I had given him. I refer specifically to an article by Victoria White in the Irish Examiner on 26 February 2015 in which she rails against this new policy change and makes the point that "the Government will finish the job it began three years ago when it shunts a further 30,000 to 40,000 lone parents off their One Family Payment because their youngest child has turned seven". She states further: "Seven? Who thinks children can fend for themselves at seven?" She believes and I am inclined to agree with some element of this that this initiative is about "getting single women into the workforce because that's what's good for them. Implied in that idea is the belief that women at home raising children as lone parents are doing nothing."

It is important to indicate that this is a trend that happened at the start of the Celtic tiger years at the beginning of the millennium where changes were made to tax laws by the then Fianna Fáil Government when Charlie McCreevy was Minister for Finance. It was all about getting more women into the workforce, forcing them in, if necessary, because of an expanding economy. That approach does not seem to have changed. I have often wondered why there does not seem to be the same regard or acknowledgement for women who choose to work in the home and why it is always about getting them out of it.

Why, for example, would a Government not introduce financial incentives for women who choose to stay in the home rather than giving them incentives through tax breaks to go into the workforce?

The Minister of State is quoted as saying that since its introduction in 1997, the one-parent family payment scheme which provides an important income support for lone parents has been passive in nature. In response, Ms White stated: ""Passive" is the word used to describe raising a child, or even children, on your own. How could any job be more "active" than raising a kid?" The Minister of State's reference to passive in that sense upset her and it does raise its own queries.

Ms White went on to state that what made an absolute nonsense of the idea that the Government's policy was going to assist lone parents "into employment and financial independence" was that its worst insult was to lone parents who were working. She says it is cynical to suggest family income supplement restores the loss that will be incurred by lone parents, that it typically restores 60% of the loss and that is not counting the fuel allowance. She continues in similar vein.

I heard the Tánaiste, Deputy Joan Burton, say this in this House but the quote I will give now is from the Dáil debate in April 2012. She said the changes would not be made until we had a child care system "similar to what is found in Scandinavian countries". The Minister, Deputy Kevin Humphreys, was not a Minister of State when that comment was made but it received widespread coverage at the time. The Tánaiste made it absolutely clear that she would not further erode and reduce the money paid to lone parents under the scheme, as she has now done and which is the purpose of this Bill, until and unless there was, as she put it, a Scandinavian model of child care in place. That has not happened. In fact, the Government has been abysmal in its neglect of the child care sector. That will come back and bite every Government Deputy and Senator at the next general election because people are angry over the high cost of child care, and nothing of any substance or significance has been done to reduce the financial burden on them. In recent years we have heard promises about the extension of the free preschool year. That has now been shoved back onto the next Government.

In the context of what this Bill is about, I do not believe it can be interpreted in any way as progressive legislation. It is affecting lone parents particularly badly. It is a continuance of a Government scheme that started years ago, but the Government is forcing women out of the home and into the workforce for economic reasons. There is nothing I can do to change this but I wanted to hightlight the issue.

I want to quote the Carers Association. The Minister of State might clarify this information because since I got it there have been some changes; therefore, I ask him to forgive me if I am incorrect. The Carers Association, on the subject of section 6, challenge why the back-to-work scheme could not have been extended to include family carers returning to work, allowing them to retain any qualified child increases that had been paid while they were in receipt of carer's allowance and to act as an incentive to assist their transition from caring to work. That is clear. I understand people who qualify for the scheme will receuve a weekly payment of up to two years equivalent to any increases for qualified children they were being paid while they were on jobseeker's allowance or a one-parent family payment up to a maximum of four children for the first year in employment and that half that amount will be paid weekly for the second year. The Carers Association is asking why it could not have been extended to include family carers returning to work, allowing them to retain any qualified child increases that had been paid while they had been receiving carer's allowance. The Minister of State might clarify the position for me.

I support the sentiments of the previous speaker who has articulated the concerns many of us have about this issue. We tabled an amendment on it which has been ruled out of order because it would involve a potential charge on the Exchequer, which it would, but there would also be a beneficial cost to the State in ensuring lone parents and single mothers and fathers had access to extra hours of work and the ability to work full-time if proper child care services were provided. While there might be a cost in providing the service, there would also be an economic benefit to the State.

What we would like to see happen in this section is the cut-off age for the one-parent family payment scheme being raised to 12 years instead of being lowered to seven, as the Government intends to do. It passed legislation in 2012, the purpose of which was to lower the cut-off age for the lone parents scheme from ten years to seven from this July. We believe that is far too young, particularly in the absence of affordable and accessible child care, something that was promised by the Government. It was not something about which the Tánaiste spoke lightly when she made a commitment in 2012, both in the Dáil and the Seanad, to propose changes. It was promised by the Government to support working mothers and fathers, but apart from cutting funding to community child care services, precious little was done about this issue. In fact, the Government cut child benefit twice, which added salt to the wounds.

