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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 30 May 2013

Vol. 805 No. 3

Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Second Stage

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

As Minister for Social Protection in arguably the most challenging economic period this country has ever faced, I have operated on simple and enduring principles, namely, welfare must be there for those who need it and the Government must do everything it can to help people back to work. In short, welfare must be both a safety net and a springboard. To that end, my focus has been on transforming the Department from the passive benefits provider of old to one that actively assists people back to work, training or education. In this legislation, I am continuing these necessary and important structural reforms of the social welfare system. The Department of Social Protection accounts for €4 in every €10 spent each day by the Government. As a result, the Department has been obliged to play its part in the effort to get the deficit under control. However, while making savings in social welfare expenditure has been forced upon us, the reductions have been targeted with the objective of making the system fairer, focused and fit for purpose.

I will start with fairness. Many families in Ireland depend solely on social welfare to provide for all of their needs. This is the reason the Government, in successive budgets, has protected core social welfare payment rates. In a time of unprecedented crisis, it is standing by those who are most vulnerable and international research proves it. Compared with other EU countries, Ireland's system of social transfers is the most effective in reducing poverty. Consequently, protecting core rates makes absolute sense from a social justice perspective. However, it also makes sense economically as at a time when consumer confidence remains depressed and people remain reluctant to spend, the €20.3 billion social welfare budget is a crucial injection of cash into every corner and region of the economy. As I have stated recently in several forums, the European Union must shift its approach from austerity only if the Union is to recover and, thankfully, I believe this message now is beginning to seep through. What does this mean in an Irish context? Given that Ireland is still in a bailout, it has little choice but to observe the conditions of the troika until it again is able to fund itself on the financial markets at reasonable rates. This means further corrections in the forthcoming budget, with the ratio of taxation measures and expenditure savings still to be determined and, again, my Department will be expected to play its part. However, I return to my earlier points about the crucial importance of protecting the most vulnerable and the value of social welfare expenditure as a Keynesian automatic stabiliser. The Government's challenge is to create the room for an economic and social dividend, while respecting the need to meet deficit targets and exit the bailout. The proceeds of the promissory note deal must be put to the most effective use, to invest in jobs and give people hope. The reality is that job creation is the single most effective way of reducing social welfare expenditure.

This year, as part of its Pathways to Work strategy, my Department will spend more than €1 billion on work, training and education places that will benefit approximately 85,000 people. In addition, under the pathways strategy, the Department continues to roll out its Intreo activation service for jobseekers, as well as its new, revamped and reformed social welfare offices. The crucial need for the pathways strategy is highlighted by ESRI research on jobless households. This research showed that during the height of the boom between 2004 and 2007, the share of households defined as jobless shockingly recorded a double-digit increase to 15%. It is hardly believable that this happened at the height of the boom. In stark contrast, the average across the eurozone in 2007 was just below 10%. Even though Ireland was experiencing a boom, its figure increased to 15% and that this was allowed happen during a period of such prosperity is the single most shocking thing about the figures.

The current Government has greater ambition for those citizens who are unfortunate enough to be unemployed. It views each and every individual person on the live register or otherwise distant from the labour market as an untapped resource and a future employee who will participate in the rebuilding of this country. This ambition is the reason the Government is moving from a passive to an active welfare state.

In addition to deep-rooted reforms, I have prioritised efforts to combat social welfare fraud.

Since becoming Minister, I have travelled to numerous local offices throughout the country and spoken to the front-line staff who deal with and support customers on a daily basis. The overwhelming message they have given me is that social welfare fraud is not a victimless crime, and that those who defraud the system do so at the expense of the vast majority of genuine customers who rely on social welfare income supports, and that includes the vast majority of our retirees and pensioners. I want to thank those staff for their honest feedback, their invaluable insights and the work they do on a daily basis.

This Bill will give legislative effect to a number of important amendments to the social welfare code in relation to PRSI, jobseekers' payments, and the prevention of fraud. It will also make amendments to the pensions code in relation to occupational pension provision.

In his Budget Statement last December, the Minister for Finance announced a number of measures to broaden the income base for PRSI in order to ensure the stability of the Social Insurance Fund. This is so that the fund can continue to pay pensions for those who are retired or widowed and for short-term benefits for those who become ill or unemployed.

One of the PRSI base-broadening measures provided for in this Bill extends liability for PRSI contributions in 2013 to certain civil and public sector workers who pay modified rates of PRSI contributions and who also have income from a trade or profession. They will now be liable to a PRSI contribution of 4% on any income arising from a trade or profession.

In recent years, reforms have been made to the one-parent family scheme. The strongest protection against poverty is decent, secure and fairly paid work, and the idea that the welfare system must be a springboard is especially true when it comes to people who are parenting on their own. Although full-time work may not be feasible for parents of very young children, we believe that supporting parents to participate in the labour market once their children have reached an appropriate age will improve their own economic and social circumstances. In the long term, it will be best for them and for their families.

The reforms introduced in budgets 2011, 2012 and 2013 recognise parental choice with regard to the care of young children while at the same time having an expectation that parents will not remain outside the workforce indefinitely. Last year, I said that I would proceed with the measures to reduce the age limit to seven years only if a credible commitment on the delivery of a robust and comprehensive system of child care was forthcoming.

I will be frank. Although I was very pleased to secure an additional €14 million in the budget to fund an extra 6,000 after-school child care places this year, the comprehensive system we need is not yet in place. I am now proposing, therefore, reforms to the jobseeker's allowance scheme to ease the transition of former recipients of one-parent family payment with young children to the scheme.

