Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 25 Jan 1984

Vol. 347 No. 4

National Social Service Board Bill, 1983: Second Stage.

Minister for Social Welfare (Mr. B. Desmond)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

The need for the Bill arises out of the Government's commitment to re-establish the National Social Service Board on a statutory basis, to repeal the National Community Development Agency Act, 1982, and to establish a combat poverty organisation under the aegis of the Minister for Social Welfare.

As Deputies will be aware, the National Social Service Board, in one form or another, has been in existence since 1971. The National Social Service Council, as it was until 1981, was set up by the Minister for Health as an informal body to be responsible for the support and development of community information centres and to be a national resource centre to help health boards and voluntary organisations in the development of voluntary social services. The council was reconstituted as the National Social Service Board in 1981 and had its rather unwieldy membership of 29 reduced to 11. It retained the same functions and also became responsible for servicing the National Council for the Aged which was also established in 1981.

The board was still a non-statutory body at that time but with the establishment of the National Community Development Agency in 1982 the staff functions and responsibilities of the board were subsumed into the agency and at last the board and its staff achieved the status and security of a statutory body.

As far as the National Community Development Agency is concerned, I had considerable doubts about the viability and potential for effectiveness of this body from the time it was first mooted. I felt at the time, and still do, that the agency was hastily conceived and had no clear and workable mandate particularly in the area of poverty. Even the very title of the agency is imprecise and vague and this uncertainty is reflected in the functions which leave much to be desired in the minds of those who wish to see established a body whose sole function would be to determine the causes and extent of poverty in our society and then to facilitate actions to alleviate the problem itself.

As the name suggests, the primary function of the agency was community development. The agency was intended to promote the concepts of self help and community development; to foster and assist projects of community involvement and activity; and to facilitate the mobilisation of self help in deprived communities. The agency's function in relation to poverty was not explicit — it was shrouded in the concept of community development and had little chance of ever becoming an effective force in the fight against poverty.

The agency's possibilities of anti-poverty activities were further curtailed by its statutory obligation to take on all the existing functions and responsibilities of the National Social Service Board, then an unincorporated, informally established body. Poverty is an issue that cannot be lumped together with a set of functions and responsibilities that have only a nodding acquaintance with it. It must be singled out for special and positive attention. The Government's commitment to combat poverty is being and will be pursued in the context of a single-minded approach to the issue by an organisation, unencumbered by other responsibilities or functions.

The realities of poverty and social deprivation are, however, so inextricably linked into the structures and effects of the social welfare system and its interaction with policies in areas such as taxation, health, education and housing that I considered it appropriate to seek the advice of the Commission on Social Welfare before formally establishing a combat poverty organisation. The commission was established in September last to review and report on the social welfare system and related social services and to make recommendations for their development having regard to the needs of modern Irish society. When I addressed the inaugural meeting of the commission, I told the members that I considered their most important and most urgent task was to advise me on the implementation of an anti-poverty plan, the establishment of an organisation to combat poverty and the introduction of a new and comprehensive EEC poverty programme. I also asked the commission to report to me on this matter as a first priority. The commission have now done so and I have advised the Government of these views. The Government's decision on the proposed new structure will be announced shortly.

The Government are committed to drawing up and implementing an anti-poverty plan within the context of national economic and social planning, to re-establishing the structure of the Combat Poverty Organisation with local involvement and to developing constructive community action against poverty as recommended in the 1980 Combat Poverty Report. There is no doubt that redistribution of resources will be necessary. We can no longer depend exclusively on growth in national income and on increasing foreign borrowing to deal with the problem. We must now face poverty head-on by redistributing existing resources. At a time of a plateau in growth generally, this is probably the most difficult of all the tasks facing the Government. I look forward to the reactivation of an anti-poverty programme by this Government.

Regarding the two separate bodies, I have already stated in my views what I regard as the inadvisability of combining the functions of the former board with those of the agency. I firmly believe that the State's obligation to work towards the elimination of poverty and its obligation of developing the voluntary social service sector — while not mutually exclusive — do require the commitment of two separate organisations.