I am disappointed that the amendment was ruled out of order. In the Dáil Chamber in 2012 the Tánaiste referred to an immediate incentive to increase the number of hours worked each week. She stated individuals would then be financially better off. Her logic was that it was an incentive for women and other workers to work extra hours, but in the real world that simply was not the reality. What we have seen, contrary to what the Minister said, is an increase in the level of precarious and part-time work. There are workers on low hour contracts who want to move from working eight, ten or 15 hours a week to higher hour contracts. We saw this happen at Dunnes Stores and it is happening in the retail and hospitality sectors and elements of the child care service. Many of the areas populated by women are affected by this issue. People want to work more hours, but they are not being given the opportunity to do so by their employers or if they are, they are working the longer hours offered. In some cases, as in the case of the Dunnes Stores workers, they are working 30 hours a week and will be over the course of four or five years but are still stuck on ten or 15 hour contracts, with all of the disadvantages for the workers. The Government has done precious little about that matter either. Workers want to work more hours, but the supports needed such as child care are not available. There is a huge lack of investment in child care which is holding back economic growth and the ability of many who are returning to work.

I do not accept the logic of what the Government is doing with regard to the reduction in the one-parent family payment age limit. In section 6 we are seeking to increase it to 12 years, which we believe is the correct age. In tandem with this, we want to hear from the Government on the issue. The Minister of State might be able to enlighten us on what the Government intends to do to invest in child care to ensure families will have access to decent and affordable child care facilities to enable people to work the hours they want to work.

The Minister of State might also be able to explain what he intends to do about the issue of precarious work and low hour contracts and the exploitation in the sectors I mentioned, which disproportionately has an impact on low paid workers, including women. What does the Government intend to do about that issue? If the Minister of State was to enlighten us, we might be in a better position to look more favourably at what it is the Government is doing, but in the absence of that happening, I agree with the previous speaker that this is not something to be supported, rather it is something that, unfortunately, will have a negative impact on lone parents.

In response to the first contribution and the reference on the forcing of women to work, the Senator quoted from the article by the journalist in the Irish Examiner about being passive. I represent an inner city community and the first point I want to make is that not all lone parents are women. I have seen lone parents in their 40s who have received no training, support, education or assistance to return to employment. Some of them have been out of the workforce for 20 or 25 years and probably have no prospect of finding employment because of the huge gap since they were employed previously. In fairness, in 2004 the Government of which the Senator's party was part made significant investments in terms of throwing cash at lone parents, but the figures show that this did not assist them in getting out of poverty. All of the reports state the best way to get lone parents and others out of poverty is through employment and that is what the Government has been trying to do. The experience in my constituency is that there are numerous people who have not been able to find their way back into employment, even during the Celtic tiger period, because of the long gap since they were previously employed.

The Senator said the Department was passive. It was. In numerous budgets it failed thousands of lone parents either in terms of the provision of training, education or assistance to return to employment. We have moved away from this position.

With regard to child care services, the Senator is very much aware that an interdepartmental committee is looking at the issue and due to report shortly. Additional child care places have been made available.

There is no doubt that there has been major emphasis on the approximately 30,000 lone parents who will be affected by this change. Approximately 20,000 lone parents will experience no change or some gain in income after the transition. The gain for some individuals will be in the range of €10 to €150 per week, depending on their level of earnings and the number of children they have. The remaining 10,000 lone parents, based on their current circumstances, will suffer an income loss. This will occur because they are already in receipt of family income supplement payments or will transition to a jobseeker's payment, for which the means test is less generous than that for the one family payment. The real issue is engagement. Group engagements have been taking place because this is not the first group to make the move. Some of the facts are that those in the initial group have increased their hours and the income coming into the family.

This has been a gradual change. There is tension because approximately 30,000 are to transfer on 2 July. The Senator's colleague made the same points on Second Stage. Senator Katherine Zappone said there had been a long debate in the House in which the Tánaiste had engaged extensively with every Senator. I do not intend to go through the details again because they can be read in the Official Report. The amendment has been ruled out of order.

I am grateful to the Minister of State. I was not fully aware of whether these issues had been raised. However, it was not a journalist with the Irish Examiner who wrote the article. My understanding is that she is a lone parent. I do not know the lady, but-----

Her name is Victoria White.

Yes. I wonder if the Minister of State could clear up this issue in the context of the wonderful new world that has been presented to lone parents of whatever gender. He made the comment - it is Government policy - that the way out of consistent poverty was through education and upskilling, but not everybody wants to be in the workforce. There are lone parents who would like to stay at home and raise their children for a number of years, but there is no incentive for them to do this.

