Vol. 768 No. 1
114Deputy Timmy Dooley asked the Minister for Social Protection the progress that has been made on the single working age payment process; if she anticipates reductions in social welfare assistance through the creation of this model; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28096/12]
144Deputy Brian Stanley asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide an update on the proposals to introduce a single working age payment. [28047/12]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 114 and 144 together.
The single working age assistance payment or single payment is a proposal to create a single social welfare payment that would cover all people of working age including those who would be currently classified as unemployed, with a disability or parenting alone. The Department of Social Protection has been considering the option of a single payment for some time. In 2009, under the previous Government, the Department examined the desirability and feasibility, both from a policy and operational perspective, of introducing a single social assistance payment for all people of working age - broadly speaking, those aged 18 to 66 - with the objective of improving the outcomes for this group. This examination drew,inter alia, on work carried out by the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, and reflected in its report, The Developmental Welfare State, which it produced in 2005. The report highlighted the need for greater interaction between services, income support and activation measures, and saw these as developmental for families, communities and the economy. A recurring theme in the NESC report is that the current contingency-based payments to people of working age can operate to confirm a person’s status as someone outside of the workforce rather than as an unemployed member of it.
In November 2010, the then Minister, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív approved the publication of the Department's review of the Report on the Desirability and Feasibility of Introducing a Single Social Assistance Payment for People of Working Age. This report examined the current system of social assistance payments against the background of the broader policy rationale for a single payment, which was based on the policy that people are given or directed to the supports or services they need in order to return to or take up work or other training or educational opportunities. It is also based on the rationale that the outcomes for people from a poverty and social inclusion point of view must be improved, and also that any changes to the current system must ensure that work pays.
On foot of the publication of the Department's feasibility report, the Department held a consultation seminar with relevant stakeholders in July 2011. The purpose of this seminar was to brief stakeholders on the findings of the feasibility report and to listen to their views in regard to the proposed development of a single payment. Mr. John Martin, director for employment, labour and social affairs at the OECD made a presentation to the seminar on his response to the Department's feasibility report.
It must be stressed that the development of supports and services is a necessary precondition for the introduction of a single payment. In that context, the Department of Social Protection, through an interdepartmental group, is working to assess what services and supports would be required to support the introduction of a single payment, should it be decided to proceed with its introduction.
The Minister's time is concluded.
I should add that carer's allowance is not included in the concept of the single working age payment.
I thank the Minister for clarifying that last point because I was concerned that people in receipt of carer's allowance would be included in this. The Minister also said it appears that people in receipt of disability and one-parent family payments may suffer the most.
More importantly, while I listened with interest to the nice run through the history from 2009 and 2010 until, eventually, there was a consultation seminar in 2011, the Minister might give us her own view. Is she in favour of this? Does she think it is a good issue? I detect zero urgency from her in regard to progressing it and, if she is not going to progress it, let her tell us so and we can put it off the shelf and move on to other business. There is no indication whatever as to any view the Minister might have. Is it one of her key priorities to implement it this year or next, or is she determined to do it at all during the course of this Government's term of office? She might explain where she sees this heading or whether the matter should be shelved.
I recommended to the Government that carers would not be included in this group, because somebody who is caring full-time is not available for work. The key concept is to make provision for the expectation that most people would be in a position and be anxious to participate in some appropriate way in the labour force. Therefore, since becoming Minister I have introduced a number of additional options, for example, for people with a disability to take part in work and to encourage the development of supports for them to take up work. We must, however, remember that we are talking about making provision for people in a way that best assists them, taking into account their family circumstances.
The critical issue identified in the committee report, of which Deputy Ó Snodaigh was rapporteur, was that if we introduce a single age working payment, a prerequisite of the introduction of such a payment is the availability of appropriate supports and services. There may be a significant cost factor in that and there is ongoing examination of that issue in the Department. Since becoming Minister, I have had a look at all of the previous reports published and commissioned by the previous Government and I am examining the options carefully as to how to proceed. I am also taking into account the views of the Oireachtas sub-committee in its recent report on the matter.
