I welcome the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs and his officials. We are meeting to consider the revised Estimates for his Department. We will consider two Votes - Vote 24 pertaining to charitable donations and bequests, which was transferred to the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs last July from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and Vote 40 pertaining to the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs. Does any member want to make a brief opening statement?
Estimates for Public Services, 2002.
Vote 24 - Charitable Donations and Bequests (Revised).
Vote 40 - Social, Community and Family Affairs (Revised).
How many pages does the Minister have to read?
I have a fair few to read, but will try to be brief.
Will the Minister, please, give a brief summary?
As this is the last occasion on which I will take the Estimates, I obviously have to look back over history. Since I took office in 1997 spending on social welfare has increased from £4.5 billion to £7.4 billion or €9.4 billion, an increase of two thirds in just five years. The old age pension has increased from £78 per week to £116 or €147.30,an increase of 50%. Old age contributory pension stood at only 28% of average industrial earnings. Today it stands at over 31%. A total of 400,000 new jobs have been created since 1997. We have invested money where it can do most good. We have made many changes to make it easier to obtain benefits to try to get people into work.
In 1997 the level of consistent poverty was almost 10%. By the year 2000 it stood at just over 6%. In 1997 the unemployment rate was at10.3%. Today it is 4.3%. The long-term unemployment rate has been reduced from 5.6% to just 1.2%. As I said, the number in employment has increased by nearly 400,000 since 1997. The level of consistent poverty among children was halved between 1997 and 2000 - from 17% to 8% - and obviously has dropped further since. As members know, we have set a new target of €150 per week in 2002 terms for the lowest social welfare rates to be met by 2007. This is not an inconsiderable target.
Widows, widowers and one parent families account for 16.8% and old age pensioners, 23.6% of social welfare clientele. Child related payments, such as child benefit, account for 16.5% of total payments. A further 15.3% is spent on payments related to illness, disability and caring. Unemployment, the level of which has been falling rapidly, now accounts for 10% of my Department's total expenditure. Employment supports - positive support for employment measures - account for a further 3.3%. Administration accounts for 4.3%. Of total expenditure of €9.4 billion, over €5 billion comes from the Exchequer with the balance from the social insurance fund, which will be in the black for many more years to come.
At over €1.4 billion, the largest single category of Exchequer funded payments is child benefit, an increase of 50% on expenditure in the year 2000, due to substantial increases in the last two budgets. The second largest category is the one parent family payment in which total expenditure amounts to €612 million, an increase of 14% on last year. There has been an increase of 3,500 in the number of recipients. At €542 million, the next largest category is unemployment assistance. This sum provides for a weekly average of 72,500 recipients. Despite the current economic slowdown, this figure is almost 100,000 lower than in 1997. A sum of €202 million is being provided in 2002 for schemes to support those re-entering employment. These include the back-to-work, back-to-education and other similar schemes.
As members of the committee know, we have assumed responsibility for Vote 24 - charitable donations and bequests. There has been significant progress in the process of reform of the important body of legislation pertaining to this area, which is moving apace. In January my Department engaged consultants to carry out a study, including a comprehensive analysis of the position in other jurisdictions and an identification and evaluation of the issues of concern to the charity sector. I expect them to report in the coming weeks, following which my Department will commence work on the preparation of a consultation document covering the issues associated with reform which will be published with the intention of encouraging the widest possible public debate as a forerunner to much needed legislative reform. In this regard, my Department continues to work in close co-operation with the Law Reform Commission. Members will be aware that, pending comprehensive legislative reform, I took the opportunity presented by the Social Welfare Bill, 2002, to make two important changes to the Charities Acts, which had been called for by the commissioners.
These Estimates present social welfare expenditure that has increased by almost two thirds in the five years we have been in office, quite a significant increase given that the issue of unemployment has not been as much of a concern as it was when I took office. I commend the Estimates to the select committee.
This is definitely our last opportunity to discuss the Estimates and may be our last opportunity to meet as a select committee. I wish the Chairman, the Minister, Deputy Broughan and all other members of the committee every success in the upcoming general election. The degree of success will depend very much on where our political priorities lie. In recent years, particularly since I took over as spokesperson on this area, we have dealt with many of the issues in a very professional and efficient way. I also thank the Minister's officials. In my discussions with officials from various units of the Department I found them to be excellent and very professional in terms of the advice they gave to committee spokespersons and the Minister which was of the highest standard. The Minister should be proud of their contribution.
The Government has had an unprecedented opportunity over the past five years to spend money that was not available to previous Governments. The largesse the Minister had stemmed from exceptionally good management of the economy in the three years prior to his accession to office. In the first three years of this Administration, the priorities of the Government were skewed in favour of the better off. That is clearly visible when one compares the tax reductions to increases in social assistance and protection schemes.