Jobseeker's transition will be a targeted version of the jobseeker's allowance scheme, which provides means-tested financial assistance and activation supports. Recipients of jobseeker's transition will be required to engage fully with the Department's activation process. Crucially, however, they will be exempted for a transitional period from the full conditionality of the jobseeker's allowance scheme, specifically the criteria that jobseekers must be available for and genuinely seeking full-time work. This will allow the lone parents in question to seek part-time work rather than full-time work if this better suits their family circumstances. They will also be able to access existing child care supports to enable them to engage in education and training programmes. The transitional period will last, provided the individual continues to satisfy entitlement conditions for one-parent family payment, other than the relevant age, until their youngest child reaches 14 years of age.

I wish to speak about family income supplement, FIS. I will be amending the FIS scheme so that former one-parent family payment recipients in receipt of FIS will have it increased in light of the termination of their one-parent family payment due to the age of the youngest child. Once family income supplement is awarded, it is normally paid for a 52-week period, as Deputies are aware, and it is not affected by any changes in circumstances in that period, such as a change in weekly income.

I will be introducing regulations shortly to enable entitlement to FIS to be reassessed during the 52-week period to take account of such a loss of the one-parent family payment. These reforms recognise the difficulty of parenting on one's own and will enable people parenting alone with children of primary school age to qualify for a jobseeker's payment. They represent a compassionate, supportive and effective approach to helping lone parents' transition to work and provide for their families' long-term best interests, particularly their children.

I am introducing changes regarding jobseeker's benefit and jobseeker's allowance to allow for persons working as retained firefighters to be exempted from certain conditions to enable them access these schemes. Since 1972, the social welfare system has essentially subsidised the State's cost of providing a nationwide part-time fire service but no legislative base was ever provided to support this position, which led to uncertainty and difficulty at times for individual firefighters. I am now bringing clarity to this situation in recognition of the social good work of retained firefighters and the invaluable service they provide to communities throughout our country outside the big cities with permanent fire brigades. A retained firefighter who is on call will be deemed to satisfy the availability conditionality. This will mean that retained firefighters will no longer be disallowed on the grounds of availability for the days they are on call. However, they will still have to satisfy the genuinely seeking work and availability conditionality for the days they are not on call. These changes recognise the vital service that these workers provide to local communities. That is an issue that has been raised in the House on and off for the past 40 years. I am delighted to be able to legislate for it and to recognise the invaluable work of retained firefighters.

I mentioned earlier the issue of welfare fraud. My view on this is simple: such fraud undermines confidence in the entire system and is unfair to genuine claimants and the taxpayers who fund the system in the knowledge that it is there for them when they need it.

Welfare fraud is a serious crime and the Department is doing everything it can to crack down on people who abuse the system. We have begun the phased introduction of the public services card with key security features, including a photograph and signature, which will be used to authenticate the identity of individuals, thus helping to reduce fraud and error in the social welfare system. By close of business today, we will have issued over 230,000 public services cards.

Under the existing legislative provisions, there is a mandatory requirement for new applicants to allow for his or her photograph and signature to be captured and reproduced in electronic format for purposes of a PPSN allocation, public services card and claims for social welfare benefits. I will be proposing a change to provide for the introduction of a condition for existing recipients of social welfare payment that the person must satisfy the Department as to his or her identity, including allowing for electronic capture of photograph and signature.

I am introducing a number of changes to occupational pension provision in this Bill. These changes give effect to the recommendations of the critical review undertaken on the Pensions Board and the Pensions Ombudsman as part of the Public Service Reform Plan.

I am also introducing a number of other amendments to the Pensions Act to give powers to the Pensions Board to wind up a pension scheme in certain circumstances, provide for the disclosure of information on a proposal by the Pensions Board to restructure scheme benefits and to provide for an appeal to the High Court on a point of law against a direction by the Pensions Board to restructure a defined benefit pension scheme, provide the Pensions Board with a right of appeal to the High Court to seek compliance with a directive to either restructure scheme benefits or a direction to wind-up a scheme, change the fines regime that applies to personal retirement savings accounts and amend the terms of office of the Pensions Ombudsman.

The changes I am bringing forward today will strengthen governance and regulation of occupational pensions and give consumers greater input into pensions policy. They will reform the governance structure of the Pensions Board by distinguishing between the operational oversight and the policy advisory functions. The Pensions Board will be renamed the Pensions Authority to ensure public awareness and clarity of its role and functions and distinguish it from the policy advisory activities. The chief executive of the authority will be known as the pensions regulator.

I am introducing changes to the Pensions Act to give the Pensions Board power to wind-up a scheme in certain circumstances. I am very aware of the serious funding challenge facing pension schemes. It is expected that most defined benefit schemes will be in a position to meet the funding requirement by the end of 2023. However, the trustees and-or employer of some schemes may decide not to adopt or not to comply with the requirement of the funding standard, and in such cases the board may have to direct the trustees either to restructure scheme benefits or wind-up the scheme. The power to wind-up is considered a measure of last resort.

There was an expectation that I would be bringing forward in this Bill changes to the manner in which assets are distributed on the wind-up of a pension scheme. This is a very complex and sensitive issue and one which requires careful consideration before any change is made to the current provision. My officials have engaged with representatives of stakeholders and have also engaged external consultants to advise on the matter. In light of the recent decision by the European Court of Justice in the Waterford Crystal case, the Government recognises the need for a comprehensive policy and legislative response that addresses the range of issues involved. We have been in intensive discussions with the Attorney General and her staff. In addition, it is considered necessary to await the submissions of funding proposals from pension scheme trustees as these will give a more comprehensive and in-depth picture of the funding position of defined benefit pension schemes.