Does the Minister agree with one of the points made in that report, which was also made by an official, that this is the wrong time to make all categories of social welfare recipients of working age actively seek work, considering there are already 50 jobseekers for every job vacancy according to the European Commission's figures?
The programme for Government committed the Minister to maintaining primary social welfare rates and we already know this is an extremely minimalist commitment, given that cuts have already been implemented in terms of secondary benefits and means test rules. The joint all-party committee report on the single working age payment, which was endorsed by all parties, also recommended that with any reform the value of the existing earnings disregards, the secondary benefits and means or capital allowance should be maintained. This recommendation did not just come from me, but was endorsed by all represented, including Labour Party backbenchers. Will the Minister take heed of this recommendation? In particular, will she offer a commitment today to maintain the value of the secondary benefits that currently exist in any change or move towards a single working age payment later this year?
As the Deputy knows well, I cannot make any commitment in advance of the budget being framed for next year. I am being honest with the Deputy on that. I do not know if the Deputy is asking me to make budgetary commitments for next year, but I am not in a position to do that. However, following my examination I have proposed to the Government that carers are not appropriate to be included in the strategy. This was also recommended by the committee. The objective of ensuring that everybody of working age has an opportunity to work, particularly people on the live register who are fully available for work, should be encouraged in so far as possible. Last year, over 140,000 people left the live register. Therefore, it is not true to say there is no movement in the job market. There is a considerable number of people unemployed, over 300,000 and we have large numbers of people in part-time employment, over 80,000. A considerable number of people are involved in various programmes, including JobBridge, Tús and the community employment schemes, and in educational schemes. It is sometimes depressing for people to hear Deputies say there are no opportunities out there. There are opportunities, and last year more than 140,000 people left the live register to take up employment. It is important that we encourage and provide avenues for everyone on the live register to take up employment.
With regard to people with disabilities, I have undertaken a number of initiatives to make specific additional supports available which will, I hope, assist people with disabilities who are interested in getting employment - of whom there are many - in entering the labour market. That is very important. The employment situation is particularly difficult for them in the context of the current economic difficulties.
115Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked the Minister for Social Protection the outcome of discussions between her Department and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs on the provision of childcare promised by her in the context of the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2012. [28041/12]
The number of recipients of one-parent family payment, OFP, stood at 89,905 on 2 June 2012. This year, the cost of the OFP scheme is estimated at €1.06 billion, and child benefit payments to such families cost approximately a further €246 million. Between now and 2015, the consequences of the changes to the OFP scheme, as outlined in the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2012, will be examined on a cross-departmental basis in order to ensure that the required service levels are in place to support lone parents as their youngest children reach the relevant age thresholds. As part of this examination, discussions are taking place between officials from the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs - which is the lead Department on child care policy and provision - and the Department of Education and Skills with regard to the development of a policy framework for school-age child care. An interdepartmental group, chaired by my Department and comprising representatives from both the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Department of Education and Skills, was recently established and is assessing the requirement for and provision of school-age child care, focusing initially on the needs of lone parents.
I do not know why the figure for child benefit was mentioned at all because the same amount is applied to both one-parent families and families of other configurations. A couple of months ago we dealt with the Government's Social Welfare and Pensions Bill, which provided for a reduction in the cut-off age of children for one-parent family payments to seven years. At the eleventh hour and under immense pressure, the Minister promised not to introduce the provision in the absence of a bankable commitment on child care. At the time, we asked what that bankable commitment was, and now, as the Bill has started to take effect, I ask this once again. Has the Minister prepared or is she drafting legislation to repeal those changes in the event that this commitment is not delivered? We talked earlier about CE schemes and the debate on whether existing child care facilities will be able to survive given recent changes. These are my key questions: what is the bankable commitment on child care, and what will happen at the end of the year?
I disagree with the Deputy's contention that we are not spending significant amounts of public and taxpayers' money on child care provision.
