I move:
That a sum not exceeding £75,326,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1972, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Social Welfare for certain services administerd by that Office, for payments to the Social Insurance Fund, and for sundry grants.
As Deputies are aware, last year's Estimate for Social Welfare was agreed without discussion and a motion was put on the Order Paper subsequently to enable a debate to take place on the activities of the Department of Social Welfare for that year. It is proposed to take the motion and the current year's Estimate together.
The net Estimate for Social Welfare for 1971-72 is £75,326,000. This represents an increase of more than £11 million over the original Estimate of £64,158,000 for 1970-71. We had a Supplementary Estimate of £8,730,000 towards the end of March to cover the cost of the 1970 Budget increases and, when this is taken into account, the net increase comes to about £2½ million. We will, of course, require a Supplementary Estimate this year also, because of the increases announced in the Budget, as there is no provision for these increases in the published Estimate. It is, therefore, rather difficult to make valid comparisons between the provision for 1971-72 and that for 1970-71 as set out in the Estimates Volume and I would ask Deputies to bear in mind that most subheads for 1971-72 will be increased by a Supplementary Estimate later in the year.
The main reason for the increase of £2,438,000 is that the increases in payment rates and other improvements made last year will operate for the full 12 months in the current financial year as compared with eight months for assistance and six months for insurance in 1970-71. In addition, there is an extra pay day for some services. These increases are offset by a reduction in the provision for unemployment assistance and in some cases would be greater but for a downward trend in the number of recipients. This applies particularly to non-contributory widows' pensions.
The estimated expenditure and income of the Social Insurance Fund are set out in the Appendix to the Estimate. Total expenditure for the current year shows an increase of approximately £6 million. Here, again, it is difficult to make valid comparison between certain figures for 1971-72 and 1970-71 for the reason I have already mentioned and, further, because of the introduction last year of new schemes of invalidity and retirement pensions. For instance the Estimate for disability benefit shows a substantial reduction due to the transfer of many claimants to the new schemes. Similarly in the case of unemployment benefit there was a transfer to retirement pension with a corresponding reduction in the provision for the current year. The income of the Social Insurance Fund is expected to increase by about £5 million as a result of the increased contribution rates operative from October 1971. The net result is that the payment from the Exchequer to the fund shows an increase of about £1 million.
On the Second Reading of the Social Welfare Bill, 1971, I gave estimates of the cost of the various proposals contained in the Bill. On the social assistance side the cost in a full year is estimated at £3,783,000 and on the social insurance side £6,709,000, a total of almost £10½ million. When this is taken into account, the expenditure on our social welfare services is now running at an annual rate of £128 million. Administration costs amount to about £5¾ million a year, so that the total yearly bill is roughly £134 million. This is quite a formidable sum and I would ask Deputies to have regard to it when they criticise as inadequate the rates payable under particular schemes. In this connection I think it is only fair to say that I feel we are altogether too prone to indulge in general condemnation of our services. Some indulde in this with a very inadequate knowledge of what exactly is available under the different schemes and the great majority without giving credit for the many improvements made down the years. I am not for a moment suggesting that further improvements are not desirable—indeed I can assure the House that I will continue to effect improvements within the limits of available resources—but I strongly deprecate the attitude that our services are something of which we must be ashamed, and that we are lagging far behind other countries in these matters. In the final analysis the Government can provide only that level of services for which the community, whether as taxpayers, employers or insured contributors, is prepared to pay. When it becomes evident that the community is prepared to pay substantially more, I, as Minister for Social Welfare, will be only too glad to introduce further improvements.
On this question of improvements, my Department have been working on the preparation of a scheme of pay-related disability and unemployment benefit as promised in the Third Programme of Economic and Social Development. While a great deal of ground has been covered, a number of difficult technical problems remain to be solved before the necessary legislation can be drafted. In that programme, mention was made also of detailed examinations of the children's allowances scheme, the scope of social insurance, and the social assistance schemes generally. As Deputies are aware, the scope of social insurance was extended this year by the raising of the remuneration ceiling for compulsory insurance in the case of nonmanual workers from £1,200 to £1,600 per annum. An analytical study of the children's allowances scheme is being carried out as part of a programme budgeting exercise in my Department.