We have seen a change this year and I would be the first to admit that. The Minister clearly lost the battle in the first three years but has made up some ground over the past 18 months. This year's Estimate is significantly better than those of previous years. It stems from the public outcry at the policies pursued in the first half of the Administration's tenure. The policies were seen clearly to favour the better off through an unhealthy tax policy and a complete inability to tackle many of the outstanding poverty issues. Despite the increase in social welfare spending, questions must be asked at the end of this five year period. What differences have been made? Have we used the fruits of the economy in the most efficient and socially just ways? These are the fundamental questions we will face in the forthcoming election. Some differences have been made in this Estimate, but it is very late in the day.
Yesterday the Minister told us that he would like to be involved in public relations in another life.
I said that I would like to do that if I ever lost my job.
The Minister may get that opportunity sooner than he thinks. In whatever new role the Minister sees himself, he will not have the unbelievable amount to spend on PR that he has in the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs. Many of my colleagues feel the Minister should engage in investigative work and not PR.
Despite the funds in this Estimate there are certain realities which we must face. There are more people living in relative income poverty than there were ten years ago. I have consistently said that consistent poverty is an achievement of this Administration and the previous one. Our real challenge is how we deal with relative income poverty. It is more difficult to deal with given the wage inflation of 7% to 8% that we have seen in recent years. This is the key issue. In relative terms the gap has increased in recent years. While the depth of some people's poverty has been reduced in recent years, it has been done at the expense of the less poor rather than the well off. That can be seen in many of the Government's policies and capital taxation in particular.
While people are receiving more money from social welfare schemes, there are other examples of real poverty. There are 50,000 families on the public authorities' housing waiting lists. People are living in appalling conditions while waiting to be provided with social housing. Virtually nothing has happened to make any difference in that area in recent years. Later in these Estimates we will see the increase in the cost of rent. People in the private rented sector are frequently becoming homeless. There are over 5,000 homeless people. Despite what the Minister might say, our percentage share of spending on social provision and social welfare is considerably less than that in other EU countries. Ireland spends 17.5% of GDP on this compared to an EU average of approximately 28%. While we have seen an increase in spending, we have not seen the rate of increase improve dramatically. We can see particular problems in health. The waiting lists in hospitals have increased dramatically.
While some improvements can be made, we have too many examples of real poverty in our society. An assessment of the Minister's performance was made in The Irish Times yesterday. The writer said that he had been competent but lacked any great vision.
Does the Deputy read those articles?
The Minister obviously reads them as well.
In this case I did not.
Deputy Hayes is a future leader of Fine Gael.
I am more likely to be leader of South Dublin County Council or the local parish council.
Deputy Hayes should not believe all he reads in the newspapers.
Unlike the Minister, I am a modest man. The writer in question said the Minister was competent and workmanlike. We all noticed that, particularly when he bought a large number of newspaper advertisements. Ultimately, he had no vision.
I lacked passion. I keep my passion for elsewhere.
I did not interrupt the Minister. I think the author of the article got it right. We have not seen the systematic concentration on the elimination of poverty in the past years that we should have seen. That may well be a function of the Department itself. It is an administrative Department which pays out on schemes. One of the real tests in policy making terms for this committee and future Governments will be how that is addressed. Simply paying out on schemes without dealing with other housing, welfare, education and health reform will not make the kind of difference that those living in poverty need.
The Minister has brought a very professional approach to the meetings we have had in my time as Labour Party spokesman on social, community and family affairs. I wish him well in his future career. The article Deputy Hayes referred to sees the Minister as a future Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Like Deputy Hayes, I have been struck by the officials I have dealt with in the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs. I have experience of dealing with some other Departments and I have been impressed by the outstanding and coherent approach of this Department's officials.
Will the name of the Department survive under the next Administration? Community and family are obviously very important, as are social affairs. The name of this Department was changed by this Administration. That may represent the big question mark that has been over the Government over the past five years. Although major resources have been put into carer and unemployment programmes, there was no coherent approach to social inclusion. Many of the debates we had always seemed to come down to fundamental cost issues. It is as if the Government has a clear indication of the role of the Department which will be based on occupying a certain amount of expenditure and no more.
The approach of the Labour Party would be fundamentally different if we were involved in the next Government. We would introduce a constitutional amendment to guarantee basic socio-economic rights, based on which the starting point for budgeting would be that people have a right to a certain income and a certain basic standard of living. Districts around the country which are still in grim poverty would have an absolute right to development of their economic and social welfare. Our approach to the Department would be totally different and pinned to the Constitution, rather than seeing its role as providing income support to get people through the next few months. It would be fundamentally rearranged.
During the years we have been presented with reports, the launch of some of which I have attended, based on the Minister's research in certain key areas. I commend him on his research, but there are still some issues that need to be dealt with such as lone parents and the poverty trap and the kind of situation about which we were talking the other day where FIS rates increase and people must pay more in local authority rent. Those genuinely rearing a family on their own must ask themselves whether it is worth their while to work. I do not think this issue has been addressed.
The Minister has no real approach to long-term unemployment which will become, with the whole issue of unemployment, a fundamental problem for the economy. We are losing a couple of hundred jobs every day. I know that the Taoiseach said yesterday that we were gaining jobs, but we are also losing them. I would have expected the Minister to have a more fundamental approach to this problem. There should be no such thing as unemployment - everybody should make a contribution to society. That is a basic socialist principle.