I will be tabling two amendments to the Bill on Committee Stage to allow for the expansion of the penalty rates regime for jobseeker's allowance, jobseeker's benefit and supplementary welfare allowance and a measure to enhance powers in the area of overpayments recovery.

I will now outline the main provisions of the Bill. Section 1 provides for the Short Title, collective citations, construction and any necessary commencements. Section 2 defines a number of common terms used in this part of the Bill. Section 3 replaces references to training which is provided or approved by FÁS that are contained in the Social Welfare Consolidation Act in light of the new structural arrangements for the provision of State training. Section 4 amends the definition of a "special contributor" which is used for the purposes of the special collection system operated by the Department of Social Protection for the collection of certain PRSI contributions. Section 5 is a technical amendment.

Section 6 extends liability for PRSI contributions to modified rate PRSI contributors, that is, PRSI Class B, C and D contributors, who also have income from a trade or profession. This PRSI contribution will be at the rate of 4% of relevant emoluments and income, but will not count towards determining entitlement to social insurance benefits. Section 7 provides for a number of amendments to the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 to take account of the provisions of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010. Section 8 amends the conditions of entitlement applying to the partial capacity benefit scheme to enable decisions relating to whether or not a claimant has a restriction on his or her capacity for work and the level of that restriction to be appealed to the social welfare appeals office.

Section 9 provides for changes to the jobseeker's benefit and jobseeker's allowance schemes to exempt persons who are working as retained firefighters from certain conditionality due to the nature of that employment. Section 10 provides for amendments to the jobseeker's allowance scheme to cater for the transition of persons to that scheme who no longer qualify for one-parent family payment due to their youngest child reaching specified age thresholds. Section 11 extends the identity authentication requirements that currently apply to new applicants for a social welfare payment, a personal public service number or a public services card to existing recipients of social welfare payments. Under these requirements a person will be disqualified from continuing to receive a social welfare payment where he or she fails to satisfy the Minister as to his or her identity.

Section 12 provides that a working director with a shareholding of 50% or more in a company will not be regarded as being insurable as an employed contributor in that company. Section 13 clarifies the operation of the income disregard which is used for the purposes of the rent and mortgage interest supplement scheme. Section 14 extends the list of bodies that are authorised to use the personal public service number for the purposes of carrying out transactions with members of the public and for sharing personal information and exchanging relevant data for the purposes of carrying out those transactions. The new bodies being included are the Insolvency Service of Ireland, Quality and Qualifications Ireland and payment service providers who have been authorised by the Revenue Commissioners to collect the local property tax. Section 15, together with the Schedule to the Bill, is a technical amendment dealing with obsolete references and typographical errors.

Section 16 provides for amendments to the Civil Registration Act 2004 to allow for the provision of index information from the registers of births, deaths, marriages and civil partnerships to the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht to facilitate access to this index information. Index information in relation to adoptions and stillbirths is excluded.

Section 17 defines the term "Principal Act". Section 18 inserts a definition of the pensions council which is being provided for in the new section 26B of the Pensions Act 1990. The Pensions Act was amended in 2009 to allow for payroll evidence to be admissible to prove an offence and to increase the term of imprisonment for conviction on indictment for an offence of failure to remit pension contributions to an occupational pension scheme to deal with a very largescale problem in the construction sector at that time. Sections 19 to 21 apply this offences regime to personal retirement savings accounts.

Sections 22 to 25, inclusive, and section 30 provide for structural changes to the Pensions Board by giving effect to the recommendations of the critical review undertaken on the Pensions Board. This critical review was undertaken as part of the public service reform plan. These sections and the details contained on the following pages will come into effect later this year when they are the subject of a commencement order.

Section 26 amends section 50 of the Pensions Act 1990 to provide for the disclosure of information where the board proposes to issue a direction to restructure scheme benefits and for an appeal to the High Court by such persons as may be prescribed on a point of law on a direction from the Pensions Board to restructure a pension scheme.

Section 27 inserts a new section 50B in the Pensions Act 1990 to provide the Pensions Board with the power to wind-up a pension scheme in circumstances where a scheme is underfunded and the trustees and employer are not in a position to adopt a funding proposal, or where the trustee of a scheme fails to comply with a section 50 direction to restructure scheme benefits. Section 28 inserts a new section 50C in the Pensions Act 1990 to provide the Pensions Board with the power to apply to the High Court to seek an order requiring a person to comply with a direction to wind up a pension scheme or to restructure scheme benefits.

A critical review of the Office of the Pensions Ombudsman was also carried out as part of the work of the steering group chaired by Mr. Richard Hinz of the World Bank. It is expected that the recommendation of this review of the Office of the Pensions Ombudsman will be included in a future Bill. In the meantime, and in order to facilitate any future proposal to merge the Office of the Pensions Ombudsman with the Office of the Financial Services Ombudsman, section 29 extends the age on which the Pensions Ombudsman must vacate that office from 67 to 70 years and allows for the appointment of the Pensions Ombudsman for a period of up to six years, rather than a set term of six years.

The Government continues to invest heavily in social protection for citizens in spite of the economic circumstances in which we find ourselves. That is only right and just. However, I am also ensuring that the money we spend on social protection, which is contributed by those at work in taxes and PRSI, is spent on those in genuine need, and in a positive way that encourages and helps them to return to work. This is not a one-way street. The obligations of the State must also be balanced by the responsibilities of citizens. Seeing those who are capable of working languish on welfare is not something we should ever support. Seeing young people, with all their creativity, talent and energy, languishing on social welfare is not part of my vision for Irish society. Hence, my strong political bias towards work and the policies to promote it, such as a commitment to full employment, activation, investment and skills training, not only for Ireland but for the European Union. This Bill is another positive step on the road towards an active, supportive and engaged social protection system. I commend the Bill to the House and I look forward to an informed debate and to hearing the views of Members on the measures contained in it.

