Vol. 576 No. 1
57 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reasons behind her decision to change the supplementary welfare allowance rent supplement which now requires a person to be renting for a period of six months before he or she can be considered for this emergency payment; if she now expects people to become homeless to be eligible for the SWA rent supplement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29100/03]
61 Ms Harkin asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she will consider changing the measure in the Estimates whereby an applicant may have to rent for six months before claiming rent supplement; and if she will direct health boards to set a more realistic cap in rent allowances for 2004. [29319/03]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 57 and 61 together.
Under the terms of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme administered on behalf of my Department by the health boards, payment of a weekly or monthly supplement maybe made in respect of rent to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their needs after they pay their rent.
The purpose of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme is to deal with emergencies and short-term needs that arise when a person suffers a change in circumstances, for example, when a tenant becomes unemployed and can no longer afford his or her rent. Rent supplements were never intended to meet a person's long-term housing needs. The scheme is not a housing programme, but over the years it has in practice become such. It does not make sense to have two parallel but entirely separate programmes, one operated by the housing authorities and the other by the health boards.
The rent supplement scheme does not give a good long-term outcome to the individual. Such people have limited security of tenure, their accommodation standards can sometimes be poor and they must remain on social welfare in order to retain their accommodation. Neither does the scheme give a good outcome to the State, as it provides poor long-term value for money and in effect by-passes the priorities set by the local authorities in their housing programmes. This is why I have taken a number of initiatives in this area.
First, rent supplement will be payable only where, at the time of application, the person has been in rented accommodation for a period of six months. Provision will, however, be made for cases where a housing authority designates that a person is homeless or a person has been identified by a housing authority as having a housing need which cannot be met by the housing authority, by a voluntary housing organisation or by the person concerned. This will help re-focus the rent supplement scheme on its original objective of short-term support.
Second, rent supplement claimants will be referred to a housing authority for an assessment of their housing needs in a more systematic manner. This will provide the housing authority with a more accurate picture of the long-term housing needs of those living in its area.
Following a meeting I had with the chief executive officers of the health boards earlier this year, four pilot projects were set up in Donegal, Fingal, Cork and Offaly to address this issue. The relevant officials from the health board, the local authority and my own Department's local office met to make practical progress in meeting the needs of people relying on rent supplement on a long-term basis.
Discussions between my Department and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government on the future of rent assistance are well advanced, and I expect that concrete, positive proposals will be agreed shortly to determine the appropriate roles of local authorities and my Department in relation to people on rent supplement with long-term housing needs. In the meantime, I recognise that there will be situations where rent supplement is the only viable solution available to meet the needs of some people who have not been renting for six months. Rent supplement will continue to be available to people with housing needs whose safety or well-being is at risk, such as people with disabilities, the elderly or those experiencing severe social problems. With the involvement of the housing authorities, full and sympathetic consideration will be given to the needs of these people in implementing the new rent arrangements.
I know that Deputies on all sides of the House agree with me that having unconnected housing programmes is inappropriate, unfair and unsustainable. I am determined to make progress in tackling this, to achieve a better outcome for all concerned.
With regard to the maximum rent levels that will apply in 2004 for the purpose of the rent supplement scheme, I will be drawing up regulations this month. Deputies can be assured that the limits will be realistic, as were the limits I set last year.
How does the Minister expect someone who is on social welfare and in need of housing to have six months' rent along with a deposit for a landlord? Where does she expect such people to get the money? If they borrow it from a family member, a friend, from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul or someone else, will the Department say after six months that the person had the money for the last six months and can therefore be expected to get it for the next six months? This cuts aid to the poor. It is an attack on the most vulnerable in our society. Government, in particular this Government, has failed to provide housing for the most needy in society.
The Deputy must put his question.
I am going to ask a question. I have already asked how the Minister expects people to have money to pay six months' rent. If these people are already on a local authority housing list, are they not in need of rent supplement? Has the Minister consulted with community welfare officers? How many people have been prosecuted by the Department for abusing this scheme over the last ten years? How many cases of fraud, or abuse of this scheme, have the Minister and her Department found in the last five or six years?
As always, the Deputy pre-empts regulations and any types of considerations I have been making. The regulations for the scheme have not been signed. I met the Select Committee on Social and Family Affairs, of which Deputy Ring is a member, and its chairman, and listened to the committee's views. I have listened to the views of the CWOs and of my own parliamentary party—
Its views are important.
I have also taken into consideration the practical application of the scheme. Deputy Ring has been a county councillor for a long time and would like to remain one, from what I can ascertain.
Please God.
He would be very acutely aware of rent supplement issues. Despite himself, the Deputy might almost agree with me eventually that rent supplement as a long-term solution is unviable.
It is the only solution until we have housing.