There is a range of areas in the Minister's administration with similar problems. He did not bite the bullet when it came to dealing with carers. His officials prepared a brilliant report in 1998 and there have been a few steps forward since then, but the basic issue has not been dealt with. Do we recognise full-time caring on its own merits? Some very important issues have not yet been addressed.
Overall, the Labour Party is disappointed that despite growth rates of 10% which we have enjoyed - I accept that the Minister fought his corner and tried to get as much money as he could for his Department - the EUROSTAT figures show that our expenditure on social inclusion is the lowest among the 15 countries in the European Union. These are irrefutable figures. The Minister says the French and the Germans include one thing, we include another and so on, but we are nevertheless bottom of the league. Ireland is probably the toughest country in which to be poor, outside parts of the USA and the Third World. That is the reality.
For its future development the Department needs to work closely on the issues to which my colleague referred, housing, education, security, health and minorities. It needs to develop a coherent approach to the elimination of poverty. As I have constantly said at this committee, I am enraged that in this city and others around the country there are still large tracts of spatial disadvantage. The effects of living in one of these areas - for example, the postal code area in which I live - can be seen in the numbers who go on to third level education, crime levels and mortality rates. People in poor areas die much younger than those who do not live in them - we never bothered to collect statistics on this until last year or the previous year when the Northern Ireland administration pushed us ahead. We sometimes attend the funerals of people in their forties and fifties.
Living in a district of poverty has huge implications. We have had partnership companies and Leader programmes and, more recently, the RAPID programme. The latter is a programme about which I get very annoyed because I do not see the reason the Government launched a programme targeting the 25 poorest areas in the country and did not provide the required resources. In my area we hear about significant things - the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform might give us an extra police station or it might not. The Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs should have taken a ferocious and determined lead in the elimination of poverty, particularly spatially based poverty. That has not happened. This is the reason, in local areas, people wonder what the next Government will do with a programme such as RAPID. It is to be hoped the next Government will have a more coherent approach to the elimination of poverty.
I commend the Minister on his administration and wish him well in the future, which he deserves, and our officials for their hard work during the years. However, I still feel that we need a much more coherent vision for the less well-off in our society. Perhaps in the future we will have a totally different kind of Department which will be reflected in its name. Effectively, it will not be an income support Department but one dedicated to rooting out poverty and ensuring it does not arise anywhere in this nation.
The first Vote is Vote 24 - Charitable Donations and Bequests. There is not much in it.
The Minister said the consultants' report would be published shortly and that his Department would be working with others on the proposed legislation.
The public consultation process will then start.
Does the Minister have any idea how long this will take?
No. We were hoping this year would see the end of the consultation process, perhaps earlier. I cannot recall the dates. We were trying to get something done about this legislation before the general election, but it is a huge area of which there has been much investigation in recent decades. What we need now is action to pull things together.
I am aware that this Vote was transferred last July to the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs. In future Estimates will it appear as a subhead within the overall Vote or will it be separate?
It will be separate.
What is the rationale behind this?
It was always separate from the Vote for the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
That goes back to the last century.
Moving on to Vote 40, subheads A1 to A10 deal with the Department's administrative budget: I will call them out one by one and if there are any questions, members should jump in. Are there any questions about subhead A1?
The increase will consist of the next tranche of money due under the PPF, the last phase, due in October or November of this year. Is the last element of the PPF dependent on the benchmarking assessment? Is it true that each Department had to send its strategic objectives for the next 12 months to the benchmarking group and that the last tranche is owed under the PPF depending on those objectives?
I am told there is nothing in there about benchmarking. It is simply the normal PPF increase.
That is the next phase due in October or November.
Yes.
Was that not dependent on a strategic assessment for the next 12 months? I was under the impression that each Department had to indicate to the SMI various goals to be achieved. I understand it would be very strange if none of the Departments was to have its goals decided by the central committee, but I was under the impression that the last tranche of the PPF funding was dependent on the benchmarking process. Is the Minister saying that it is not?
Apparently, this is not the case.
Does any member have questions about subheads A2, A3, A4 or A5?
On A5, can the Minister tell the committee what stage the service delivery model is at in his Department? He will be aware of the difficulties caused in Letterkenny for payments late last year because of the introduction of the service delivery model.
My understanding is that it is fairly well advanced. The increase is to include provision for accelerated roll-out of the service delivery model. One of the SDMs, child benefit, is scheduled for July 2002 and will be the first to come on stream. The consultancy assistance on phase 2, which will cover retirement pensions, old age pensions, free schemes and bereavement grants, will commence shortly.
What are the benefits?
It is a new computerisation system which will result in changes being made more easily and it will be much more flexible for customers. It will replace obsolete computer systems which have reached the end of their useful life and are incapable of being adapted to meet developing requirements.
So it is basically a computer programme.
Yes, but it is more than that. It relates to the whole delivery of payments and electronic access to services whereby changes can be made more easily. People move in and out of child benefit and others are having more children. There are constant changes. The computer system in the Department is probably one of the oldest in existence.
We will move on to subheads A6 and A7.