Naturally, there are measures in the Bill with which I agree. Most of the provisions of the Bill on the social welfare side are fairly uncontroversial and unexceptional and are designed to provide administrative fixes. Some of them adopt proposals that have already been made to the Government which make a certain amount of sense and more of them simply implement in a legislative form measures which have already been announced by the Minister for Finance. My main criticism of the Bill is not what it contains but, rather, what it does not contain.

The Minister will be aware that the system that applies to a defined benefit pension scheme when it is wound up is insupportable. What happens is there is not enough money to pay every scheme member what he or she was promised when he or she joined and paid into it and the law states that whatever money is there must be taken in the first instances to ensure that existing pensioners get 100% of what they have been promised and if there is anything left over, it is to be divided amongst the workers and those whose pensions have been deferred. This is gravely unjust. I can quote instances of this. The current rules mean, for example, that a retired chief executive on a pension of €100,000, €150,000 or €200,000 is guaranteed that while somebody who is weeks from retirement, and who has worked in the company and contributed to the pension scheme for 30 years, might finish up with nothing simply for the sake of a few weeks.

Proposals have been made from civic society across the board to the Government that the system should be changed. Proposals have been made, for example, from ICTU, employers' bodies such as IBEC, the group representing pension schemes, the Irish Association of Pension Funds, IAPF, and actuarial bodies. There is consensus across society that this should be changed and it is high time to change it, particularly in the present situation where it is estimated that over 90% of defined benefit pension schemes are in deficit. All of these bodies across society recognise the inequity, or should I say "iniquity", of the present system and the urgent compelling need for reform. A survey carried out recently by the IAPF showed overwhelming support for the notion that the priority list should be changed, that there should be some equity brought into the system.

The OECD recently issued a report on the Irish pensions system for which the Government forked out €130,000 of taxpayers' money. In that report, the OECD made a compelling case for changing the priority list. They gave the Minister her first opportunity to implement a key element of their report in the introduction of this Bill and she has failed to do so.

Mr. Jerry Moriarty, who is spokesperson for the IAPF, stated on a number of occasions, along with others, that the rules should be amended for defined benefit pension schemes to give enhanced benefit to those still in employment rather than the current absolute weighting given to those already in receipt of their pensions. He summed up the position well, stating, "It is simply not fair that those nearing retirement age must suffer to such a degree by ... having their pension cut in half [or worse], while a former colleague who has just retired receives his full benefit for life". Trustees recognise that in an ideal world everybody should get that to which they are entitled, but where 90% or, perhaps, more of those pension schemes are in deficit, some of which have already announced their intention to wind-up and others of which no doubt will follow, we are not living in a perfect world and it is not possible to pay everybody his or her entitlement. Why pay one half everything to the exclusion of the other half?

Mr. Moriarty went on to state, "Add to that the super-cautious funding requirements for schemes currently in place, and employers are more likely to be deterred from making the significant contributions required to maintain current benefits". There is a rumour that the liability for a defined benefit scheme will be placed firmly on the employer. This is a further deterrent to employers to continue to fund retirement benefit schemes. Interestingly, Mr. Moriarty, in 2011, stated that things were changing, they had spoken to the Minister and she promised she would change the system.

I have been told directly by IBEC that, at a meeting in October 2011, the Minister promised faithfully to reform the priority order. Unfortunately, she reneged on that promise and, instead, set up a consultation process. The consultation process was to consult about something she had already promised, but that provided only a temporary respite because those whom she consulted were also of the opinion that the priority order should be changed. Accordingly, I am informed, in September 2012, the Minister again solemnly promised to change the priority order.

The Bill represents yet another breach of promise. The promises, like Billy Bunter's postal order, are always made but never delivered. It is disingenuous, self-serving, outrageous and cynical that the Minister should come in here today, after that period of consultation and after making all those specific promises, and refer to the issue as "complex" - which it was when the Minister gave her promise in 2011 - "sensitive" - which, I presume, it was then too - and needing "careful consideration", and that she must get advice from stakeholders.

All the advice has been one way and there has been plenty of time for consideration. The Government has deliberately created an impression in the minds of the pension industry and potential recipients that it would rectify this injustice but it has failed to do so.

It is particularly cynical to seek to hide behind the decision in the Waterford Crystal case, which has nothing at all to do with it. That case does not require the Government to prevaricate and delay further in this vital reform. The Waterford Crystal case indicates that when both a company and the company pension scheme become insolvent or go into liquidation, the State would have to pony up in a defined benefit pension. I hope that in the vast majority of cases where these pension schemes will wind up, the company will not go into liquidation, so the Waterford Crystal case does not apply at all. In any case the Waterford Crystal case is about who pays but what we are talking about is the priority order in which the fund is applied for payment.

The Minister is well aware of the vital necessity of making this necessary change before 30 June. This date is critical because as a result of new rules introduced by the Government which make it more difficult for pension schemes to survive and which will make many schemes wind up if they cannot survive. Many of them cannot and will not submit a restructuring programme by 30 June to show how they will be brought back to solvency. The Minister knows and recognises this explicitly in legislation because, as she mentioned in her speech, the explanatory memorandum indicates this inserts a new section 50B into the Pensions Act 1990 to provide the Pensions Board with the power to wind up a pension scheme in circumstances where a scheme is under-funded and the trustees and employer are not in a position to adopt a funding proposal, or where the trustee of a scheme fails to comply with a section 50 direction to restructure scheme benefits. In other words, the people who drafted this legislation and the Minister envisage that there will be a number of wind-ups because people will not be able to meet the onerous requirements by 30 June.