I am of the firm opinion that if this board are to make a major impact on the development and expansion of our voluntary social service sector, they must be re-established on a statutory basis, with all the powers and authority that implies, to enable them to discharge their tasks in an effective manner. The board's role — indeed their credibility — may well have suffered damage because of the changes they have gone through since June 1981 but I am confident that their re-establishment under legislation will greatly enhance their role in the development of the voluntary social service sector and especially in their promotion and development of statutory/voluntary co-operation.

It is, of course, also vitally important to preserve for the staff of the board the security of employment, of superannuation benefits that they possess at present as employees of the National Community Development Agency.

While I am on the subject of the staff of the board, I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the chief officer and his staff who have over the last two-and-a-half years continued to provide the steady and relaible service that we have come to expect from them. This is quite an achievement in view of the constant disruptions they have suffered, that have been brought about by changes, not only of Governments and Ministers, but of their own status and security. I sincerely hope that the enactment of this Bill will bring to an end for them the insecurity of the transition period. I would like in particular to record my thanks and that of successive Ministers to John Curry who, in addition to his role as Chief Officer of the National Community Development Agency, agreed to take on the onerous role of Chairman of the Commission on Social Welfare. I was very glad to obtain the services of such an able expert in the social service field to head the commission.

Before I return to the subject in hand, I would like to express my thanks also to the Chairman, Joe McGough, and the members of the National Community Development Agency who must be commended for the tolerance and forebearance they have displayed over the last year. For their sakes as well as for the sake of the staff, I look forward to the early resolution of the future of the National Social Service Board.

I hope there will be unanimity in the House on the need to give a statutory format to the National Social Service Board. It is generally accepted that it should have been done years ago. If that had happened much of the to-ing and fro-ing would not have developed. I hope the fundamental question regarding a statutory format for the board will get general acceptance in the House. That would be the wish of the many people who were associated with the board before it became the agency.

In drawing up this Bill, I have taken the opportunity to broaden and extend the board's functions to give them as wide a scope as possible. In addition to their original responsibility for the support and development of community information centres and their mandate to act as a national resource centre for the development of voluntary social services, they will also be responsible for, first, positive interventions at local community level in the area of development of voluntary social services and schemes and, secondly, for a promotion and developmental role in relation to statutory agencies and voluntary organisations in their social service activities.

Hitherto, the National Social Service Board, in both of their past lives, had a somewhat restrained role. They stood in the wings to a certain extent, supporting, stimulating and encouraging the development of social service councils, providing a training service for volunteer information officers and generally acting in a back-up capacity and repository of information on the health and social services. I would suggest that, vital though their functions were, they had neither the status for financial resources to act vigourously and to the fullest extent of their potential. When one considers the value of the contribution that the board have managed to make to the development of voluntary social services over the years, with very limited resources and relatively low status, the inescapable conclusion is that, with sufficient resources and authority, there is still a vast well of potential to be exploited for the benefit of the community as a whole.

I have made specific provision in the Bill to enable the National Social Service Board "to promote, develop, encourage and assist" co-operation between statutory bodies and voluntary organisations. There are literally hundreds of voluntary welfare organisations, large and small, at work in this small country of ours. I am not suggesting that any of them is unnecessary. What I do suggest is that a greater degree of integration and co-operation between them and with the statutory authorities, particularly the health boards and the Department of Social Welfare, must be facilitated. As a people, we simply cannot afford the potential waste of resources in having a plethora of concerned groups working away on an individual basis in a given area. Therefore, we must look to the National Social Service Board to continue the efforts they have already made to bring about a cohesive voluntary/statutory partnership.

I have also considered it desirable to build into the Bill a provision to enable the board to engage consultants or advisers to assist them in the performance of their duties. The Bill also provides for the board to establish committees, including non-board members, to assist and advise them. I believe that these provisions will be of immense value in enabling the board to make the optimum use of resources and expertise available to them.