On A7, the increase in the 2002 Estimate is due mainly to the provision of €6.9 million for the new service delivery model project which will assist the Department to deliver a more personalised service. Is that the total reason for the increase from €4.7 million to €11 million?
More or less.
There is no other consultancy work there.
There is a client data service scanning project which only cost €0.8 million. A sum of €0.254 million is allocated for the service infrastructure project and €1.9 million for the REACH project. A further allocation of €1.6 million has been made for consultancy services for the planning and family affairs units of the Department.
Considering the controversy concerning the delivery on 1 January, how will this impact on the delivery for 2003 in the context of the timing of the budget?
Other delivery options are being considered. It might not happen next year. The Department is looking at various ways of delivering the payments in the same type of timeframe, or earlier such as on 1 January.
What would it take to do it on 1 January?
For everyone? A variety of options were considered. The simplest way is to increase the capacity of the printers, which raises the question of economic viability since more people are going to go on to different types of payment other than book payment over a longer period, perhaps electronically funded transfer payments. A bar code system was examined. In the medium term, if budgets continue to be close to delivery dates, the systems will have to be there to facilitate that. All available options are being considered.
On payments to An Post in respect of cashing social assistance pensions and allowances under subhead A8, the allocation for 2002 is actually reduced. Is that because more people are moving to electronic transfer?
The note I have is that the decrease has arisen following analysis of demands versus actual expenditure over recent years and a consequent reappraisal on the basis of predicted demands for additional funding. The ongoing migration of customers to EFT, electronically funded transfer, also serves to reduce costs. It was probably a combination of people transferring to EFT and also the estimating of how many people are——
The Department operates on the basis that each transaction is paid, is that right?
Not really, there is an overall figure which is agreed with An Post. The figure of 80p per transaction is reached by averaging it. We do not actually pay 80p per transaction.
It is a global figure estimate. In the future, more and more people will use electronic transfers. This will constitute a sizeable chunk of An Post's revenue.
Yes, that is the danger as things move forward. One third or more of people are paid their child benefit by EFT and that will continue.
There is a significant increase in the Estimate for this year in respect of payments to medical certifiers who certify people in respect of disability allowance and carer's allowance. The Estimate goes from €12 million to slightly over €17 million. It is up by nearly 40%. Why is there such a radical increase? I would have thought that the majority of doctors who provide certificates are in the GMS anyway. Are they? Do they deal with medical card holders on a weekly or a daily basis?
They are paid for the medical certificates.
Are disability allowance and carer's allowance similar to disability benefit in that people are called regularly for a medical examination, not just once?
The vast majority are claiming disability benefit but some request certificates for carer's allowance or other schemes such as disability allowance. The reason for the increase is a new agreement with the IMO and, as always, the fees have increased. As a result of the increased level of fees agreed, different entitlements apply to different periods. From July 2001 to June 2002, a sum of €6.35 per certificate and €31.74 per report is payable. This will rise to €8.25 per certificate and €44 per report from late 2003.
Is the agreement between the Department and the IMO?
Yes, sanctioned by the Department of Finance.
Do we have a break-down on the cost of the appeals system? Is it the A budget?
Is the Deputy referring to the appeals system within my Department, or the social welfare appeals office?
The appeals office.
I will check that. There are pay costs for the social welfare appeals office, amounting to €2.218 million.
Is that figure likely to rise?
It has risen from €2.072 million last year. That probably represents an increase in costs. Some time ago, during Private Members' business, I mentioned that extra people had been employed. The staff complement for 2001 and 2002 was 50, in each year.
Does that come out of the Department's staff budget?
Yes, it does.
During the last Question Time, I tabled a question relating to the issue of social welfare fraud. I am not sure whether this issue is dealt with in this section. The Minister said he would have the figures for 2001 at the end of March.
I do not think we have them in this——
I just wanted to remind the Minister. I wonder if one of the Minister's officials could make a note to send me a copy of the figures for 2001. The Minister provided me with the figures up to the year 2000.
As soon as the figures are available, I will send them to the Deputy.
Social welfare fraud is a very serious issue which has been raised at the Committee of Public Accounts. Can the Minister say what percentage of the €9.4 billion in social welfare payments is paid out to fraudulent claimants?
Is the Deputy referring to fraud, as opposed to human error?
Real fraud.
The levels of real fraud are quite low.
I know that four or five years ago, the figure was approximately .01%.
One hundred and seventy seven cases of fraud, that is different to——
We used to have a comparison on this. In a previous role, I used to invigilate the Revenue Commissioners. We would often discover that there could be as much as €3 billion outstanding in legally due taxes.
They were estimated taxes.
That is my point. Thanks to Ansbacher and various other similar tax-evasion schemes, unfortunately certain people——
Self-assessment was the most significant change that brought about change in this area——
Let us get back to reality. Up until the late 1970s, most farmers did not pay tax. That was simply the case. Many self-employed people——
Those figures of €3 billion were revenue estimates.
I know they were.
(Interruptions.)