Time will tell if I am right or wrong but tens of thousands of workers already face closure of pension schemes and a change in the priority order would help them to salvage some of those pensions. I am referring to active employees and deferred pensioners. By putting off reform yet again, the Minister is, unfortunately, condemning those people to penury. I have come across concrete examples in this regard and I will come back to them.

After 30 June, if a pension scheme winds up or cannot meet onerous funding requirements and provide a solution, the chief executive of a company - who may have a full pension of €100,000, €150,000 or €200,000 - will be fully protected but a 64-year-old worker who is weeks short of retirement may be left with no pension at all. As late as last weekend I had two groups who called to see me in my office in Limerick. One consisted of deferred pensioners from a defined benefit pension scheme which has already announced that it is winding up. The other consisted of investors in a defined benefit pension scheme which is almost certain to wind up, although it has not officially announced it. The first group consisted of three women in their 50s who took early retirement on the basis of a calculated pension of between €22,000 per year and €24,000 per year. As a result of the wind-up, with senior people getting up to €100,000 because they have already retired, the women are getting between €4,500 per annum and €4,800 per annum. That is a scandal and there is no excuse whatever to leave that unaddressed, particularly in view of the Minister's very specific commitments in this regard.

This is the Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill and the second part of it is concerned with pensions. I wonder if it should be called a pensions Bill at all as what is there in the Bill about pensions? There is a decision that could have a major impact on the real lives of people coming to see me, and they will be going to the media, but if it is avoided, what will the pension section of the Bill deal with? It deals with such monumentally important matters as changing the name of the Pensions Board to the pensions authority. How extraordinary and radical is that? Another dramatic, radical and far-reaching change will alter the title of the chief executive, who will now be known as the pension regulator. My goodness. The change to the number of people on the board is welcome. The Bill proposes to set up another quango, known as the pensions council, to advise the board. The most far-reaching, dramatic, Earth-shattering and monumental change of all is to allow the pensions ombudsman hold office for up to six years instead of for a fixed period of six years. We have the time, inclination and ingenuity to introduce these radical, dramatic and life-changing matters but the one measure that would have an effect on people's lives has been deliberately avoided.

To use an historical analogy, the Minister is fiddling while people's pensions are about to burn. The Cantillon column in The Irish Times of 23 May 2013 is relevant, although I am not singling out this newspaper as I could quote various sources that have commented adversely on the decision to avoid the central issue faced by the Government. The column in question argues that the pensions section of the Bill essentially contains "administrative" fixes and that none has the capacity to fundamentally alter somebody's financial circumstances, although the priority order does. I could not have put it better myself. The column went on to state that the "Government is looking for time but this is the second time it has pulled back on the issue, and some workers do not have that luxury". The article argues that by the time the Government acts, it will have no way of recovering these lost pensions, which is the issue in a nutshell.

Fundamental reform in pensions is not the only element missing from the Bill. There is no mention of the self-employed. We have discussed at length through questions, committees and in the public domain the notion of extending social benefits to the self-employed. There have been reports, articles, speeches and suggestions but there has been no action. I have read the reports and I am aware of how much this would cost. We are talking about the self-employed, and such people may want to be in a position to get jobseeker's or illness benefit in the event of a business folding or not doing well. They should know in advance what is the price of this and there should be a choice in paying that price.

An issue that deters people from setting up a business is the notion that if a person is self-employed, he or she will get no social welfare no matter what. The Minister may indicate that, technically, a person who has been self-employed and who does not have means or assets when a business folds should be entitled to jobseeker's allowance. It is a legal entitlement to seek that. Many social welfare officers are making it so difficult that the word has got out that it is practically impossible to get the benefit.

This is most unfair and should be sorted out. It is high time we faced up to the notion of allowing these people, if they so wish, to purchase further benefits. What this country desperately needs at present, in view of the fact that more than 400,000 people are still unemployed and 200,000 people a day are emigrating, not counting all of the people being taken on to schemes who therefore no longer appear unemployed, is to encourage people to create jobs for themselves and, hopefully, for others.

The Bill does not address pension coverage. According to the Pensions Board only 54% of people in the workforce have pension coverage. If we take it that 90% have coverage in the public sector, then pension coverage in the private sector is extremely low. The national pensions framework published by the previous Government in 2010 cites the examples of the hotel and restaurant sector where pension coverage is only 23% and the wholesale and retail trade where pension coverage is only 36%. Independent consumer research carried out on behalf of the Pensions Board indicates almost eight out of ten people who do not contribute said the State pension would not meet their needs in retirement. Although employers are obliged by law to offer employees access to a pension, independent consumer research shows that 43% of those interviewed had not been offered access and of these, 93% had never asked the employer about access to a pension. I suppose they dare not. A key issue is how to improve coverage. Among OECD countries only Ireland and New Zealand do not have a compulsory pension saving. Nowhere can I find in anything stated, proposed or done by the Government a move towards establishing a pensions structure which is financially sustainable and socially adequate. Fundamental questions such as this have not been faced up to by the Government.

