asked the Minister for Social Welfare if it is intended to extend free dental care on the basis of their husbands' social welfare contributions to married women who are not in paid employment; and, if so, when it will be implemented.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Welfare Benefits.
6.
The annual cost of extending dental benefit in the manner suggested would be of the order of £4.6 million in a year. Having regard to the current critical state of the public finances I regret that I do not have any resources to meet such an extension. It is, however, a proposal which I will keep in mind for consideration when financial circumstances improve.
Given the almost constant reiteration of the important part played by mothers staying at home and not being in paid employment, will the Minister not accept that it is a disgrace that they should be discriminated against in this way and that some effort should be made in the coming budget to change the system whereby they are deprived of this type of treatment?
I very much regret that in the context of the 1984 Estimates I could not contemplate giving further benefit to 300,000 persons. The Deputy is a confirmed advocate of not increasing PRSI rates. In order to extend this benefit one would have to increase substantially the rates of pay related social insurance, and the Deputy's party are adept at explaining why people should not have to pay PRSI. We cannot have it both ways. The cost of extending the scheme to cover an extra 300,000 persons would be a further £4.6 million. Under the dental benefit scheme operated by the health boards, dental benefit is available to holders of medical cards and their wives and dependants. Forty per cent of the population are covered by medical cards and they qualify for dental benefit, including their wives and dependants. The scheme has been substantially improved and new dental appointments have been made. Much as I would wish to extend the scheme, the additional money is not available.
Would the Minister accept that there is grave discrimination in the exclusion of such a number of married women at home from this service?
I would be all in favour of it if the party opposite had not spent £79 million in the past week in terms of the questions they put down on health. So far they have proposed expenditure of about £6 million. My Department will require next year additional tens of millions of pounds to pay for unemployment benefit and assistance.
For which the Government are responsible.
I do not have additional resources to extend the scheme in that direction.
I did not get an answer to my question. I asked whether the Minister would agree that there is open discrimination against women through their exclusion from participation in the scheme.
That is not a question seeking information.
I am asking whether the Minister would agree with me. Will the Minister state when the pious reiteration of objectives will give way to the implementation of this measure?
On what does the Minister base the figure of £4.6 million? How often would each of the 300,000 persons have to receive treatment in order to arrive at that figure?
Any insured persons, and that includes women who are insured, provided they satisfy certain statutory contribution conditions on their own insurance, qualify under the scheme. There are 620 dentists operating the scheme throughout the country and the insured person does not pay any portion of the cost in the case of fillings, extractions and scaling. In the case of all other treatments the insured person pays a proportion of the cost. The figure of £4.6 million has been very carefully costed. We monitor the scheme very carefully and we know the average price per treatment. The addition of 300,000 persons would cost £4.6 million.
Spoken like a true Socialist.
We tell the truth. We do not indulge in gombeen politics.
The Minister and his party have as little care for the less well off as their Fine Gael colleagues.
We tell the truth, nothing less.
The Deputy would not know about that.
7.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare when he proposes to change the social welfare code to allow disabled couples to qualify for a free telephone rental allowance, even if there is an able-bodied person living in the house so long as that person is under 16 years of age.
The free telephone rental allowance scheme was introduced so that people living alone would be enabled to have access to assistance, medical or otherwise, when the need arose. The scheme, when introduced, was confined to persons receiving old age type pensions but was subsequently extended to other categories who were considered to be equally deserving of consideration.
An exception to the living alone condition was made in the case of persons otherwise qualified but who are living only with persons who are so permanently incapacitated as to be unable to summon aid in an emergency. I am, however, having the qualifying conditions of the scheme reviewed with a view to seeing whether the present arrangements concerning children in the household under 16 years of age might impose hardship in individual cases.
The Minister is obviously aware that when two disabled persons living together have a child who is not disabled, once that child is even one year old the disabled couple are not entitled to free telephone rental. Will he agree that that is inequitable and that the child being in the house in no way relieves the hardship endured by the two disabled people? I ask the Minister to review the regulations to allow a free telephone rental to apply to people in this category until such time as the child concerned is at the age of earning his or her own living.
The Deputy has made a very valid point. I am examining that aspect of the free telephone rental allowance scheme. I assure the Deputy of my sympathy and understanding and am reviewing the situation to ascertain the numbers involved and the costing, with a view to making a submission.
That was to be my final supplementary — how much it would cost. The numbers are very small, and perhaps the Minister could give an assurance that in his budgetary submissions he will accommodate my request.
I do not have information about the number of additional pensioners who would qualify for the allowance if the scheme were extended to cover disabled couples with children, but am making inquiries in that regard. I do not think that the numbers involved would be very great.