Social welfare fraud is serious and it must be condemned. However, as a percentage of the total bill handled by the Minister's Department, it is a minuscule percentage. Revenue fraud is much higher. Outstanding unpaid taxes due to this nation are often as high as25%.
I am not defending people who defraud the State of taxes. The problem with the system that was in place prior to self-assessment was that revenue merely estimated what self-employed people should pay. Consequently, they came out with astronomical figures.
Social welfare fraud is a serious crime, there is no doubt about that. However, compared to the kind of tax fraud uncovered by the DIRT Inquiry, it is minuscule.
Point taken.
The point about tax evasion is that literally everyone was engaged in it.
When the Minister spoke about the 177 cases of social welfare fraud, did that figure include people who were in receipt of non-contributory old-age pensions, who cannot be caught until after they have died?
No.
The Department is catching some of these people, is that correct?
Yes. The overall figure for savings across all schemes in 2001 was €269 million. Not all of those savings would have come from the clamp-down on fraud.
Clawbacks.
I must be careful in what I say. Many people have been over-paid and have not informed the Department. That must be taken into account in these reviews.
I accept that the Minister does not like to refer to such cases as fraud. His savings figure——
In my view, that €269 million is not fraud.
That was last year's figure.
It is a much smaller figure.
It is time to move this discussion on. In relation to social assistance, subhead B refers to non-contributory old-age pensions and subhead C relates to pensions for the blind.
That particular figure is still rising, is it not?
No, it has gone down.
How did the Minister arrive at the figure for the expected decrease of 1,800 in old-age pension claimants? Is that figure based purely on age?
More people are qualifying for contributory pensions.
So the numbers coming from contributory pensions are automatically moved out of the non-contributory category?
The number of people moving into retirement from work has increased. The proportion of people who reach the age of 66 years and have a record of contributions is increasing all the time.
Has the Department gauged when the percentage of non-contributory pensions will represent a considerably smaller proportion of the total pension pay-out? At the moment, this sector accounts for approximately one third of all moneys paid.
The actuarial review shows that in 20 years' time most people will be in receipt of contributory pensions. We will always have a situation where some people qualify for non-contributory pensions.
The Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, stated at the recent Ard Fheis that he would introduce a home-maker's pension. He also stated that he would continue to increase the contributory pension. I only saw the highlights, by the way. How does the Minister envisage funding such a home-maker's pension? Would it be analogous to the non-contributory pension?
We have already started on that move. The dramatic increase in payments for adult dependants shows this. It is increasing at such a rate that, ultimately, it will be equivalent to the non-contributory pension.
It is a form of individualisation. I proposed that amendments such as this should be inserted into the social welfare code and the Government rejected them.
No. I was the first Minister to introduce the individualisation of social welfare payments. I said that at the time.
It can happen in the tax code overnight, but in the case of social welfare, it takes five or six years.
It is more difficult in social welfare, and more costly.
On subhead C - child benefit, any questions there?
Will 2003 be the final tranche of the three year development of this?
There are also the commitments in the NAPS review to 2007, which is additional expenditure.
That is when we put the CDA and child benefit together as a percentage?
Yes.
On the Letterkenny issue again, I would have thought the backlog had been significantly reduced.
There are still problems. In recent weeks, we have had to decline to answer phone calls on particular occasions because they were just becoming too much, but——
The Minister is aware of the amendment we proposed to the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 2002 this week on the new number he is establishing, the "big brother number", some people are calling it. I understand that from now on, this will allow a situation whereby if someone has a child, the Department is automatically informed of this by the hospital?
That is one of the first things that will happen under the REACH model. The Department will be able to send out a notifying form for claiming child benefit.
When will this come into effect?
Fairly quickly. It will be the first issue addressed under the REACH project. I think it will be the latter half of this year, but I cannot be certain of that.
The estimate the Department gives for the additional number of people claiming UA in 2002 is 72,500, is that correct?
On average.
Yes, the average. The actual figure I have for the end of January is 76,415. I am not sure of the figure for the end of February. I think there was also an increase there on the UA side. I obtained these figures from the Taoiseach recently. As Deputy Broughan noted earlier, we are losing jobs now at a considerable rate. Does the Minister think the average he projected will have to be estimated again given the increase in unemployment, particularly those signing on for UA?
This is just UA, there is UB also. Apparently, it is lower at the moment than the 72,500 average.
The figures I have from the CSO for the end of January say 76,417.
There were 66,500 actually in receipt of a payment in December 2001. These will, more than likely, be claims.
That is UB.
No, that is UA.
A total of 66,709?
There are 59,800 people in receipt of benefit.
On the students' summer jobs scheme, the Minister has provided a sum of €4 million - that has not changed from last year. Has he any plans, even at this late stage, to do anything significant for students?
I have been under considerable pressure to abolish it and I have lasted five years without doing so.
Who wants the Minister to abolish it?
The relevance of the students' summer job scheme has reduced more and more over the years. The scheme was introduced at a time when there were few jobs for people, but that is no longer the case. There has been a dramatic decrease in the numbers participating in the scheme. They are down from a high of 15,500 to 5,000 in 2000.