I welcome some of the social welfare aspects of the Bill. I acknowledge the change in the law to assist the position of part-time firefighters. They have been making representations for many years and I regret previous Governments did not accede to them. It is a positive move which I acknowledge and appreciate. The Bill includes a provision which gives people the right in the case of refusal of partial capacity benefits to appeal to the social welfare appeals office. This is an administrative improvement. I do not know how much difference it will make but it is a step in the right direction. I welcome the measures to tighten identity authentication requirements, although a certain sensitivity will have to be shown to old age pensioners and people in receipt of disability benefits.

I also welcome the change in the family income support regulations but I must ask the Minister whether it will be confined to lone parents who will avail of the transition measures. Will it apply generally? There has been quite a lot of discussion and we have had many representations about the serious anomaly in the system whereby family income support is calculated at the beginning of the year and if one's circumstances change drastically, for the better or worse, the amount remains fixed for 52 weeks. I always thought the reason for this is because it would be administratively difficult to recalculate it in the event of a change of circumstances, but now it seems to be possible in the case of lone parents. Will it be confined to lone parents or will it be applicable generally? I ask the Minister to address this when she replies.

Section 6 of the Bill extends liability for PRSI to people who pay modified contributions and also have income from emoluments, a trade or a profession. I realise people in the public sector would have had to have joined before 1995 to be in receipt of modified contributions so this may be applicable to a limited number of people but it will apply to pension payment. I find objectionable the further provision in the section that one pays 4% on one's private income but receives nothing for it. The great United States of America was founded on a revolution with the slogan "No taxation without representation". Here, people are being asked to pony up PRSI contributions but are told they will receive nothing in return. I object to this.

I welcome the improvement, such as it is, outlined in section 10 of the Bill with regard to lone parents but there is an irony at the heart of the matter. I realise the previous Government proposed the change whereby the age of the qualifying child would reduce further and further and more and more people would be excluded from lone parent's allowance. It might be time to reconsider this in light of the poverty figures in the country and the fact that according to the statistics and percentages lone parents are one of the most vulnerable groups in the country to poverty. A huge percentage of lone parents live on the margins; I do not have the figures with me but I was looking at them recently.

In her opening statement the Minister stated we must encourage people to get out and work. I do not see how lone parents will be encouraged to go out and work by the Government reducing, as it has, the amount of money they can earn while working. I certainly do not see how they can be encouraged to go out to work if they are put on jobseeker's allowance when their child reaches a certain age. Many of them take up part-time jobs which help bring them back to the workforce, but those put on jobseeker's allowance because of the change in the age of the child will not be able to work because every euro earned will be taken from their jobseeker's allowance. It is a euro for a euro means test. Rather than encouraging people-----

The Deputy might need to recheck this. I think he is wrong.

I do not think I am. I am right that people on lone parent's allowance can earn a certain amount without the allowance being affected and then the allowance is reduced in stages as the income increases. My strong impression and information is that if people in receipt of a means tested jobseeker's allowance have any outside income earnings the allowance is reduced euro for euro. There are disregards if one's spouse earns but not on one's direct income. The Civil Service officials are shaking their heads. If there is a disregard for people in receipt of jobseeker's allowance I will bet my bottom dollar it is nowhere near the disregard which applies to lone parents so the point stands.

There was a big commitment in both Government parties' election manifestoes, and in the programme for Government, to combating child poverty. I wonder how one can really combat child poverty by discouraging lone parents from going out to work, reducing child benefit, taxing maternity benefit, increasing prescription charges and drug payment scheme thresholds, abolishing the cost of education allowance, abolishing the PRSI allowance for the low paid people, and putting property tax on social welfare recipients. I do not see how one can combat child poverty in this way. I agree with Karen Kiernan, the director of One Family, who stated single parents are reeling from the cuts in the budget which saw the poorest families and children becoming ever poorer as a direct result of ill thought out changes.

There is no room there for congratulations.

I welcome the general provision in section 16, which facilitates online searching of the index of births, marriages and civil partnerships. I am not sure why it excludes adoptions and stillbirths, but I am sure there is a pretty good reason for it.

Yes, privacy. My main point is that the section arises from the Civil Registration Act 2004. The Minister will be aware that that Act was amended by the Civil Registration Act 2012. This legislation enables secular bodies to solemnise weddings legally. I recall that, at the time, Senator Bacik was involved in drafting it and the Bill was generally supported on all sides of this House. The Minister took, and got, a good deal of credit for it but the Act is not working. The Humanist Association has been in touch with me, and I am sure with others, to say that it received 600 enquiries in the first three months of this year about facilitating humanist ceremonies. The association is not able to meet the demand, however, because the General Register Office, which is to accredit people who solemnise these marriages, has so far only given one accreditation. Eleven applications have been in for months, yet only one has been given accreditation. I tabled a parliamentary question about this but it was brushed aside by the Department which said it was none of its business, but rather concerned the General Register Office. The Department of Social Protection is in charge of this, so it cannot ignore the matter by turning its back and walking away.

The latest we have been told is that there are people in the General Register Office who are worried about the notion of people making a profit out of this. If there is somebody in the General Register Office who is worried about this, they have no legal right to be worried about it. I have read and re-read the Act and there is nothing in it about being entitled to refuse people accreditation because they might get paid.

I suspect, and it has been represented to me, that there is some ideological objection in the General Register Office. Because they do not believe in the whole thing, they feel they are in a position to interfere with the democratic process to ensure a law passed, and supported on all sides of the Oireachtas, is not being implemented.

I must ask the Deputy to conclude.

I do not want to name anybody in the House. I do not use the House for naming and shaming people, but I will put people on notice that if this situation does not change very soon, I will be coming in here and naming names.