The voluntary sector is and will continue to be a vital component of our health and social services. It has the strong merits of availability, dedication and deep community ties. Every possible effort must be made to link the statutory and voluntary sectors in supplementary and complementary relationship to one another. I believe that the enactment of this Bill will lead to the further strengthening and integration of the two sectors through the guidance and assistance of the National Social Service Board.

It is in this spirit that I commend the Bill to the House. I hope we will have Second Stage resolved this morning, if at all possible.

Dr. O'Hanlon

In the first line of the Minister's statement he said the need for the Bill arises out of the Government's commitment to re-establish the National Social Service Board on a statutory basis, to repeal the National Community Development Agency Act, 1982, and to establish a combat poverty organisation under the aegis of the Minister for Social Welfare. Since I became a Member of this House this is the first Bill before the House for which there is absolutely no need because everything in the Bill was in the legislation passed by this House less than two years ago in regard to the National Community Development Agency.

I accept that the National Community Development Agency Act was not major legislation to combat poverty, but there is nothing at all in this Bill about combating poverty except promises that some time in the future the Minister intends to introduce comprehensive legislation to deal with the problem. I suggest that the only reason for this Bill now being before the House has to do with some peculiar ideology in the Labour Party, of which the Minister is now a part. It is unfair to those less well off in our society that since this Government came into power the National Community Development Agency have not been allowed to function. The Minister is entitled to his view, and perhaps he was not happy with the agency, but surely there was no reason for preventing its functioning until such time as he introduced this new Bill and whatever programme to combat poverty he has in mind. If Labour policy is so committed to combating poverty as a matter of urgency, it is surprising that legislation to combat poverty has not come before the House today. As the Minister said, the National Social Service Board were doing their work quite effectively and this legislation is merely giving statutory effect to that work, but he commented that he had doubts about the agency's ability to function in the area of poverty.

One of the functions of the National Community Development Agency was to draw on and evaluate research on self-help, poverty and social deprivation by third level educational and other bodies and to promote such research from time to time on specific projects. Surely that is an indication that there was in that legislation a facility under which poverty could be researched and pilot projects set up. It is fair to say at this stage that it is not more research that is wanted. We have enough information. What is wanted now is an administration sensitive to the needs of the deprived and those who suffer from poverty and that will do something for them. We shall probably see later on this afternoon, as we saw last year, very little regard had in the budget to those less well off in our community.

The National Community Development Agency was set up by Deputy Dr. Michael Woods, predecessor of the present Minister. For the first time it has been given statutory effect to develop a national policy on community development in a structured way, of support, assistance and encouragement for voluntary efforts in all its aspects. It would give freedom and flexibility to the voluntary agencies to respond to the evolving social circumstances and community needs.

There is, as we know, a very high level of voluntary activity here and it is interesting that over the years as the State became more and more involved in providing social services the number of voluntary organisations increased rather than decreased. We have excellent voluntary organisations, well worthy of support, such as the social service councils, community councils, youth organisations, various sports groups, women's groups such as the Irish Countrywomen's Association and the Saint Vincent de Paul conferences. One could continue about the various voluntary groups entitled to the support of the State. The National Community Development Agency had the facility to identify the necessary areas of research towards combating poverty and there was no need for new legislation at this stage. Voluntary groups, whether in the inner cities, suburban areas, or among rural communities, should be supported. One of the anxieties about any statutory board is the danger of their becoming a superstructure in Dublin, and that the benefits might not extend to the rural communities.

The Minister said about the agency that it was shrouded in the concept of community development and had little chance of ever becoming an effective force in the fight against poverty. Why did he not allow it to function over the last year to see if that concept was correct? I believe that he is wrong and that the excellent people who were on the board of that agency would have made a very valuable contribution to society and would have dealt with poverty and social deprivation, had they been given the chance to do so. For any Minister for Health and Social Welfare to prevent that body from functioning for a full year cannot be accepted and is certainly not in the interests of those less well off in our community.