With regard to people going back to work, we often get complaints that entry conditions for the back to work allowance scheme are too restrictive. I am thinking of men and women who perhaps want to set themselves up as taxi drivers, hackney drivers, hairdressers or whatever. I notice the amount the Minister has allocated is down on the outturn.
I had intense discussions last night with taxi drivers who said that because of the back to work allowance scheme, we are encouraging people to set up in opposition to them and that it is unfair that new entrants to the business can benefit from the back to work allowance whereas they could not when they started.
Some of them did, the scheme goes back quite a while.
I am told the reason for the minus figure here is because it is cyclical. More people would have re-entered the workforce two or three years ago, and that is now feeding into the current estimate. It probably will go up.
In the current downturn, what about an individual who is perhaps laid off by an IT company in Fingal and has a business idea but does not qualify for the scheme because he has been unemployed for only six to eight months?
Yes?
Does the Minister think that in the context of the current downturn and growing unemployment, the entry requirements could be relaxed?
I would have thought it was reasonably easy to qualify for the back to work allowance scheme. I accept there are people who are leaving jobs and failing to get on some schemes. Obviously, with the evolving situation, my successor may have to look at some of the schemes again, but there are no plans for this at the moment.
At this stage many people have gone through the cycle.
There has been at least one report on people going back on to the dole and remaining there and the experience has been relatively good. If my memory serves me correctly, somewhere in the region of 65% of people have stayed off, but I could be wrong in that.
We are now on subhead G - employment support services. Are there any questions? No, we then move to subhead H - pre-retirement? No questions. We move to subhead 1 - one parent family payments.
The Minister is probably aware of Tony Fahey's latest work for the ESRI in this area I am not sure whether he actually funded it. One of the conclusions he reached was that the huge level of unemployment among lone parents has been masked in recent years by community employment. Given this, does the Minister have any plans to do anything on the earnings disregard, which has remained unchanged now for——
No, I do not have any, but we have examined this area because, from a policy perspective, it needs a great deal of consideration. We took the opportunity to go over to the UK and see what they were doing in relation to lone parents because all the research that has been done has shown that lone parents wish to work. About 50% of lone parents are working. Most of those would be in CE schemes and keeping their earnings to suit their circumstances, both financially and otherwise. We went to the UK which took my breadth away with the fairly draconian measures it took in regard to lone parents. I do not think those measures would stand the light of day here in Ireland. There was a huge insistence on compulsion in interaction with their Department and if people did not co-operate they were knocked off benefit very quickly.
We conducted a fairly major examination of the lone parent payment scheme recently and a number of proposals were made. The review did not recommend any adjustment in the level of the disregard as it was felt that it was adequate to support the level and nature of employment, much of which appears to be part-time. We decentralised the decision-making process for the one parent family payment. There would be a much more pro-active interaction with individual lone parents at local level with a view to assisting them to return to work. It is the view of the Department that this is a potentially active cohort of people who, if not helped, will remain on lone parent payment and, perhaps, a combination of lone parent payment and CE up to quite late in their working lives. They should be given an opportunity to get into employment. The experience is good in that when they get into employment, they do not rely on the State as much.
Therefore, is it not important that the Minister liaises on the Social Welfare Bill with the health boards to ensure payments such as FIS and SWA do not put people in an unfair situation? I was wondering where the Minister's officials were. Dublin City Council, of which the Cathaoirleach is a member, has introduced a new housing points system where an additional 20 points will be required by a couple. We had a debate about this and on whether it would pass the equality legislation. A majority of city councillors felt it was useful to adopt this approach and it is now with the Minister.
The thinking in the committee and in the Department would be that ideally we should try to support the principle of a two parent family. That is where it is coming from. If a disregard is increased too much one may be working against——
One of the most difficult areas of control from the Department's point of view is the one parent family payment. There is no doubt about that.
Looking at the position of women returning to work, having spent a good deal of time rearing families, a number of our programmes discriminate against them returning to the workforce.
FÁS.
We should get rid of that.
There was a report about a year and a half ago, with which the Tánaiste and I were involved with our Departments, which made 45 recommendations, two of which were relevant to my Department. We have already complied with the recommendations - the vast majority of which related to the Tánaiste's Department - on access by mainly married women into the workplace and the obstacles for them. A number of recommendations have been implemented on the Tánaiste's side.
We proceed to subhead I - One parent family payment; subhead J - Widows, widowers, non-contributory; subhead K - Social assistance and other allowances, carers' allowance.
Yesterday the Minister told us the latest estimate is for 25,000 carers.
It is 23,000
And another 1,200 this year.
Yes, 21,600 plus 3,400 new recipients. I was not too far wrong in saying 25,000.
Half the estimate of the Minister's Department is in terms of full-time carers.
The Estimate for 2002 is astronomical at 33%. The carers allowance scheme is not properly designed for what is required, namely, a payment to those who care in the home. That is the reason we are talking to the Department of Health and Children in the context of the health strategy to try to bring forward a model that will give people an adequate income rather than the carers allowance because my Department does not have the capability of assessing people individually as to the level of need. That is the big difficulty as I see it.
Needs assessment is the key to this area.