I did not say that.
It is important to point out how much is paid by taxpayers in respect of children. It comes in the form of a whole series-----
That is no problem. The Minister mentioned child benefit, but that is provided across the board.
Child benefit is paid to all children, and it is a significant payment.
Yes, but the Minister singled out one-parent families.
No; I said how much one-parent families received in child benefit in addition to one-parent family payments.
They would be getting that anyway. It is separate.
Allow the Minister to reply. I will call on the Deputy again.
Some €1 billion has been invested over the last decade in developing a child care infrastructure under the national child care investment programme and, prior to that, the equal opportunities child care programme, which was co-funded by the European Union. The early childhood care and education programme, ECCE, is open to all children aged between three years and three months and four years and six months in September of each year, with a fee paid to child care providers in respect of each child. There are some 61,000 places being provided under the ECCE programme, 17,000 by community providers and 44,000 by private providers. The community child care subvention programme funds some 1,000 community-based non-profit child care facilities nationwide to enable them to charge reduced child care fees to disadvantaged and low-income families that avail of their services. Parents in receipt of social welfare income support are subsidised. The child care education and training scheme is implemented by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs on behalf of FÁS and the VECs, and child care places under this programme are capped at 2,800. There is also an after-school care programme in which more than 15,000 places are available.
We already know what exists. The Minister and everybody in the House have accepted that what exists is not adequate. The question is this: what will be the increased provision at the end of this year, given that the Minister said in the House that there would be a bankable commitment because of these changes? What is the increased provision for this year, next year and the following year? If there is none, has she made preparations to repeal the legislation?
I have always been strongly committed to the provision of child care and, in this case, the provision not just of preschool care during school hours but after-school care as well. It is important that we have ambitious targets for Ireland. Models exist in other countries; during the passage of the legislation we had a discussion about how other countries dealt with lone parent issues. For example, in Northern Ireland, where the Deputy's party is in government, the cut-off age has been seven for a long time. In several years, we will establish the same cut-off age in the Republic. The Deputy does not seem to have a problem with the cut-off age of seven North of the Border.
There is greater provision. The problem is not the age - it is the provision of child care.
However, he does seem to have a problem with changes to our structures to take account-----
It is a matter of provision, North and South.
Deputy, please. We are over time.
I know, but the Minister is not answering the question.
The Deputy's party seems to have a problem with a situation it is perfectly happy to accept in Northern Ireland, where it is in Government-----
The provision of child care in the North is better than here.
-----even though payments made to families with children here are far higher than those to similar families in the North. When the Deputy is commenting on the Republic, he should perhaps acknowledge what his own party is involved in just 90 miles north of here.
The Minister still has not answered the question.
We have set up an interdepartmental group, which has already started its work, to consider the additional provision required. The changes to which the Deputy refers come into effect from 2015.
116Deputy Seamus Kirk asked the Minister for Social Protection the year on year increase in social welfare appeals from 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and to date in 2012; the average waiting time in each of those years; the number of extra staff that have been transferred into the Social Welfare Appeals office. [28071/12]
The number of appeals received in the social welfare appeals office from 2008 until the end of March 2012 and the average waiting times in each of these years is set out in the following table. As can be seen from these figures, there has been a very significant increase in the number of social welfare appeals year on year from 2008 to 2011, with the number of appeals received in 2011 being almost double the number received in 2008.
In an effort to reduce the processing times, the Department appointed 12 additional appeals officers between 2010 and 2011. In addition, a further ten appeals officers formerly employed by the community welfare service, CWS, of the Health Services Executive joined the office as part of the integration of the CWS appeals services into the social welfare appeals office. This brought the total number of appeals officers to 39. The office has also improved its business processes and IT support.