As the Minister said, the National Social Service Council was set up in 1971 by the late Mr. Erskine Childers, when Minister for Health. It was then re-constituted as the National Social Service Board by Dr. Woods in 1981, being set up to encourage the formation of social service councils, to co-ordinate the work of various voluntary groups and to arrange training for those who would be working in the community information centres. It is significant that Fíanna Fáil Ministers were responsible for setting up the National Social Service Council and the National Social Service Board. It was also Deputy Woods who was responsible for bringing in the legislation for the National Community Development Agency. Whatever commitment to combating poverty was contained in that agency's programme, the Minister in the legislation laid before us this morning has taken that element out and given no indication of when he intends to introduce such legislation. He said that he had asked the Commission on Social Welfare to report to him but my understanding is that at the end of the year that commission had met on four occasions. We are aware of many commissions which have met over a long period of years before they reported. If this is an indication of the Minister's commitment to what is very high on the list of Labour Party ideologies, we must question the reason he is introducing this Bill at this time. It is not necessary to introduce a Bill of this type for a combat poverty programme; we are all aware of the many problems obtaining in our society.

It is fair to say that over the last year the number of people suffering from poverty has increased, I regret to say, mainly as a result of the policies of the present Government, particularly the budget of this time last year, and we hope the same will not be repeated this afternoon. There are problems such as the elderly living alone, particularly those living alone in cities. We know they are there, we know their problems, the problem of loneliness, that of inadequate income, and inadequate income is not the sole cause of poverty. Some elderly might have sufficient income to survive but are unable to manage their affairs. For example, they may be unable to get out to the shops to purchase essential needs, or they may have their essential needs but not be in a position to use them correctly. They may be unable to cook their food through physical handicap, or for some other reason, or they may not have the necessary facilities in their homes. We are aware of that. We do not need a new combat poverty organisation to tell us that.

Then we have the long-term unemployed and we must accept that unemployment will be a feature of our society for years to come. No serious effort has been made to cater for the needs of those who have been unemployed for any length of time, those people who have worked for a long number of years, who paid their insurance contributions and who find, after one year and three months, they are no longer entitled to benefit and have to apply for unemployment assistance. These may well be people with large families who find there is very little support given them, particularly from the present Government. This year, under the national free fuel scheme, for the first time since its introduction, the Minister excluded the unemployed from benefit. The health boards are taking a rigid interpretation of that exclusion. This means that those who are long-term unemployed, or anybody who may be unemployed or in receipt of any other short-term social benefit — irrespective of the hardship and poverty entailed — will not receive free fuel vouchers this year as they did in previous years. Not only that but they will not even get a little supplementary allowance with it or, if they do, they will still be excluded because specifically in the letter issued by the Minister to the health boards those on short-term benefit and assistance were to be excluded, the first time that had happened. Therefore we do not need a programme to combat poverty to tell us about that situation or how to deal with it. Those are just a few examples of the sort of problems obtaining in our society.

The Minister said he was not happy with the title of the National Community Development Agency. One might well argue that many people are not happy with the title of the National Social Service Board, that there is a stigma attached to it in some way. I do not think the title matters very much. Rather it is important that these boards do their work effectively and efficiently in the interests of those for whom they are supposed to cater. The National Community Development Agency was established at the end of 1982. Last year it was allocated £2,250,000 to help voluntary organisations throughout the country and to give help in whatever research was necessary into poverty. However, the Government did not spend that amount, another indication of their commitment to those less-well-off in our society. £500,000 was spent out of that £2,250,000 allocated for that specific purpose last year. At present I understand there are 75 community information centres registerd with the National Social Service Board who train volunteers, provide files for each community information centre and up-date those files. They also give grants towards the running costs of those centres and make submissions to the Government. We do not know whether such submissions are accepted by the Government.