It is the key. In needs assessment one is talking about many things, appliances, suitability of premises——
Cost of care.
——which runs across Departments. If a care assessment was conducted nationally it would raise huge issues and involve huge costings.
The note says there is a 33% increase. How many extra people will that cover this year for the increase in the Estimate?
The increase in the Estimate——
It affects everyone.
The amount of money is being increased.
It was interesting that the Comptroller and Auditor General drew attention to this payment in his last report on the basis of medical certification and the whole administrative side. It is obviously something the Comptroller and Auditor General considers should be examined carefully.
Huge amounts of money are going out. This is by way of certificate from a doctor in the vast majority of cases. In some cases my Department would intervene and ask for an examination but not in many cases. What the Comptroller and Auditor General is saying is that there should be more control mechanisms. Despite that there is dissatisfaction among that community with what is being done.
The basic point is that people are looking for recognition irrespective of the means. If one is a full-time carer one wants to be recognised as such.
I have heard people say that. People want recognition but when they are given a relatively small amount, they want more.
The basic point is what is work and what is not? If one is doing work one should be paid. They claim that the Minister of State, Deputy Moffatt, who has responsibility for carers, has conceded on the principle that what they are doing is work. How can they be remunerated to such a degree that they are satisfied?
Persons on domiciliary care allowance can qualify for the annual respite care grant without getting the carers allowance. Is that correct? Are there many in that category?
I made a change in one of my first budgets that those who are getting domiciliary care allowance can qualify for carer's allowance. Because of that they get the respite care grant.
Until then they were not getting the respite care without——
Without the carer's allowance.
On rent supplement, a huge sum of money is now being spent in this area. Payments are administered through the health boards but come from the Minister's Estimate and are clearly in his domain. Such a significant degree of SWA underlines the crisis in terms of accommodation. The Minister's Estimate for this year is €240 million. I would be interested to know what was the projection last year and what it came in at this year. I realise this is the provisional outturn for last year but it is a shocking sum of money. That is money lost to the State because it will not go to the building of social housing in any shape or form.
It is often suggested that we should have looked at local authorities directly managing some of the rental market and being given special facilities to become involved. We all meet people who are presented with bills of perhaps €1,200 a month but who are shocked to find that, for some reason, their rent supplement has been cut from €900 down to €300 or €400. We hear about those kinds of problems every Friday or Saturday, and the Government is largely to blame for that. My colleague, Deputy Gilmore, has made the point continually that the Government has refused to take any action to control rents even though the key to a viable rental sector, such as that which exists in Holland, Belgium and so on, is basic controls. The alternative is cowboy practices of the worst kind and the ordinary taxpayer, with the help of the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, has to pick up the tab for that. Effectively, it is dead money.
A total of 28% of the increase is due to improvements to the value of €21.5 million announced in the budget. The rest is in relation to the value of payments and the increase in rent levels. I do not accept what the Deputy said about efforts made by my colleagues. It is extremely difficult to know how to address the problem of people on the housing list. We tried to marry the rent supplement with the local authorities but we experienced difficult industrial relations problems. Deputy Broughan, who appears to have great contacts with the trade unions, may be able to sort out those problems. Perhaps he will be in my position after the election and he will have the problem of sorting out the difficulties as between health board officials and frustrated——
The Minister sounds frustrated.
This is one of the areas where I have experienced some frustration.
How much did the Minister include in the Estimate last year and what was the actual sum spent in ball park figures?
We do not have last year's figure. I will come back to it.
Subhead O deals with disability allowance and the fee schemes.
Why are the fee schemes contained in this Vote?
Assistance as opposed to——
Yes. Is it not all from the insurance Vote?
Apparently not. This is in respect of people who would be non-contributors.
I see the Minister's note now. The expenditure is charged to the social insurance fund, although it is in the social assistance budget.
My understanding is that it is all charged to the social insurance fund. That was the decision.
We now move to subhead Q.
On the school meals, in some constituencies, including the Minister's in Louth and my own, a school breakfast programme was set up and is running quite well. We have moved on in that we are trying to provide a hot lunch for children, particularly those in areas of severe disadvantage. There is not much additional funding for that.
Not many groups are coming forward. To the best of my knowledge, we may have had more funds last year than groups coming forward. This is an area where I, in conjunction with the Department of Education and Science, tried to bring forward a more comprehensive scheme. I would like to think that will happen in the not too distant future but it does mean working with the community.
It is a major logistics job, is it not?
Why can the State not just do it? In Britain——
I spoke to the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods, about this and he is of the view that as we move forward, we will have canteens in schools for staff and children but in regard to who should man those, the issue of liability, etc., there will be a huge extra cost on the education system. It has been found that providing children with meals is very beneficial but we were trying to do that through communities which is difficult. However, it is extremely successful in Deputy Broughan's area and in my area in Drogheda. Children are literally provided with four meals per day.
It is something that could make a huge difference because the Vincentian report we received before Christmas indicated that as we move down the lower income families, the level of nutrition children get is terrible by comparison with those families who have more money. We could run the schemes directly in disadvantaged areas, perhaps in schools which got the Breaking the Cycle designation. They would automatically——
Or, for a start, in the RAPID areas.