As a result of these changes, the number of finalised cases increased from 15,724 in 2008 to 34,027 in 2011. I am sure Deputies will appreciate this represents an enormous increase in the volume of appeals being dealt with. I am advised by the social welfare appeals office that, based on figures for the first quarter of 2012, the average waiting time for appeals dealt with by summary decisions was 22.4 weeks and 40.9 weeks for those requiring an oral hearing. The comparable times for all of 2011 were 25 weeks and 52.5 weeks, respectively.
|
YEAR |
Appeals Received |
Average time take to process appeals |
|
|
By summary decision (weeks) |
Following Oral Hearing (weeks) |
||
|
2008 |
17,833 |
13.9 |
32.9 |
|
2009 |
25,963 |
18.2 |
34.8 |
|
2010 |
32,432 |
27.4 |
45.6 |
|
2011 |
31,241 |
25.1 |
52.5 |
|
2012 (to end March |
9,758 |
22.4 |
40.9 |
I thank the Minister for providing that information. She will appreciate that we are operating under a disadvantage, however. She referred to a schedule that has been circulated. We will probably receive a copy in our e-mails at 6 p.m. It is unfortunate that we do not have the advantage of seeing the figures to which she referred.
I ask for an indication of the number of staff in the appeals office who took up the retirement scheme by the end of February 2012. Did any appeals officer leave during that period and have staff numbers decreased?
The issue with which we are most concerned is that the 40 weeks, or nine or ten months, involved in an appeal for oral hearing must be added on to the six months it takes for a case to be assessed in the first place and the two or three months required to complete a review. The cases then come before the Department's appeals office, where they wait for nearly a year. We are regularly told by the appeals office that it is waiting for the file to be sent from the Department. The Minister spoke about technology. I cannot understand why, once the appeal has been submitted, the file from the local office is not sent to the appeals office within seven days. It regularly happens when a file comes in that one writes to the Department, which chases down the file and assembles it as if it is a great big package which must be delivered. It appears that information technology is not used. It is essential that the process be speeded up.
If I may restate the numbers, 15,000 appeals were dealt with in 2008 but by last year that figure had increased to 34,000. I accept it is difficult for the people who are applying but the reality is that since the country began to face its economic difficulties and meltdown in 2008, demand for a range of social service and social welfare schemes has exploded. The appeals process, in particular, has been subject to an enormous increase in the number of applications. In order to deal with that increase, new IT procedures and business methods have been introduced and the consequence is a decrease the waiting time for appeals this year. For appeals by summary decision the waiting time has decreased to 22.4 weeks compared to 25 weeks last year and for oral hearing it has decreased to 40.9 weeks compared to 52.5 weeks last year. That may not be the improvement the Deputy would like to see but it represents a considerable improvement in the context of ever expanding demand in terms of applications for social welfare entitlements and consequent appeals.
I acknowledge the numbers of appeals that are being processed annually but given the number of appeals lodged, the problem has not yet been addressed. There are obscene delays in some payments for people who are in very stressful situations. Delays in applications for payments such as the carer's allowance, domiciliary care payments and disability allowance are only adding to the stress.
The Minister mentioned new technologies. Can the social welfare appeals office be given access to the files via intranet or e-mail rather than requiring that the physical file be sent from Longford, Sligo or wherever to Dublin? That might allow for speedier turnaround times.
We are doing what the Deputy suggests by significantly expanding the use of technology in social welfare appeals. Longer serving Deputies will recall that the processing time for pensions had risen enormously a couple of years ago simply due to demographic change and the increase in the numbers applying for benefits. New business processes were introduced and the system is now working very well. We are now in the process of introducing similar systems to a range of payments which involve exacting conditions, including the carer's allowance, invalidity payments and disability allowances. The application of new business methods and new technologies have meant additional delays in the short term in the case of certain payments but as we bring all of this area into the new system, applications will be dealt with more speedily and we will be in a position to address the backlog.
At that stage I would like to be in a position to set up a telephone helpline for Deputies because one of the problems is the enormous volume of social welfare questions submitted by Deputies, as is their right and entitlement. These questions require the allocation of a considerable amount of senior resources. Deputies may recall that last year I asked the staff of my Department to run a number of seminars for new Deputies and their staff to facilitate them in dealing with constituents' inquiries. We are spending a vast amount of departmental time in dealing with a huge number of queries and I would like to introduce a telephone helpline by the end of this year or next year.
