Seán Crowe
Question:394 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the position regarding an all-Ireland travel pass. [37562/06]
View answerTuesday, 14 November 2006
Questions (327, 328)
Written answers
The Programme for Government contains a commitment to a scheme of all-Ireland free travel for pensioners resident in all parts of the island of Ireland. The scheme will enable pensioners resident here to travel free of charge on all bus and rail services in Northern Ireland. Likewise, pensioners in Northern Ireland will travel free of charge on services in this State.
Implementation of a single travel pass, acceptable in both jurisdictions, is complex and requires the completion of the Integrated Ticketing project being run under the auspices of the Department of Transport and subsequent integration with the ticketing systems being run in Northern Ireland. My Department will continue to engage with these bodies and projects on these issues. Pending development of a single pass, my Department has engaged with the Department of Regional Development in Northern Ireland and Translink, the main transport authority in Northern Ireland, to put in place a separate scheme to permit residents of both jurisdictions to avail of free travel within each others jurisdiction. Discussion of this scheme has raised a number of policy, legal, financial, operational and technical issues. Significant progress has been achieved in resolving these.
Delivery of technical elements of the new system has commenced. When the technology is delivered, it will allow a programme of testing and training to be undertaken. In the meantime, the necessary staff consultation and negotiation processes will continue. Subject to satisfactory conclusion of these processes, the project is scheduled to progress towards completion early in 2007.
Dan Boyle
Question:395 Mr. Boyle asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs his views on criticisms made at the recent budgetary perspectives conference organised by the ESRI that the present system of combating child poverty and the lack of control exercised in paying disability payments are failures of the budgetary system here. [33192/06]
View answerTwo interesting papers were presented at the recent ESRI conference which have relevance to the services administered by my Department.
The paper relating to the growth of disability payments in Ireland sets out to examine, using an econometric model, the extent to which individuals, who classify themselves as disabled or ill for the purposes of labour force surveys, may be misreporting their status. The key question addressed is whether the level of, or accessibility to, disability payments actually encourages such misreporting. While there is no firm conclusion on this question, some interesting issues were raised and my Department has written to the author with a view to discussing the analysis further and to clarify some aspects of the paper and the methodology used.
The issue of control on disability payments was addressed also in the 2006 report of the Public Accounts Committee which examined the area of Medical Review and Assessment Service (MRAS) within the Department. That report pointed to the need for a review of the system of medical review and examination for disability payments.
In this regard a comprehensive review of the MRAS has been undertaken which reported on all aspects of the MRAS in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, economy and customer service. That review examined various alternative models to meet my Department's requirements in this area and recommended a particular model for the development of the service which will enable my Department to process examinations and reviews more quickly and effectively thereby reducing backlogs and achieving positive outcomes more quickly. Implementation of this model will be progressed as a matter of priority throughout 2007.
The paper relating to child supports set as its goal an examination of how policies can be made more effective in supporting the incomes of families with children by comparing child poverty rates across various countries and identifying countries which follow ‘best practice' in this area. The paper then examines the implications of introducing a new ‘second tier' child income support payment here which would be means-tested and employment-neutral. In relation to child poverty the considerable improvements in child-related income supports and services since 2000, for example the €1.27 billion additional investment package in child benefit which was completed in 2006, and a range of other reforms, increased welfare supports for adults (identified as a key factor in reducing child poverty rates) and expanded child-centred services which all combine to make significant progress in tackling child poverty, are not reflected in the comparative material in the report.
At least 100,000 children have been lifted out of deprivation and hardship inside the last decade as a result of targeted measures and supports. These include increases of from €21 to €282 a week for families on family income supplement which is being claimed by over 20,400 families; some 80,000 families are benefiting from the €40 per child increase in the back to school clothing and footwear allowance; over 350,000 children have qualified for the €1,000 per year early childcare supplement, a third of whom are the children of lone parents, and 41,000 childcare places have been created since 2000 under the €500 million equal opportunities childcare programme. The most recent statistics on poverty rates show that 9.5% of children under the age of 15 are in consistent poverty, down from 12.2% in 2003.
The ESRI paper also examines the implications of a new second tier child income support and estimates that, at a cost of €510 million per annum (including the cost of retaining a residual FIS scheme), such a scheme could reduce the numbers of children ‘at risk of poverty' by 4.5%. The paper concludes that the best results in tackling child poverty will not necessarily be found by concentrating on higher child-related cash income support measures, but in a more general support regime with a greater balance between cash and non-cash supports.
The issues which were raised in both papers are being taken into account in the development of policy for further changes in social welfare services.
Question No. 396 answered with QuestionNo. 102.