One question I should like to pose to the Minister is the place of the National Council for the Aged under this Bill. The report on the care of the aged pointed out that there were 156 voluntary bodies at national and local level providing community care for the elderly. The National Community Development Agency had no legal responsibility to service the National Council for the Aged. I understand that function was to be assumed by the Department of Health but that that did not happen. Perhaps the Minister would say something about that when replying. What is particularly important is that the National Council for the Aged, established during 1981 to advise the Minister for Health on all aspects of the welfare of the aged, would continue to function and that the board would in no way cause any diminution of their function. In rural areas particularly it is fair to contend that the bulk of the work carried out by voluntary organisations is for the care of the aged, particularly by the social services councils at present looking after their needs. It is important that, irrespective of whatever new board is brought into being, the needs of the aged be looked after.

In the budget last year we were told that £1.8 million saved through the winding up of the National Community Development Agency would be earmarked for the Social Welfare Vote, pending the establishment of an anti-poverty agency, for financial provision for the new agency and possibly for other voluntary bodies to be determined. That was £1.8 million supposed to be spent on anti-poverty last year that was not spent, again an indication of the Government's commitment in this area. It is particularly important at this time that there be statutory provision for the National Social Service Board. It is important that the initiative in catering for the needs of communities should emanate from those communities themselves. We are living in a high-powered technological age when it is particularly important that people identify with their communities, taking an active interest in them. Many people are willing to take an active interest in voluntary work in their own communities and that should be fully supported by the State.

I should also like to ask the Minister about the financing of the National Social Service Board. Will it be financed direct from the Department, who will finance the voluntary organisations, or will the voluntary organisations be financed by the provisions of section 65 of the 1947 Health Act, as has happened heretofore? We must carefully guard against the danger of overlap or conflict between the social service board, their subsidiaries and the health boards. The health boards have statutory responsibilities and discharge them well, but voluntary organisations can do many things which statutory bodies cannot. They are flexible organisations: for example, the Samaritans are available for 24 hours every day, and it would be hard to provide that sort of service on a statutory basis. The health boards have the expertise and, I hope, the finance to play their part but are not flexible enough.

The Minister suggested that there should be a greater degree of integration and co-operation between the National Social Service Board, the voluntary organisations and the statutory authorities, and of course I agree with that. He also said that the National Social Service Board will be responsible for a promotional and developmental role in relation to statutory agencies and voluntary organisations in their social service activities. I should like him to develop that because that is the sort of area where there might be some overlap or conflict between the health boards and the voluntary organisations. The same applies to engaging consultants and advisers to the National Social Service Board. Perhaps he could expand on what their role might be.

It is interesting to note that when the National Community Development Agency Bill was before this House, it had fair support on all sides. There were complaints that it did not include the type of combat poverty organisation that we had in the seventies. Nevertheless, it was welcomed here and in the Seanad. We also had a Private Members' motion regarding the combat poverty organisation. Deputy Eileen Desmond, the then spokesman on health for the Labour Party said in column 947 of the Official Report of 30 March 1982:

When we came into office in June 1981 our programme announced that an anti-poverty plan would be drawn up and implemented immediately. This was a vital issue so far as the Labour Party were concerned.

That is the stated policy of the Labour Party at that time and, while they wanted to implement a policy immediately, we have now allowed a board with an excellent membership to exist for a full year without giving them any function although money was allocated to them.

There are two types of voluntary organisations, volunteers who give their time and energy without being paid and who do excellent work and the independent organisations that may have voluntary or State funds and paid personnel. It is important that these organisations should get the full backing of the State and we should be very thankful to them, especially in a recession when money is not as plentiful as one would like for the needs of the community. The British Seebohm Report stated that voluntary organisations pioneered social reform in the past and they saw them as playing a major role in developing citizen participation, in revealing new needs and in exposing shortcomings in the service. That is an interesting recognition once again that, in spite of all the social services that are provided by the State, there is still a need for voluntary organisations to make their contribution and to identify further needs. New organisations are appearing all the time to cater for the needs of the community. For example, we have had organisations like AIM, Cherish and FLAC, although the free legal aid organisation did not see themselves as a voluntary organisation; they expected the State to take over that work from them eventually.