I look forward to a positive response from the Minister.
I shall work on it.
8.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if, in view of the large number of people unemployed for a lengthy continuous period of time and of the differences between rates for long-and short-term social welfare payments, he will consider categorising unemployment assistance as a long term benefit when people have been in receipt of it for a certain minimum time.
There is no formal system of categorising payments into short-term and long-term payments, and the question as to which payments are to be increased is a matter which is normally considered in the context of the budget. I am, however very conscious of the situation of the long-term unemployed and this year, for the first time, an additional 5 per cent increase in payments specifically for persons unemployed for over 15 months was provided with effect from October. In this way, unemployment assistance recipients who have been unemployed for 15 months or more will in future have this built-in increase in their rates of payment as a permanent feature.
I ask the Minister to clarify his statement that there is no formal categorising into short-term and long-term payments. That is certainly a revelation to me and to those on Social Welfare who are told, for instance, that at Christmas those on long-term benefit can receive a double week's allowance and those on short-term cannot.
A question, Deputy, please.
Would the Minister clarify what he meant by that statement? The purpose of my question is to have people on unemployment assistance up to a certain period of time regarded as on long-term benefit, the same as those on pension.
There is no statutory categorisation of benefits as such. A person could be on disability benefit for three or four weeks and, traditionally, that is regarded as short-term benefit. On the other hand, a person could be on disability benefit for 12 months and one might argue that that should be long-term benefit. Likewise, the prisioner's wife's allowance is generally regarded as long-term, although a person might be in receipt of that allowance for a very short or a very long period—eight to ten years or 12 months. The classification of payments has been purely on an ad hoc basis, budget by budget, and there is no method by which one could categorise such benefits as long-term or short-term.
A final supplementary, please.
Is it the function of the Minister to decide whether a person is on short-term or long-term benefit? Is that a ministerial function?
To the extent that, for example, this year the Government decided that unemployment assistance recipients who have been out of work for at least a year and three months would be categorised as long-term recipients because they would be on the very basic rate of unemployment assistance. They were categorised as long-term and a 5 per cent increase was given to 43,000 recipients. One could argue that if a period of a year were decided on, a larger number of persons would be involved. This is an ad hoc definition under the Act.
Decided by the Minister?
Budget by budget.
Minister by Minister?
Precisely. There is nothing particularly unusual about that.
It is a ministerial function?
It is a governmental function.
On the advice of the Minister?
Precisely.
9.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he accepts that under the Social Welfare (Variation of Rates of Unemployment Assistance) Regulations, 1983, anomalies have arisen affecting certain categories of unemployment benefit recipients; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The Social Welfare (Variation of Rates of Unemployment Assistance) Regulations, 1983 gave effect to the Government's decision to increase by 5 per cent the payments to people who have been continuously unemployed for 15 months or more. Since the maximum period for which unemployment benefit is continuously payable is 15 months, it was not, therefore, intended that the increase would apply to that category. They can qualify for the 5 per cent increase only when they go on to unemployment assistance having exhausted their entitlement to unemployment benefit. I am aware that the new rate of unemployment assistance payable to the long-term unemployed is higher than the reduced rate of unemployment benefit payable in certain cases after the first six months of unemployment, but as the measure was intended for the benefit of persons who have been unemployed for at least 15 months I do not regard this as an anomaly.
I commend the Minister for wishing to help the long-term unemployed, those having been unemployed for more than 15 months. I ask him to accept that in granting that commendable and necessary increase, which sets the rate of one category higher than another, he has given an example of that higher category as a husband, wife and three children——
A question, please, Deputy.
I am illustrating the point of the question. A husband and wife on unemployment benefit with three children receive £74.24. On unemployment assistance under the new regulation they will receive £75.10. In addition——
That is not a question, Deputy, whatever else it is.
Does the Minister not accept that the fuel allowance scheme, butter scheme, electricity allowance and so forth should also be covered for the lower category which is now those on unemployment benefit? Whether he accepts it or not, there is a definite anomaly arising out of this decision. I commend his decision, but it did not go far enough.
The purpose of the 5 per cent order was a deliberate intention to make a special provision for the long-term unemployed over and above that being paid to those who could not be described as having finally exhausted their unemployment benefits. I see the point which the Deputy is making. Towards the end of the 15 months to which a person normally has entitlement to unemployment benefit, in certain instances if they have a reduced unemployment contribution then they get a reduced rate of benefit towards the end of 15 months. That would be lower than the maximum in unemployment assistance. It was the intention to give particular assistance to those who were out of work for more than 15 months. There has to be a starting point, and if the anomaly is in favour of UA I do not regard it as an anomaly but a discrimination to the extent of a pound or two in favour of long-term unemployment assistance.