It is unviable on the basis that it can often be to the detriment of the person in need of housing. In many county council areas one will often find that people determined by the housing authority as being in adequate accommodation and in receipt of rent supplement are not given priority on the housing list. They often remain on the housing list, and that is unfair and untenable for those people.
What I have decided to do is for the first time to reform SWA. Expenditure on SWA has increased up to more than €500 million this year. One of the issues adverted to by Deputy Ring is controls. There are controls within the health regulations and the legislation. The Deputy and I know that there are abuses of the system.
The Minister should deal with them.
I will be dealing wholeheartedly with them. The Deputy is also aware of the lack of interaction between my Department – because it is not a housing authority – and the housing authority itself. I alluded in my response to the pilot projects which are given very practical and tangible solutions to dealing with the issues that are to the fore regarding SWA.
SWA was started in 1971 for single men. That is what it was introduced for. It has now expanded into complete and wholehearted housing support. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, is providing more than €1.9 billion this year to address housing needs. One can jump up and down and say that is not enough, and that might be a fair point, but equated to that, it is wrong to approve of an expansion of a scheme which is not a housing scheme but a short-term emergency measure. Having been set up for single men, it was directed as an emergency measure for someone who had lost a job and could not afford rent or mortgage payments until regaining employment.
I bet $1 million that if I do not take control of this scheme, Deputy Ring will be the first man out on the plinth to tell people that the Minister is incompetent—
That is what the Minister's backbenchers say. We would not get the chance.
The Deputy would say that the Minister was not exercising her duty of care or ensuring value for taxpayers' money. In balancing the scheme, those in most need, those determined by the housing authority as being in an emergency situation, those in violent homes and the disabled will be cared for within the regulations I will be signing. I will take into consideration all the views expressed to me.
I am not aware of any prosecution relating to rent supplement fraud. I can try to determine if there have been such prosecutions.
Can I ask—
No. It is a question of time. Deputy Harkin has submitted a question and the Minister is taking the two questions together.
The Minister said during the Estimates debate and in the House again today that the purpose of rent supplement is to meet income maintenance needs, not long-term housing needs. Is the Minister not fully aware that since the introduction of this scheme it has changed totally and radically? It is no longer a safety net. The rent supplement is replacing, or has itself become, a form of social housing. While I have no doubt that there is inter-Departmental bickering and infighting, the Minister is surely aware that the people who will suffer from this are those who need housing. Is the Minister aware that there are more than 700 people on the Sligo Borough Council waiting list for housing, and more than 800 on the Sligo County Council list?
The Minister says the rent supplement is poor value for money and is detrimental to those looking for housing. Since there is no housing available for these people, how can the Minister say it is to their detriment? The Minister has today said there are abuses in the system. If that is so, why does she not deal with abuses as they occur, instead of making everyone suffer?
Relating to the second part of my question, the cap on rent supplements, I have asked the Minister this question on many occasions in this House. The buck stops with the Minister. Why has she not made an effort during 2003 to increase the cap on rent supplement levels in the North-Western Health Board area? The Minister said this is the result of local democracy in action but it is her responsibility to see that people in the North-Western Health Board area do not have to live in sheds rather than in proper housing.
The Deputy answered her own question in the first two sentences of her response to me. Those who are in need, are disabled or are in difficult circumstances, such as a violent situation which they must leave, and who had not been previously renting, will be looked after.
I remember having a barrage of questions directed at me by apoplectic Labour Party Members who spoke about a draconian measure of rent capping. They claimed that 90% of the nation would be on the street the following morning. Not one person was made homeless by that measure because I introduced safety nets for particular people. I will do the same on this occasion.
Deputy Harkin and I know what is going on in the North-Western Health Board.
Absolutely.
I am aware of one or two slight difficulties there with regard to the rent supplement cap.
That does not even begin to describe it.
I will be considering that in the context of the budget because I am realistic about these issues.
One of my difficulties is that this year, more than €637 million of supplementary welfare is administered on my behalf by community welfare officers who are accountable to the Department of Health and Children. There is no real tie-in between my Department and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government or local authorities. The pilot project will address many of the concerns raised on both sides of the House and will, perhaps in a better way, fully support those who have a housing need.
So there will be no prosecutions.
Was there no abuse of the scheme?
I will do my duty with regard to abuses of any scheme in my Department. The figures show that I have exemplified that and gone beyond it.
The Minister will go with the easy touch.
I will continue to do so because abuses are to the detriment of the people who are most in need.
58 Mr. Penrose asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if her attention has been drawn to the serious concern expressed by a wide range of organisations that deal on a daily basis with persons on low income regarding the impact of the cuts in 16 schemes announced by her on 13 November 2003; if, in view of the potential hardship these cuts will cause to people on low incomes, she will now consider these proposals; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29099/03]
The Abridged Estimates published on 13 November provided a total allocation for social welfare spending in 2004 of €10.65 billion. This represents an increase of €358 million on the 2003 allocation. It might be remembered that the Abridged Estimates do not include the additional expenditure for social welfare payments and programmes which will be announced in the budget tomorrow.