As I said earlier, we are aware of the poverty that exists and we do not need a major organisation to identify it. It is interesting to note that the combat poverty organisation which was in existence from 1974 to 1980 spent £2.7 million, of which about one-third came from the EEC. A sum of £2¼ million was allocated by the previous Government for the National Community Development Agency which was almost as much as was allocated altogether over the six years that the combat poverty organisation was in existence.

The real problems are obvious to anyone who wants to see them. Members of this House who have campaigned in various parts of the country over the last twelve months have seen that the problems are the same all over the country. We were in Donegal West and in Dublin Central and people are worried about jobs and high unemployment. They consider that high taxation is creating a new kind of poverty because people who were able to manage heretofore on their incomes now find it impossible to manage. One can see that from the difficulties people who raised local authority loans to build their houses have in making repayments. It was almost most unusual for anyone to come to politicians' clinics to tell them they were unable to pay their local authority loan. Now that is commonplace because of low disposable income and high taxation.

Low incomes is another problem people are facing. Such things as the use of the medical card to determine who should be on the school bus has also caused its own problems. Children's allowances helped families to make ends meet. Over the last year there has not been an increase in those allowances, but hopefully we will see an increase today. There were no dependants' allowances for children going back to school in September or for those on short-term benefits at Christmas, as has been the case in previous years.

The family income supplement would have alleviated a certain amount of poverty for a small number of people. This supplement was promised by the Taoiseach on numerous occasions and great political play was made of it by the Coalition partners before they came into Government. In last year's budget £5 million was allocated for this purpose, and a certain amount of propaganda was made out of this last budget day and in the following debate. The Government met at Barrettstown in July and reduced that figure to £1 million. They stated that the family income supplement would be implemented in December and that that would help to alleviate poverty for 20,000 people — about £4.85 per family per week. We never saw the family income supplement. Today another budget is being introduced and I do not know if it will even be mentioned or, if it is, we do not know if it will be implemented this year.

The construction industry has been allowed run down, creating further unemployment and loss of jobs in peripheral industries. All these matters are causing poverty. We do not need research into what is causing poverty, but action to deal with poverty. The special scheme to bring the homes of the elderly up to liveable standards has been of great benefit. That scheme, introduced through the health boards by Fianna Fáil, has been particularly successful. Today we hope further funds will be provided to ensure that that scheme continues.

I asked the Minister for the Environment how many local authority houses did not have water and sewerage and I was surprised when I was told that the information was not available. We know there are such homes and it is in this area the Government should be spending money, not on research to find out more about poverty when we already know enough.

I do not want to delay the House because one could spend all morning saying where this Government have fallen down on their commitment to alleviate the hardship of those in need. There has been a withdrawal of medical cards from students and contributory old age pensioners and there had been a 370 per cent increase in the cost of private hospital accommodation over the last few years. Drugs are costing people who are continuously on medication £7 per week and the health boards are more rigid in the administration of the general medical service guidelines since this Government came into office. This means that people who are £1 or £2 above the limit have more difficulty getting medical cards.

In conclusion, we see no need for this Bill at this time. Everything in this Bill was in the National Community Development Agency Act and that legislation should have been given an opportunity to work over the last year. If the Minister came here a year or two later and said he did not like how the Act was working and that there might be a need for a change in the legislation that would be understandable, but for him to allow that body to be defunct for the last 12 months and come here today with a Bill the only effect of which is to remove the one element which would deal with research into poverty is, in my view, a waste of the time of this House.

Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare (Mr. Donnellan)

I rise to support this Bill. The time has come for us to ensure for the National Social Service Board the security to tenure which they so richly deserve after the recent years of disruption and uncertainty through which they have emerged.

I think it is worth highlighting that throughout these last two-and-a-half years, which so far have heralded two major re-organisations for the board and their long-suffering staff, the service that the voluntary social service sector had come to expect, indeed demand, of them has never wavered. In this regard I would like to add my voice to the Minister's to say how grateful we are to the director and his colleagues for managing so well a traumatic period for them.