I accept the point the Minister is making about positive discrimination in favour, but I ask him to accept that the degree to which that has been made here is too great. I feel the scheme available to those on unemployment assistance should apply to the category of unemployment benefit recipients.
We cannot have argument on every question. That is what we are having.
I have only asked one supplementary.
The Deputy has made a long speech on it.
I am asking the Minister if he will accept that there is an anomaly there and that it should be made up by allowing the scheme to pertain to unemployment benefit recipients.
I do not accept that, because it must be pointed out that in addition to unemployment benefit the vast majority of people claiming unemployment benefit also get pay-related benefit and, for a substantial period during which they were on unemployment benefit, they would also have pay-related benefit and their position, relative to the long-term unemployed, would be that bit more favourable. They would be more favourably placed, so that the total amount of money paid to them would be substantially higher than that paid to those on unemployment assistance.
(Interruptions.)
There are some categories who cannot get pay-related and it is to these categories I am addressing my question. Will the Minister make good the difference in the case of those who are not in receipt of pay-related benefit.
It is not a question of making good the difference, it is a question of having a system of reasonable discrimination in favour of those who are out of work for more than 15 months.
I will allow Deputy Leyden to ask a question and it is positively the last one in relation to this.
The Minister is inclined to make speeches at Question Time and I am sure the Ceann Comhairle has little control over that.
We will not get on to the super levy as the Minister for Agriculture comes next.
The Minister had talked about discrimination in favour of the unemployed. Would he associate himself with the statement made by a Fine Gael Senator——
That is not a question. That is some sort of an argument.
I am asking a question.
It is not a question arising out of the question on the Order Paper. Question No. 10.
Why are you trying to shoot down something? All right, I will make an allegation about a Senator in the House of the Oireachtas.
It is not in order on this question, whatever it is and it is not in order to quote.
This was reported in the Roscommon Herald.
Quotations are not in order at Question Time.
Are you protecting the Minister in this regard?
The Deputy will behave himself and he will not make charges against the Chair.
I am asking the Minister if he will make a statement in relation to allegations made about his officials in the west Roscommon area of my constituency as quoted in the Roscommon Herald.
If the Deputy wants to put down a question he can do that.
I will put down a special notice question.
The front bench on the other side is going to the dogs altogether.
The Minister should be asked to withdraw that comment.
I withdraw the comment.
10.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if it is intended to introduce a means test for children's allowances.
I have no plans at the present time for the introduction of a means test by my Department as a condition of entitlement to children's allowances.
Can we take it that the statement made by the leader of the Labour Party was not factual and that he was only speaking for himself?
He was thinking aloud.
The leader of the Labour Party expressed views and I personally support the views of my leader in that regard. I assure the Deputy that as a recipient of children's allowance to the tune of £250 a year, tax free, I see no reason why I should not hand back something to the State.
Can I take it that when the Minister says at present he has no plans that there will not be an introduction of a means test for children's allowances in the budget of 1984?
We cannot anticipate the budget at Question Time.
My Department, as the Deputy is aware are incapable of operating a means test. It could not operate through the Department of Social Welfare.
Could I ask the Minister to confirm something which he said in the House yesterday, which is in relation to children's allowances?
It may be, but is it on this particular question?
Yes, it is. I understood him to say in the House yesterday, and I ask him to confirm it now, that while there may not be a means test for children's allowances, he would favour the introduction of some form of test. Did I understand the Minister to say that yesterday?
What test?
Some form of taxation system on children's allowances. I understood the Minister to say that in the House yesterday.
Any such matter is the prerogative of the Minister for Finance.
Arising out of the Minister's reply when he said it would not be the prerogative of the Department of Social Welfare to implement such a means test, nor would they be able to do so, would he agree that he appears to be passing the buck to the Minister for Finance? I am asking for a clear indication that the Coalition Government do not intend to touch the system of children's allowances payable to the woman in the home which presently appertains.
That is argument, however sweetly put. Question No. 11.
Are we to take it that the Minister is in favour of removing the children's allowances from certain categories of people — we do not mind if he removes it from Ministers — in the middle income group? This was the suggestion which his leader made and which he says he endorses. It is a very serious statement and I am asking the Minister to clarify that.
I have been trying to explain that each question does not afford a platform for a policy debate on the subject of the question. It would lead to absurdity or to a cross-examination.