I welcome the improvements in the Bill. I deeply regret that the main challenge facing the Government has not been confronted, but it is not too late to do so on Committee and Report Stages. Unless the Minister indicates that she will change the priority listing in defined benefit pension schemes, we will oppose this Bill.

Táimid ag déileáil leis an Bhille Leasa Shóisialaigh agus Pinsean nach bhfuil mórán cosanta breise dóibh siúd atá ag brath go huile is go hiomlán ar aisíocaíochtaí as an PRSI a d'íoc siad thar na blianta, nó a d'íoc a sinsir de thairbhe ar an gcruachás ina bhfuil siad anois le cúig bliana anuas agus roinnt acu fiú roimhe sin. Tá siad sa chruachás sin de thairbhe gur theip ar an Rialtas seo agus ar an Rialtas deireanach déileáil leis an gcruachás go hiomlán sa bhealach gur chóir agus a bhí leagtha amach ag mórán daoine, go raibh a mhalairt de threo ann seachas ciorruithe i ndiaidh ciorruithe agus airgead a chur isteach sa phota mhór ina bhfuil poll ina bhonn go bhfuil sé imithe orainn.

Dá bhrí sin, agus de bhrí an chruacháis ina bhfuil níos mó is níos mó daoine gafa sa chóras leasa shóisialta, tá sé chomh híseal sin anois d'fhir agus do mhná óga nach bhfuil ach an bád bán rompu. Is trua nach bhfuilimid ag déanamh aisghairme ar an athrú a rinneadh maidir leo siúd faoi 25 agus 21 bliain d'aois atá anois ar liúntas cuardaitheora Poist nó sochar cuardaitheora poist. Sin ceann de na príomhchúiseanna go bhfuil 300,000 duine, daoine óga don chuid is mó, tar éis Éire a fhágáil. Tá na scileanna, oideachas agus fuinneamh a bhí acu caillte orainn mar thír, an áit gur chóir go mbeidís inti agus na tréithe sin in úsáid ar mhaithe leis an tír seachas tír éigin eile timpeall an domhain ag baint tairbhe as córas oideachais na hÉireann, agus nach bhfuilimid ag fáil fillte ó thaobh an infheistithe a rinne an Stát iontu le blianta.

There are some welcome provisions in this Bill, to which I will revert, and I acknowledge that progress has been made. I have been critical of most social welfare Bills since this Minister has been in office, as well as those of the previous Administration, but I welcome positive changes when they are made. On this occasion, however, I am critical of the fact that there are not enough changes. Retrograde decisions taken in the past have not been sufficiently rowed back on. It is utterly meaningless to be tinkering at the edges of the system where those in need and dependent on social welfare are concerned. We should be dealing with the problems of those in abject poverty due to the cuts in social welfare structures in recent years.

In addition, the cost of living has not dropped substantially. In fact, it is continuously rising in some respects when one takes into account the cost of rents, electricity and travel. There has been a whole range of increases, all of which target the poorest people in society. Those who have less disposable income are hit hardest by the changes and increases, many of which are within the gift of the Government to limit or control.

On top of that, there have been a series of social welfare cuts. The Minister has been at pains to claim that there have not been cuts to social welfare rates, but I have repeatedly shown that there have been such cuts. There have been quite a number in recent years, but since this Government came to office there have been some more. One of the latest cuts was to the jobseeker's benefit, for example. It is a cut if one changes the eligibility for jobseeker's benefit from 12 to nine months. At the end of that period, one goes into a means-tested jobseeker's allowance payment. A person's partner could be working, so the applicant no longer qualifies for that allowance. That amounts to a cut of three months in a person's jobseeker's benefit. Such changes may not be presented as cuts by the Minister, but the people affected know well that they are cuts.

My biggest problem with this Government is that it came into being on the back of promises it made to the electorate that it would be different. In fact, however, it has enthusiastically followed the lead that was given by the previous Government in terms of social welfare. The Government has become a cheerleader for some of those social welfare cuts.

Like other social welfare legislation before now, the Bill before us approaches matters in an ad hoc and piecemeal manner. We come across such Bills on occasion. They are tidying-up Bills which deal with miscellaneous provisions and the little bits that are missed because the social welfare code is so complex. When one change is made, sometimes there can be unforeseen consequences, some of which are reflected here today. Some of the changes are positive and welcome because they address anomalies that come to light when people engage with the system. For example, unforeseen circumstances can be spotted, so there are occasions when miscellaneous provisions Bills are welcome.

While accepting the Bill before us, I find it difficult to understand why there is such a rush. This Bill was produced a week ago, and when we return after the break, it is expected that Committee and Remaining Stages will be held on one day in the House. I have not seen anything so far that is urgent.

The people who would be affected by the changes would welcome their passage as quickly as possible, but sometimes we need to be careful we do not breach our own rules or conventions on legislative processes. Sometime we need to have the gaps between the stages to allow us to put amendments, contemplate further or get some of the information back from those who are affected. Often those in the Citizens Information Board, the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, various other groups and our clinics deal with the peculiarities of our social welfare system day in and day out and might be able to spot something that needs to be changed. That is why there are supposed to be at least two weeks between each Stage. Perhaps when the Minister is concluding she could explain the reason for the urgency. If there is urgency, so be it. Deputy O'Dea mentioned the pension changes. If there was an urgency in the pension changes then the urgency relates to the Waterford Crystal case but this Bill does not deal with that, so that urgency which sometimes pertains to court cases or court judgments does not exist in this instance. I will not labour that point.