My Department are currently engaged also in a wide-ranging review of our assistance services including home assistance, with a view to framing a new comprehensive code of social assistance which will probably involve a radical restructuring of the various existing schemes, entailing the re-designing of the present scales of payment so as to reflect more accurately the different requirements of various categories of recipients.
In order to achieve a proper overall development of the State income maintenance services greater integration of the present home assistance scheme with those services would seem to be an essential part of the reform programme. One of the possibilities I have in mind is that the State schemes would be supported by a national reserve scheme of assistance with standardised uniform scales of payment to cater for those cases that do not qualify, for one reason or another, for assistance or benefit under the specific schemes or to supplement the payment under a specific scheme where this would be called for to meet the requirements of a particular case. Such a reserve scheme would replace the present scheme of home assistance with its widely varying standards of payment. I have under active consideration a number of alternative ways of dealing with the whole problem and in this regard schemes in other countries are being studied. When this examination has been completed and an overall assessment and evaluation of the position has been made, I will decide the lines which the programme of reform I intend recommending to the Government should follow.
As part of the general review to which I have referred, my Department have already this year carried out a detailed survey of the home assistance service throughout the country and the material obtained has been discussed with representatives of the superintendent assistance officers and assistance officers who are directly engaged in the administration of that service.
When moving a Supplementary Estimate for my Department on 30th March last, I gave a review of the operation of the principal new services introduced last year. It is probably not necessary for me to go over this ground again, but Deputies may be interested to know that the number in receipt of deserted wife's allowance is now 1,500, the number of retirement pensioners is 4,100, and the number receiving invalidity pension is 12,200. I should also mention that the current provision for social insurance contains for the first time a sum of £205,000 for death grants.
In the debate on the 1971 Bill, I dealt in some detail with the action being taken to protect employees against loss of benefit arising from failure of employers to stamp insurance cards. I have no doubt that all Deputies deplore any action by an employer which could jeopardise a worker's right to social insurance benefits. We should, I feel, equally deplore the action of unscrupulous individuals who make fraudulent claims on our services. These dishonest claims are made by persons who, while working, declare themselves to be unemployed by signing the live register, or who conceal their full means, or represent themselves to be ill when they are fit for work. I am sure we all agree that social welfare funds cannot be allowed to become the pool in a game of cheating the Government. The prevention of abuses in relation to the social welfare services is a problem which is always receiving attention in my Department. While every effort is made, as it must be if we are to operate the laws passed by the Oireachtas, to carry out a reasonable investigation of claims, it is understandably difficult to eliminate all abuses without delaying unduly the determination of genuine claims and increasing administration costs to an unjustifiable extent.
From time to time, Deputies and others complain of the complexity of social welfare Acts and regulations. I admit that complexities exist, but it would be simply impossible to provide social welfare benefits without a very detailed and precise set of conditions governing eligibility for each particular benefit. I am sure that Deputies would be the first to complain if undue discretion were allowed to me, as Minister for Social Welfare, or to officers of my Department, in determining claims. Thus, when the Oireachtas enacts a provision that, for example, a person must have 156 paid contributions to be eligible for a particular benefit, there is little sense in criticising my Department when a person with less than this number of contributions has his claim disallowed.
I know the individual citizen often finds difficulty in understanding the various conditions for benefits. We do our best to provide the required information. We have an Information Section in the headquarters of the Department which handles correspondence of a general nature and deals with a very large volume of telephone inquiries. In Dublin city we have a public office at Beresford Place, and early this year we provided another such office at Phibsboro Tower which is intended to deal with personal callers from that area. Leaflets giving detailed information on the various services are available at employment exchanges and employment offices throughout the country. In addition, there is the very useful booklet Summary of Social Insurance and Assistance Services which is revised annually. This booklet, of which 45,000 copies were ordered on the latest reprint, is distributed free of charge to Deputies, Senators, local authorities, trade unions and others on a mailing list. It is issued also to any individual inquirer and is available for consultation at employment exchanges, employment offices and post offices. I know that some Deputies, at least, make good use of this booklet as they have praised it more than once in this House. Might I suggest that other Deputies should study it and I have no doubt that it will help them in dealing with inquiries from their constituents.
I do not think it is necessary for me to speak at greater length at this stage. I am, of course, ready to give Deputies any further information they may require in respect of particular services as far as it is possible for me to do so.