This was a point the Minister made in reply to a question about the means test. He said he had no intention of introducing a means test but he was personally in favour of removing children's allowances from certain categories of people. It is only reasonable that he should explain further, because that is a very serious suggestion by the Minister and people would want to know what his view is.
The question is on the Order Paper about whether it is intended to introduce a means test for children's allowances and the Chair is clear that that question is answered. Other hares are being raised and are being chased. That makes a mockery of Question Time.
I do not accept that the question has been answered. That is a broad question asking if the Minister intends to introduce a means test for children's allowances, and the answer is, not at the present time.
If the Deputy was here several years ago that question would have been answered by yes or no and that would have been that.
Unfortunately it was not answered by yes or no.
That is the way it would have been answered.
There is ambiguity.
We would like to know what the Minister's policy is. Surely the point of putting down a question is to find out what the Minister's policy is.
I have discretion on whether I will allow any more supplementary questions. I am not allowing any more on this. Question No. 11.
The Minister does not know——
We must move on to the next question.
11.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if the Government have made a decision to allocate moneys for a double allowance at Christmas for social welfare payment recipients.
12.
andMrs. Geoghegan-Quinn asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will include a double week's payment provision for dependants of short-term beneficiaries in the forthcoming double payment for social welfare recipients at Christmas.
13.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if a double week's benefit will be paid at Christmas to persons in receipt of unemployment assistance.
14.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if a double week's benefit will be paid at Christmas to persons in receipt of the supplementary welfare allowance.
15.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if unemployment assistance and disability benefit recipients will be granted the double week's payment at Christmas; if he agrees that unemployment assistance is long term, that unemployment benefit can be long term and that disability benefit is in the majority of cases long term; if he has any plans to relieve the hardship on these sectors; and if he will make a statement on this urgent and important matter.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 11 to 15, inclusive, together.
As already announced, a double payment will be made in the week ending 9 December 1983 to recipients of the following Social Welfare payments:— old age, retirement, blind, invalidity and occupational injury pensions and payments for widows and orphans, deserted wives, unmarried mothers, single women and prisoners' wives. The double payment will also be made to recipients of the following health allowances — disabled person's maintenance allowance, infectious diseases maintenance allowance, blind welfare allowance and domiciliary care allowance for handicapped children. It is not proposed to go beyond these categories.
These are the same categories who benefited from a double payment in 1980, 1981 and 1982. They do not include persons receiving unemployment assistance, supplementary welfare allowance, disability benefit or the dependants of persons recieving short term benefits.
This year for the first time, with effect from the beginning of October, a special increase was made in the rates of unemployment assistance for the long term unemployed. This permanent increase, which also applies to adult and child dependents, is payable to those who have been continuously unemployed for 15 months or more.
Persons who have been receiving disability benefit for 12 months or more and who are likely to remain permanently incapable of work may apply to be transferred to invalidity pension, which qualifies for the Christmas double payment.
Supplementary welfare allowance is, in many cases, payable as a supplement to the social welfare and health benefits which will qualify for the double payment.
Is the Minister aware that the long term social welfare terminology arose from the national understanding of 1980 and that it was the intention then that "long term" would mean particularly those on unemployment assistance? Will the Minister define what is meant by "long term"? Will the Minister accept that it will have to be the same as the movement from disability to invalidity benefit, which is normally one year? Will the Minister accept that many of those who were on unemployment assistance in 1980 are still in receipt of the same type of benefit? That is the position in my constitutency. Will the Minister accept that those in that category should be dealt with on the basis of being in receipt of a long term benefit?
I made the point trenchantly in reply to these five questions that what is being paid out to more than half a million people this year, 404,000 recipients and their 330,000 dependents, is precisely the same, no more and no less, as was paid out last year, the previous year and the year before that in accordance with the national understanding. I found it hypocritical in the extreme of Deputy Woods yesterday to lead people to Leinster House and say that they should get more than he paid on the same date in 1982. That is the type of nonsense we are faced with. I should like to remind the Deputy that the long term unemployed received a special 5 per cent increase in the first week in October and have been receiving it since. The type of propaganda being worked out by two parties in relation to this for narrow political gain and indicating that I have introduced some type of cut-back — I am not accusing Deputy Bell of this — is wrong, hypocritical and creating expectations of an entitlement which was not there since 1980 and is not there this year.
On a point of clarification, I should like to know if a double dependants' allowance was paid to short term beneficiaries at Christmas?
Not for Christmas; they were paid in September 1982.
Of course they were paid it in December.
There was a double week at Christmas last year. On 22 November — on the same date as last year — I published an exact replica of the advertisement sanctioned by the former Minister, published it in the same newspapers and signed the same regulation. Yet the former Minister is going around pleading that I somehow or another did something different. I did not.