In the interests of prudent management of the public finances and so as to remain within guidelines for spending growth agreed by the Government, my Department reviews spending programmes on an ongoing basis to ensure that programme objectives are still valid and are still being met in the most efficient and effective way.
Following this review, a number of measures to control spending are included in the 2004 Abridged Estimates. The details of all of these measures were set out in a press statement on the day of the publication of the Estimates. The combined saving from these measures is estimated at €55.8 million or 0.5% of the total value of social welfare spending. This must be compared with the fact that spending is rising by 3.5% compared with the 2003 allocation even before provision is made for budget changes.
Leaving aside the predictable reaction from Deputies who see in the measures which have been taken an opportunity to make political points, the concerns of groups dealing with people on low incomes have focused on a small number of the measures which have been taken. When the purpose and precise nature of those measures have been explained it is clear there is an objective justification for them and the impact of them will not be as some people have claimed.
The measures I am putting in place represent a necessary and reasonable response in light of the experience of the operation of the schemes in question and of the need for proper management of the finances available for social welfare expenditure. The Government has increased the overall level of expenditure on social welfare payments in the last four years far beyond anything that was achieved by previous Governments and we are committed to further significantly improving the rates of payment in the years ahead. The adjustments which I am now making, by ensuring that expenditure is better targeted and in accordance with the original Estimates when various increases were put in place, will enable the provision of the necessary resources to improve the basic system for claimants generally.
Some of the measures now being taken will only have an impact on payments where family income is relatively significant. Some are being undertaken so as to refocus a scheme more effectively on a group for which it was originally intended. Others are being introduced simply to increase income thresholds or limits in line with increases in payments generally. I do not anticipate that the measures will lead to hardship among social welfare recipients.
Where legislation needs to be amended or regulations enacted such as is the case with supplementary welfare allowance, I will ensure in the context of preparing such legislation that any cases of genuine difficulty are avoided.
It is incredible that someone could design such a mean-spirited set of cuts to impact most disproportionately on the poor and those least able to bear them. A drop of €58 million is relatively small but for individual recipients, of the dietary allowance for example, the amounts are critical. A loaf of gluten-free bread, for example, costs €4.90 compared with €1.30 for ordinary bread. Other programmes were designed to give people a better quality of life. How can the Minister ignore the voices of the 26 voluntary organisations on the community platform, who have registered a protest?
The Minister may say I am making a political point. However, let me quote something to the Minister.
It is not in order to quote during Question Time.
I can quote a journalist.
It is not in order to quote.
Is it the case that €58 million is a tiny proportion of Government expenditure but when clawed back from social welfare spending is brutal and life-sapping for some of the State's most vulnerable citizens?
The fear is back. Its shadow falls across faces tensed with anxiety. You can hear it in the voices echoing the same refrain, ‘Why us?'
I have told the Deputy that it is not in order to quote.
That is not a politician's voice. It is the voice of Justine McCarthy, on 22 November 2003. What kind of social policy requires that people have to get to the point of absolute desperation before they qualify for payment of rent supplement?
I ask my second question in an effort to be of help to the Minister. I want to help her because, at a certain level, we are good friends. The other day the Minister for Finance announced an increase in capital taxation revenue of more than €500 million. Will the Minister ask for one tenth of that surplus to spend on social welfare?
That is right. Immediately.
I know where the Minister's heart lies. She supports the people for whom I speak. I ask Deputy Coughlan to go to the Minister for Finance. His heart lies in a different place and he looks at things differently. He sees things with the eyes of bankers and such people.
And the horsey people.
Why were the social welfare measures not discussed with the joint committee on social inclusion? If social partnership means anything surely matters which impact on a significant body of people should be discussed. Is it correct that the social partnership committee, which met on 24 October 2003, discussed nothing of this nature?
The Government gave a commitment that all policies which would impact on less well-off and marginalised people would be subject to poverty proofing. Were the social welfare measures poverty proofed prior to the announcement of the Estimates?
Poverty proofing is exemplified by €10.65 billion.
I hope the message regarding the dietary allowance has, at last, got through to people. Many people were of the opinion that those in receipt of the allowance would lose out. That is not so. I advised the joint committee and Members of the House in this regard. Those who are in the system are not being affected.
I favour the grand wee job I have and I have no intention of advising the House before my colleague, the Minister for Finance, tells us what he will give me to spend on social welfare.
I was just trying to help the Minister.
I appreciate the Deputy's assistance. I am pleased to hear he thinks I have a big heart but it is in the same place as his own and that of the Minister for Finance.
I doubt if he has a heart.
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating and the Deputy must wait until this time tomorrow to see what exactly will happen.
The Minister is smiling.