117Deputy Michael Colreavy asked the Minister for Social Protection her response to the Joint Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education review on the status of casual workers here in view of the recommendation that entitlement to jobseeker’s payment should be calculated on the basis of hours worked rather than days. [28050/12]
The total of 432,907 recipients of jobseeker's allowance and jobseeker's benefit, at an estimated 2012 cost of €3.57 billion, currently includes some 80,000 casual workers. It is recognised that a changing labour market has resulted in a move away from the more traditional work patterns, with a consequent increase in the number of atypical workers. In fact many large employers have a lot of part-time workers who are also being paid by my Department. In acknowledgement of this trend, the Department conducted a review of the application of the unemployment benefit and assistance schemes conditions to workers who are not employed on a full-time basis in 2006, which examined the application of the jobseeker's benefit and allowance scheme conditions to workers who are employed on a part-time, casual or systematic short-time basis.
The review made a number of recommendations which are currently under consideration by a cross-functional departmental working group. These considerations are complex and are taking place in the context of other social welfare reforms, the current economic situation, and the considerable administrative and IT change that implementation proposals based on these recommendations will require. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education published its report, "A review of the status of casual workers in Ireland" in May 2012. The report is written in the context of the work of my Department in this area and makes a number of constructive suggestions, including a recommendation that entitlement to jobseeker's payments be based on an hourly rather than the current daily system. The content of the report will inform my Department's considerations.
The committee published its report and the rapporteur was Deputy Anthony Lawlor. It made a number of important conclusions and recommendations. I thank the Minister for considering some of the findings in the report. Does the Minister agree with the finding of the committee that the current social welfare system is decidedly unequal in that one person can work ten hours per week distributed over two days and receive an unemployment payment while others can work the same number of hours distributed over five days and be ineligible for any social welfare payment? Does the Minister accept the urgent need, given the change in the workforce, to address this inequality? How soon can we expect proposals on casual and part-time workers in line with, or taking on board some of the recommendations of, Deputy Anthony Lawlor's report?
No decision has been made in this area. The current system is unwieldy and I agree that it must be reformed. This will involve a package of structures that recognise labour market patterns and required flexibility but also protect the integrity of the jobseeker's scheme, provide incentives to employment and deliver value for money. Reform in this area is technically and administratively highly complex. As discussed earlier, we are in the process of improving many of the systems and the management of the Department's processes and administration of various schemes. Reform in the area could deliver a more flexible and responsive approach to the modern labour market but, equally, I have seen reports from one particular union on its concerns about the number of part-time workers to whom the Department is paying a social welfare income to the when, in many cases, the workers would like more work rather than more social welfare income. It is a complex area and we must try to get the best outcome so that workers have access to full-time work where available, or to more work. This will improve income dramatically above and beyond dependency on some social welfare income and some part-time work.
I accept what the Minister is saying and the matter is complex. There are ways in which the complexity will be addressed to ensure people are not benefiting where they are in part-time work and earning a substantial wage. That can be addressed through a means test. Does the Minister intend reporting in the next few months or is it an ongoing process? There is an urgency in respect of part-time and casual workers given the changes. Will we hear back by December or will it be a longer-term change?
I do not have a date for when I will come back on this matter. We have an enormously ambitious programme of reform under way in the Department. This includes the absorption of 1,000 community welfare officers and 700 former FÁS employees, as well as the business method changes referred to in earlier answers. I will not commit to a date for this change. It is an important area for trying to get the economic balance right, where the objective is to have as many people as possible in significant amounts of work, so that dependence on social welfare is lessened. I am aware of the 80,000 people working part-time. Up to a half of them would be interested in much more work and full-time work. For others, part-time work fits quite well with family responsibilities, including child care and elder care. We must have a nuanced response to the different types of people in the labour market and their different needs.