On a point of clarification——
There is no such point, and it is annoying to hear such debating society points being raked up.
The Chair has allowed the Minister to mislead everybody, including the press. I am prepared to provide the Minister with a copy of last year's press release which shows clearly the time the double week was paid out and that the payment applied to the dependants of short term recipients. The Minister seems to be confused about this. The Minister should come down off his high horse — he has raised himself to an arrogant level in this debate——
I can understand the Deputy thinking we are engaged in a debate but he should realise that it is not a debate.
The Minister spoke for a long time on this subject. I am aware that some of the questions being dealt with involve doubling all unemployment assistance, but last year the dependants' element of the unemployment assistance was doubled at Christmas. Will the Minister reconsider this matter and ask the Government to pay that allowance which would cost £2½ million and was given last year? If the Minister does not understand what was done last year I am willing to explain it to him. The people on unemployment assistance are aware that they have been left out this year in September and December although they got additional benefits in those months last year.
The Deputy should sit down and permit the Minister to reply. The Deputy has asked the Minister the same question on at least five occasions.
Does the Minister accept that there was a double dependants' allowance payment last Christmas? A few moments ago he told the House that there was no double payment last Christmas.
A double payment akin to that of the 1980 and 1981 measure, but excluding the child dependant portion already provided, was also made at Christmas last year and this Christmas. This Christmas, as last year, we are paying 228,000 old age pensioners and 15,000 dependants, 14,000 widows and orphans and 6,000 dependants. The groups in receipt of deserted wives' allowances, prisoners wives' allowances, single women's allowances and unmarried mothers' allowances number 15,000 recipients and 16,000 dependants.
The number of old age contributory pensioners is 71,000 and 25,000 dependants, retirement pensioners number 32,000 and 14,000 dependants and invalidity pensioners number 21,000 and 22,000 dependants. In all the categories mentioned, down to the health allowances and occupational injury benefits, all the dependants are paid, a total of 130,000 dependants or 400,000 payments. The payment was made in September 1982 and I am not disputing that——
And in December.
——but the Deputy is creating a false impression and that does not amount to anything more than political expediency.
The Minister is confused and does not know his business.
If the Deputy has a question to ask he should put it to the Minister.
I did ask but the Minister does not know——
The Chair has no control over that but he is not going to allow speeches.
I might quote one brief sentence from last year's statement by the Department of Social Welfare: the special payment for dependent children of persons receiving short-term benefits, like unemployment and assistance benefits, will be paid for the first time this year. That was last year.
I am disallowing that.
Regardless of the political point-scoring being made by the Minister, would he not agree that it is equally difficult for an unemployed person to cope with the expense of Christmas on £65 a week as it is for a deserted person to cope on £65 a week? On that basis would he not agree that some increase should be provided to those on unemployment assistance and benefit?
I agree with the Deputy. I do not think that the level of social welfare payments over the years has been in any way adequate. Certainly I would not wish, nor would I expect, anybody else to live on £65 or £68 unemployment assistance for Christmas 1983. But I make the point to the House that we are now paying approximately £12 million a week of taxpayers' money to cater for the needs of the 200,000 people out of work. Unemployment related expenses are running at the rate of £600 million a year. I would hope that those of us——
That is not the Minister's fault; it is that of the Government.
The Deputy should not indulge in cheap political slogans; there have been far too many so far from The Workers' Party. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have jobs should be willing to pay our PRSI and PAYE to give me the £12 million a week I require to give basic assistance to those who currently have to live on unemployment assistance. I would hope that that analysis of poverty and social need in this country will not be dependent on simplistic sloganeering on questions requiring complex solutions.
Would the Minister agree that because of the delay in payment of increases to social welfare recipients, in the case of the categories omitted, the double payment would constitute very small compensation? Furthermore, because of the looseness of classification there would be absolutely no difficulty for the Minister in so doing.
That is not a question. I am calling on Deputy O'Hanlon.
Is the Minister stating categorically that no double dependant's allowance was paid in December 1982?
I am saying that I am paying this year——
I am not asking the Minister what he is paying this year. I am just asking is he stating categorically that no double dependant's allowance was paid in December 1982 to short-term beneficiaries?
I will certainly check the matter.
I would ask your permission, Sir, to raise this matter on the Adjournment. There have been four or five questions down on a matter of urgent public importance and the Minister has not got the information to check them.
The Chair will communicate with Deputy O'Hanlon.
It is very difficult to find out what my predecessor was up to but I will find out.
I would supply the Minister with a copy of the press release so that he will see quite clearly what was done.