The hasty establishment of the National Community Development Agency in the dying days of the last Government brought in its wake a situation which was in effect doomed to fail from the very beginning. It was a pipedream to imagine that this agency, encumbered as they were with a multiplicity of disparate functions, could ever have hoped to be a viable force. What was needed then — and what is needed now more than ever — was an organisation to examine the causes and extent of poverty in our society and to act to combat it. The concepts of self-help and community development that were to come to fruition through the activities of the agency are certainly useful weapons in the fight against poverty, but to use them without first clearly identifying the underlying causes and extent of their target is to do battle, blindfolded, against a well-entrenched enemy. The National Community Development Agency were put in such a position. They were not given the foremost responsibility that an anti-poverty organisation need, the responsibility of laying bare the root causes of poverty. What it was given was a mass of functions subsidiary to the primary need together with the equally important but quite different functions of the former National Social Service Board.

There is no doubt in my mind that the marriage of these important issues for our time should never have taken place. In short, there is a need for two separate organisations to pursue the different, though inter-linked goals of poverty elimination and development of the voluntary social service sector. We are here and now concerned with the establishment of one of these organisations — the National Social Service Board and, as the Minister has said, the other will follow in a short while.

I fully subscribe to the reasons described by the Minister for establishing the board on a statutory basis and I am also glad to note that their functions have been broadened to give them a wider scope than heretofore. In particular, I am pleased to note that the board will have a promotional and developmental role in relation to co-operation and liaison between statutory agencies and voluntary organisations in their social service activities.

We have a proud tradition in this country of community social service based on the principles of good neighbourliness and extending the hand of help and comfort to less fortunate fellows. We can count ourselves lucky that our voluntary service ethic has led to the development of a network of essential services that the State out of its own resources could never have hoped to provide. I am referring particularly to the network of services for mentally and physically handicapped people. In these areas the voluntary sector has reached a high degree of organisation, efficiency and co-operation with the statutory authorities.

In the social service field I feel that the organisational and administrative structures are still at an embryonic stage of development. The scope for service provision is very wide. The needy client groups are equally diverse and the voluntary organisations involved are, typically, locally based and relatively small in comparison with their nationally based colleagues. This is understandable and, indeed, desirable as the very essence of local community social service calls for the personal touch with a flexibility of approach and of decision making in response to obvious local needs. Local voluntary organisations want to have freedom to act and react as they see fit, given the familiarity of the volunteers with local community life.

To foster and encourage the voluntary movement — as this Government are pledged to do — is to recognise this fact. It is also to recognise that effective volunteers are not born; they are made. They are made through a building process of sure and steady formation of structures and organisational links. In other words, to be an effective and an efficient force in the community voluntary service must extend beyond the basic good neighbour service.

In many areas where social service councils or centres are established a well-structured, well-organised and integrated voluntary service exists providing a wide range of community welfare services. In such areas, there is already a high level of co-operation between the voluntary and statutory caring services at local level. This is the ideal that we must now strive to promote on a larger scale through the National Social Service Board.

The combination of the State agency and the voluntary body narrows the gap between social need and public provision. Within this scenario the voluntary body is the voice for the underprivileged who cannot make their own case. As such, we need and expect the voluntary body to exert pressures, to criticise the status quo and to defend the interests of its clients much as a trade union would do. The State agency, on the other hand, is the more cautious, conservative partner tempering its concern with the mundane but very real issues that it must consider, like the administrative and financial implications of its actions.

Undoubtedly, the will for partnership exists between the State and voluntary agencies, but there remains a need for the guidance and assistance towards real integration that the expertise of the National Social Service Board can bring about. I see the board playing a leading role in this very desirable development. I commend the Bill to the House.

Minister for Health (Mr. B. Desmond)

I should like to make a few points in relation to the agency. It is not correct to say that the agency was not allowed to function during the past year. It functioned to the extent that it continued to carry out the functions of the National Social Service Board. The service is given to the voluntary sector and it continued uninterrupted despite the musical chairs of changes of Government, changes of Ministers and changes of policy. It is important that that degree of continuity should be recorded.