In fact, the opposite will be the case if these provisions are implemented. In her article last February, Ms White notes that when the one-parent family payment was introduced in 1997, it included an income disregard provision which meant that, by 2012, lone parents could earn up to €147.60 per week while still claiming the full one-parent allowance. That income disregard has been steadily eroded, Ms White points out, and now stands at €90 per week for lone parents. The suggestion that family income supplement, FIS, restores the loss to lone parents is incorrect, she notes. In fact, it restores only 60% of the loss, not counting the fuel allowance. A lone parent in part-time work whose youngest child turns seven years of age on 2 July next may wake up on that day and find himself or herself worse off by €60 to €80 per week.

What is the situation for the 800 lone parents who care for another family member and are currently receiving the half-rate carer's allowance? If their youngest child is aged over seven years in July, will they be obliged to rely on a full-time carer's allowance, thereby losing as much as €86 per week?

These are the facts of what is happening, as highlighted by the people who will be impacted. However these provisions are dressed up, their effect will be to leave lone parents worse off than they are now. Where are the jobs these people are supposed to take? I do not want to repeat everything Senator David Cullinane said, but there is ample evidence of people who would like to work more but cannot get the hours. These measures are nothing more than a cost-saving exercise that is being dressed up as progressive legislation.

The worst possible outcome for members of jobless households is to have no role model to which to aspire. I have seen this in numerous families where there is an intergenerational history of unemployment. I do not accept that we are doing our best for children if we facilitate a situation where they grow up in a jobless household. We need children to see their parents actively involved in the workforce.

For lone parents of children aged from seven to 14 years, we will not be actively pursuing them to engage with their local Intreo centre, but we hope they will choose to do so. There will be no element of force in this, which was a word the Senator used. I certainly would not go along with the idea of using force. My experience of single parents is that the vast majority want to return to employment. We have come through an extremely difficult economic period, with almost 500,000 people out of work at one point, which equated to a jobless rate of 15.1%. Through the forbearance and hard work of the citizens of this country, the unemployment rate has been reduced to 10%, or approximately 360,000 persons, which, nevertheless, is still far too high. I do accept there are issues to address and the Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Gerald Nash, is addressing many of them, including the situation at Dunnes Stores. These issues must be addressed quickly and I hope to see the vast majority of them dealt with before the Government's term is over. As I said, the Minister of State is already making progress in a range of areas.

I am sure the Senator will agree that the best thing for children is to see their parents going out to work. There is no question but that the surest way out of poverty is through employment. The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy James Reilly, indicated at the weekend that the report commissioned by this Department on this issue is close to being finished and will be brought to the Cabinet shortly. I look forward to its publication. There are gaps in the provision of child care, but that should not paralyse us into inaction. Far too many people have been left behind on the scrap heap. We must have a robust welfare system that helps people back into employment.

The Department of Social Protection has been totally transformed in recent years. No longer a passive Department that simply pays people according to their entitlement, it is now proactive in trying to get people back to work, into a better financial position and in a situation where they are more involved with their communities. We actively seek out employment opportunities, engage with employers and recruit from the live register. JobsPlus has been exceptionally successful in helping the long-term unemployed into work and is just one of a range of transformational measures initiated by the Department. For too long, the Department was a passive entity. People received their entitlement and it did not matter if they stayed on the dole forever. The view now is that the Department has entered into a contract with taxpayers to do everything in its power to help people who have had the misfortune to lose their job to find new employment. When the child of a lone parent reaches seven years of age, the Department will assist that parent to increase his or her hours to 19 per week, and that person will see a significant increase in his or her take-home money. We are working with the Labour Market Council to ensure there are opportunities for lone parents to increase their hours. There is a small number of bad employers in the State, but that will be addressed in the coming year. I am confident we will see a transformed landscape.

My core point, which I am sure the Minister of State will accept, is that there will be a financial loss to lone parents as a result of this initiative. In pressing the point that it is Government policy to help lone parents to find a pathway back to full-time work, he is ignoring the question of what will happen to the seven year old child who is left sitting at home because his or her parent does not have enough money to cover the extraordinarily high cost of child care. Prior to the Minister of State's appointment, the Tánaiste indicated that the types of changes set out in this legislation would not be made until we had a child care system similar to what is found in the Scandinavian countries. That commitment is hanging over her head because, as we know only too well, there has been no improvement in child care provision that would alleviate the financial burden on parents.