Yes.
Although it must be said that it is sometimes the borderline areas which are most in need. Perhaps it should be a nationwide programme.
That was what was hoped for in this community-led scheme but the take-up has been slower than we thought.
On the Pensions Board, obviously the reason there is such a significant increase from €750,000 to €1.7 million is to do with——
The staff.
——the staff in the office of the new pensions ombudsman. Following the enactment of this legislation next week, will this appear as a separate item under this subhead next year?
I am not sure. It may have a separate heading under miscellaneous services.
We discussed this yesterday and the point was made to the committee that the pensions ombudsman will establish what he or she needs for the next 12 months and will negotiate with the Minister and the Department of Finance on this area. That figure will appear there this time next year.
That is my understanding.
We will move on to subhead R1, family support agencies. Are there any questions on that? Subhead R2 deals with grants to groups. Subhead S1 deals with the Combat Poverty Agency and the peace and reconciliation programme. Subhead T1 deals with Comhairle. Subhead U——
On the Oasis project, how detailed will be the information on that site?
My understanding is that it was fairly significant information. It will fit into the REACH project. People will be able, not only to look for information, but ultimately to go through the REACH project to apply for their entitlements by way of the website. The Oasis website is an adjunct to the REACH project.
That deals with subhead U. We will move on to subhead V. Are there any questions on the social insurance fund?
The investment has taken a major knock-back this year. The provisional outturn last year was €59 million compared to €39 million in terms of income from investments. Is this the first time there has been a reduction in recent years?
I am told it relates mainly to investments.
Yes, but is this the first time this has happened in recent years?
This is the first time it has happened.
I understand the international market is not as good as it was. That is presumably the reason.
Yes, this is the first time it has happened for a while.
I think the Minister told us the other day that the total amount in surplus was €1.48 billion. Is that correct?
We estimate the amount in surplus at December 2002 will be €1.287 billion.
It will be €1.287 million.
By the end of the year.
Are there any other questions on the social insurance fund?
We are still unhappy that the Minister raided the surplus to balance the books in a phoney way.
Are there any more questions or non-political concluding remarks?
I thank Deputies for their work. They will appreciate that at times I was not very forgiving in relation to the Social Welfare Bills we went through. I thank them for their work and wish them all the best in their endeavours. I also thank the Chairman and his staff for all they have done for us. I have often said publicly that, of all Ministers, I have the best officials in my Department helping and working with me. I am sure that whoever is lucky enough to be appointed to this ministry will benefit from the same attitude of the staff. As the Chairman knows, time and again Deputies in my parliamentary party have said that my Department is by far the most helpful. Other Departments should follow its example.
We should move the senior officials in the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs to the Department of Finance and move its senior officials to the Minister's Department for a while
They have a job to do too.
I want to make two brief points.
It is quite often the case that staff in my Department come from or go to the Department of Finance.
I would not wish that on my worst enemy.
That in itself proves the point.
The Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, recently promoted somebody. It seemed as if he might be getting ready for a number of years when his party will be out of government and that he was trying to put down some markers for being spendthrift in respect of other possible parties being represented in that Department. That is how I read some of the changes made in it.
I would not say that. That is a little machiavellian Watch this space.
This is about the ninth or tenth time a Department has dealt with Estimates recently. I hope to be a Member of the 29th Dáil and that we will have real discussions on Estimates. The odd time we visited other parliaments or that other parliamentarians from the European Union visited this Parliament I was impressed by how they dealt with their estimates. I was particularly struck by Dutch representatives whom I met about five years ago in that at this time of year they would be discussing the estimates for 2003. We do not currently have the facility in our parliamentary set-up for our staff to present proposals on, say, developments in the lone parent allowance or the carer's payment, which could be examined by the Minister and his staff in the context of the system in place and, on this basis, possibly included eventually in the budget. In other words, the Opposition parties would have a real input into policy formation and spending, which they do not currently. It is farcical that we are discussing the Estimates for 2002 this year. I hope that, as part of Dáil reform, this will be the last year we will not have had real discussions on the Estimates. We are all members of local authorities whose members are talking about expenditure for next year and asking managers and officials to do X, Y and Z and provide for measures in their budgets. We need real reform of this process.
I congratulate the Chairman on the way he has conducted the proceedings of this committee during the years and wish him well.
I thank the Minister and his officials for coming to this meeting of the select committee. We have met various officials from the Department in recent years and they have always been very helpful. I apologise for all the parliamentary questions we submit. We may abuse the system from time to time, but unlike others, the Department responds to them. Whether withdrawn or otherwise, the system works. I wish other Departments were as helpful to public representatives when they submit parliamentary questions.
I do not know if there will be another meeting of the committee. We will leave the arranging until after Easter and see if we are still around. If we are, we will set a date for our next meeting. If not, I take this opportunity to thank our secretariat and those in the broadcasting unit who have looked after us in recent years. We are all being very nice to one another.
They will be here, but we may not.
I also thank members of the committee for their assistance.