Regarding the poverty aspects which were raised, as I explained I did not consider it advisable immediately after taking office to jump in and establish a combat poverty organisation. There are a number of very useful documents and reports on the outturn of the former structures which make valuable and extremely interesting reading. The urgent priority was to establish the Commission on Social Welfare before going ahead with the work of setting up the organisation. The commission have given me their views and I am now in the process of advising the Government on the structures for the organisation. It may well be that we should establish an interim board as a matter of urgency. As soon as possible we will set up a new combat poverty organisation.

Reference was made to the prospect of having yet another Dublin superstructure. In a small country with a population of 3,500,000 people, the political parties are becoming paranoid about the fact that organisations and Government Departments tend to have their head offices and administrative structures based in the capital city. Coming from one of the provinces and from one of the cities outside of Dublin, I feel that there is an appalling amount of provincialism about the setting up of organisations to work in the national interest.

The National Social Service Board will be based in Dublin and work out of Dublin. That is a normal part of the work of any national organisation. This does not take from the fact that the vast bulk of the work of any voluntary social service group is done at local level. At no time was the previous social service board regarded by anybody as a super structure based in Dublin. The old board was a supportive board, encouraging, stimulating, advising, giving assistance to voluntary bodies at local level. The body facilitated co-ordination, co-operation and liaison within the voluntary sector and to a certain extent with the statutory authorities. I would suggest that the National Social Service Board was an essential element in providing training and advice to the voluntary social services sector throughout the country. I have had a lot of personal contact, especially during the past decade, going around the country and seeing the network of community advice centres and meeting social services bodies. I pay tribute to the work done in that regard by the National Social Service Board.

Deputy O'Hanlon raised the matter of the National Council for the Aged. I assure him that the council will continue to be serviced by the board. A suitable person was recently appointed to act as secretary to the council and that person will act while Mr. John Curry is engaged as Chairman of the Commission on Social Welfare. I have been very satisfied with the manner in which the business of the council has been carried out by the staff of the NSSB. The board does not have a very large staff and the council itself is staffed by the board. They have produced several reports during the past two-and-a-half years and I think the association with the NSSB has been extremely beneficial. While the Bill does not provide specifically for the board to take the National Council for the Aged under its wing on a formal basis, it does enable me to confer on the board functions in relation to social services other than those specified, where I think this is necessary. There is extremely wide scope for voluntary social service and I would hope to be able to make use of the provision in the Bill from time to time to request the board to carry out specific tasks or to give me advice on specific projects and issues.

Deputy O'Hanlon was anxious to know whether voluntary bodies would continue to be financed by the health boards or whether it was intended to channel funds through the NSSB. I assure him that there will not be any change in the present position. Voluntary bodies will continue to deal directly with their own health boards. The NSSB will not be involved in financing the day-to-day activities of the voluntary bodies but could in certain circumstances provide aid, material or financial, to bodies operating in the social services field.

I would hope for unanimity on this Bill. There is a strong feeling among the staff of the board that this matter should be resolved and they would like to have the House formalise their position once and for all. This is a major advance. Leaving aside all the combat poverty issues and the views of former Ministers such as Deputy Haughey, Deputy Woods and Deputy Eileen Desmond, I have always held the view since the foundation of this structure in 1971 that we should have conferred statutory authority on the NSSB. It would have taken them away from a lot of the nonsense which went on subsequently between various political parties who tried to have a purer soul in relation to voluntary bodies and the issue of poverty than others. It deteriorated into a situation where there was some political point scoring. A particular problem was that Deputy Haughey and Deputy woods did not understand and had no feeling for organisations such as the National Committee on Pilot Schemes to Combat Poverty. They saw no purpose in them and just could not understand the concept. As a consequence they set up their own sideways structures.

I would hope that the National Social Service Board would be given the freedom of being formally established on a statutory basis and this would be to the benefit of everybody, particularly the staff who undertake this work in the national interest. I would hope for unanimity in the House on this question.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 31 January 1984, subject to the agreement of the Whips.