There is no balance in this legislation. On the one hand we have a Government policy, as expounded by the Minister of State, of securing a pathway to work for lone parents. The reality, however, is that lone parents have children who need parental nurturing, care and affection. They will not get it if the Department insists on forcing people - I use the word "forcing" deliberately - into a situation where because there are insufficient financial supports for them, they must find work to supplement their State income. What happens to the children in those circumstances? This provision is far too premature and should be deferred until there is some type of response from the Tánaiste. I hope the Minister of State will use his influence to press home this point. He is surely pushing an open door with his boss given her stated view that changes should not be made until we have improvements in child care provision such that the associated costs are no longer the overwhelming financial burden they currently are, not just for lone parents but for the parents of middle Ireland generally. There is an urgent need to address the child care issue.

The Senator knows very well that the Department of Children and Youth Affairs subsidises approximately 40,000 child care places, 25,000 of them specifically targeted at low-income parents. These include the 500 places under the after-school child care scheme operating at primary school level. The jobseeker's allowance transitional arrangement was introduced in 2013 to take into account the specific caring responsibilities of lone parents with young children.

I apologise for failing to respond to one or two of the issues the Senator raised in his earlier contribution.

Most of those issues have been addressed. I will send on the full information to the Senator who missed out because he was not here for the debate.

The Minister of State is aware that there is a cohort of people, some of whom may be lone parents, who are studying child care courses up to FETAC level 5. In September this year they will no longer be included in the calculation of the ratio of child care workers to children in child care facilities. They are currently included as part of the ratio of workers to children vis-à-vis legislative requirements. Where is the logic behind this? I understand that in a written answer to a parliamentary question from my colleague, Deputy Robert Troy, the Department is aware of this and the matter is under review.

I ask the Minister of State to give some indication of the thinking behind this. It goes back again to the central point he made. Let us assume that there are some lone parents who have chosen to acquire a skill in child care because generally speaking, the chances of getting work in the sector having acquired such skills are pretty high. Wearing my other hat as chairman of Leitrim County Child Care Committee, I am aware of the difficulties the proposal will present to child care providers from September next. The chances are that those staff who are qualified only up to FETAC level 5 will have to leave the child care facilities in which they are employed because they are on community employment schemes and will lose out. I ask the Minister of State to outline his views on this issue. I do not want to pre-empt any decision to be taken by the Department but wish to take the opportunity to highlight the issue.

I am aware that the issue is under review and I will revert to the Senator as soon as that review is completed. On the question of the community employment schemes within the remit of the Department of Social Protection, one of their great successes has been to train people to FETAC levels 5 and 6 who then go on to full time employment. Recently we have lowered the age of eligibility to allow younger people to participate in the child care programmes in particular, which has led to employment for many. I would be of the view that we should encourage as far as possible a greater involvement in community employment child care programmes. I recently visited a child care facility and met three community employment scheme workers who were pursing level 5 and level 6 FETAC awards in child care, all of whom expected that they would move into employment. I would not like to see any blockage to moving into full-time employment for those participating in the successful schemes under the remit of the Department of Social Protection being run all over the country. I am sure every Senator is familiar with the role of the Department in the area of child care and the community employment schemes that are operational in all 26 counties.

I am reassured by the Minister of State's reply.

Question put:
The Committee divided: Tá, 18; Níl, 6.

  • Bacik, Ivana.
  • Brennan, Terry.
  • Burke, Colm.
  • Coghlan, Paul.
  • Comiskey, Michael.
  • Conway, Martin.
  • Gilroy, John.
  • Hayden, Aideen.
  • Henry, Imelda.
  • Higgins, Lorraine.
  • Keane, Cáit.
  • Moloney, Marie.
  • Mullins, Michael.
  • Naughton, Hildegarde.
  • O'Brien, Mary Ann.
  • van Turnhout, Jillian.
  • Whelan, John.
  • Zappone, Katherine.

Níl

  • Byrne, Thomas.
  • Cullinane, David.
  • Daly, Mark.
  • Mooney, Paschal.
  • Power, Averil.
  • Wilson, Diarmuid.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Paul Coghlan and Aideen Hayden; Níl, Senators Paschal Mooney and Diarmuid Wilson.
Question declared carried.
Section 7 agreed to.

Amendment No. 2 has been ruled out of order as it involves a possible charge on the Exchequer.

Amendment No. 2 not moved.
Question, "That section 8 stand part of the Bill," put and declared carried.
Sections 9 to 12, inclusive, agreed to.

Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 have been ruled out of order as they involve a possible charge on the Exchequer.

Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 not moved.
Question, "That section 13 stand part of the Bill," put and declared carried.
Sections 14 to 17, inclusive, agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.

When is it proposed to take Report Stage?

Report Stage ordered for Tuesday, 28 April 2015.

When is it proposed to sit again?

Tomorrow at 10.30 a.m.

The Seanad adjourned at 5.40 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22 April 2015.
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