My apologies to the Taoiseach. I do not intend to delay the House for very long. However, there are some points I should like to make in regard to this very important area in the hope that what I have to say may in some way help the less fortunate among us.
The free fuel scheme could be improved greatly. One of the difficulties in regard to the scheme relates to the arrangement whereby the vouchers are collected at the local social welfare office. This means that the people concerned must make a couple of trips, whereas if they could collect the vouchers at the post office at the same time as they are collecting their pensions they would have to make only one journey. Many of the people concerned would be old or undernourished and would have difficulty in attending both at the post office and at the social welfare office on the one day. As the vouchers are distributed during the winter months, the journey to the social welfare office often has to be made in very bad weather conditions.
This scheme should be extended into rural areas. Though there is provision for this under the supplementary welfare scheme, there should be definite arrangements regarding the scheme itself so far as rural areas are concerned.
Another aspect of this scheme that might be reconsidered relates to the period during which the vouchers are made available, usually from October to March. This is the time during which there is the greatest difficulty in getting supplies of fuel, even for those who can afford to pay for it. Therefore, the Taoiseach might consider arranging for the vouchers to be issued during the summer so that those concerned would be in a position to stock up on fuel for the winter. I appreciate that in some cases there would be a lack of facilities for the storing of fuel, but I am sure that many of the people who qualify under this scheme would be able to stock some fuel. The adoption of this suggestion should prove to be very helpful.
We are all aware that social welfare beneficiaries have been experiencing much difficulty in regard to the receipt of their cheques. Obviously, the postal strike was responsible for long delays during a prolonged period, but that strike has been over for some time and we still find that these people are left without their cheques for long periods. There are delays of many weeks. When such people do not get their cheques by post on the day they are expected, they dare not go into shops to get credit and they cannot go to a bank to get credit.
I am convinced that the Taoiseach is sincere about this scheme, which affects an underprivileged section, but the policy must be changed in the Department. The administration should be decentralised. That would save people whose cheques are delayed the trouble of going to their public representatives to try to get what is justly theirs. They would then be able to go to local offices of the Department to confront the officers. Decentralisation would improve the entire social welfare system, which at the moment leaves a lot to be desired. It is an indictment of all of us that people depending solely on social welfare benefits should be held up in the way I have described. No matter how valid or justified the Department's excuses seem to be, delays of even one week represent a tragedy to such people. A postal or any other strike should not be held to be responsible.
The administration of the supplementary welfare scheme is fouling up payment of benefits. I have knowledge of cases being stopped by the Department because money was due by the would-be recipients where there had been previous over-payment. Disability benefits can be paid to insured persons only, and nobody in this State has any right legally to benefit unless he is insured, and neither have the Department a right to stop disability payments to any insured person.
It is the system which is responsible for delays, and therefore, because this involves the less well-off members of the community, the system should be changed. This Department was set up and reorganised to get away from the home assistance system, but there is something wrong with a Department which is responsible for the tragic delays there have been in paying benefits to those people. The people I have been talking about are insured people who have been paying for their stamps down through the years. However, because of something that is happening in the Department they must go to the local office very often to draw a supplementary welfare benefit. That benefit was intended to improve the scheme, but, in effect, it is doing the opposite.
I wish the new Minister well in his new post and I hope he will apply himself to the Department of Social Welfare because, as we all know, we could never do enough for the unfortunate people who seek benefit from it. On the question of free travel it is unfortunate that the person who qualifies must be accompanied by the spouse before the spouse can benefit. Both of them should enjoy free travel. One of the partners who holds the free travel permit may be sick but, because of the restrictions of the scheme, the other partner must pay when travelling on public transport. That is a denial to both people. If a person qualifies for free travel the Department should allow the other partner the same concession.
If the Taoiseach is anxious to improve the social welfare system he should embark upon a policy of decentralisation. In granting increases to beneficiaries under the social welfare system the Government should allow for possible price rises and a rise in inflation. In spite of the efforts of successive Governments to control inflation they have not succeeded with the result that increased allowances lose their value often before they are received. The Taoiseach should do everything within his power—he is all powerful now and the best of luck to him—to improve the lot of those people. He must see to it that such people are given an increase that will more than compensate for the increase in the cost of living. I subscribe to the sentiments expressed by Deputy McMahon in relation to the new Minister for Health and Social Welfare. We need a change of policy in relation to social welfare but it would be a help if the Taoiseach, when naming the five others Ministers of State, included a Minister of State for the Department of Social Welfare. Those Departments are very involved with people.