Social welfare payments should be designed to prevent poverty and also need to be sufficient and adequate in terms of the prevailing standards and costs of living. Lately that ethos has been wholly disregarded. That argument would be made that we have to live within the confines of what we are producing but one also has to be mindful of the effects one has on the weakest and most vulnerable in society. That was a laudable proposal during the election campaign by the parties in Government, that they would protect the most vulnerable. It was in the programme for Government, but their actions afterwards undermined that provision. Perhaps now that the Minister has come back to the left and decided to embrace the fact that austerity is not working, she might be able to persuade the rest of her Cabinet that austerity is not working and cannot work.

I am working on it and have been always.

It is not fully reflected in this Bill, which is a pity because if the Minister really believes it is not working she would be introducing a Bill to repeal some of the regressive decisions which have been taken. The social welfare system is not working as a safety net because the gap between rich and poor in our society is growing. That is the gap between the lowest cohort of our society and the richest. Even at a time of recession that gap is increasing. The rich are getting richer at a time of recession. They are benefitting from the chaos and grief of others, as has always been the case. We live in hope that Governments would address that, but they have not done so.

We have been continually told about the high rates of social welfare payments to people in Ireland and we have seen comments from those who are here to dictate to us how to spend Irish taxpayers' money and run the economy. It has also been heard in this Chamber from Government spokespersons that social welfare rates are high. It is trotted out time and again. There seems to be this recurrent theme that if one says something often enough it comes true or, at the very least, will come to mean something. The high rate of payments in Ireland is not fact but merely a straw man argument in the welfare debates. One can make all the crude comparisons one wants with other states in the EU and elsewhere on social welfare payments but the payment is meaningless and the argument is meaningless if one does not have the same purchasing power as other populations for the payment one receives. That is the cost of living argument.

In Ireland the cost of living is astronomical. Children are living in poverty. I have not seen any statistic or analysis to show the cost of living in Ireland has substantially reduced to show any type of justification, if ever there is one, for social welfare cuts. Ireland's place on the list of comparisons is virtually meaningless. We should be looking at purchasing power. I would say if one examined the purchasing power of social welfare payments in Ireland compared to other EU countries we would be near the bottom, not the top. There is nothing generous, to use one of the favourite words, about the social welfare system. I have heard the Minister use the word generous about a system that allows 10% of the children in this country to go without basic provisions. That is not generous in any way.

In all the recent social welfare budgets we have seen changes to allow further clamp-down on social welfare fraud while we do not see legislation that would clamp down on white-collar fraud. Fraud, whether in banks, business or social welfare, should be pursued and I have never argued otherwise but there are degrees of effects and when one considers the effects of some of the banking scandals on Irish society, social welfare fraud is minuscule. That is not to justify it in any way, just in case somebody tries say I am doing so.

I have been an advocate of ensuring there be more social welfare inspectors to ensure there is no abuse of the system but I am concerned that once again - because this Bill was not dealing with it other than the social welfare card - the Minister's presentation announced there would be further changes and what has been termed an "expansion of the penalty rates regime for jobseeker's allowance, jobseeker's benefit and supplementary welfare allowance and a measure to enhance powers in the area of overpayments recover". I will wait and see that and we will have that debate on Committee Stage. I am not saying I am opposed to it because I have not seen it yet and sometimes it could be the practical changes that are required to give effect to some of the provisions.

We also need to be careful because we continuously see headlines that all those who were involved in overpayments were involved in fraud, because that is what the fourth estate will do. They will have their headlines such as "€600 million social welfare fraud". The figures are there, and the Minister's Department has shown them, but quite a lot of it is overpayments, some through clerical error, some through mistakes while filling out forms. It is not all fraud. Fraud is when people specifically set out to defraud the system and the Department. We need to make that distinction. Fraud is quite a low element that the Department prosecutes when it can, and it is entitled to recover all the money that has been defrauded from it whereas in terms of overpayment, the Department needs to be careful it does not drive people further into poverty by its pursuit of money it caused the person to get in the first place through it.

Hopefully we will get to address this area on Committee Stage. Of late in social welfare debates the Committee Stage is time limited and we do not get the opportunity to deal with the meat of the provisions and amendments, positive or negative from the Minister or ourselves. That is a pity. Even at this stage the indication is that we will be time-limited to deal with Committee and Report Stages of this Bill.

The Government is happy to create a picture of the deserving poor and present social provision as some kind of charity rather than an entitlement. It should not treat the social welfare system as such.

It is not a benevolent fund, or rather it is a benevolent fund that was created by the PRSI system. Those who are dependent on it now, or those who have gone before them, have paid into this fund and although it may be in deficit at present there have been times when it has been in the black. That is the nature of the social welfare fund, the ciste leasa shoisialta. People have paid in over the years on the understanding they will receive back some of their payments if the unlucky event happens and they become unemployed, sick or dependent in some way on the social welfare system. In the main they have been happy to do so.

That allows me to address one of the points made by the previous speaker in respect of PRSI payments of the self-employed. I hope there will be some type of opt-in mechanism in the next social welfare Bill to allow those who are self-employed to pay a full contribution of 14% or 15% as indicated - in one case the figure was 17%. Whatever the figure may be it should be set and people who wish to opt into this will do so on the understanding they will enjoy the same benefits received by everybody else who pays through their PRSI contribution, added to their employer's contribution. There would not then be the situation whereby many self-employed people who have fallen on hard times, whose companies or businesses have collapsed, are totally dependent on exceptional needs payments, if they are lucky enough to get that much. There should be some kind of safety net eventually, once they have sold off all their assets to justify the payment from the State. It should be established they are unemployable or cannot start up their business again in the future. That is what they must do now to avail of any type of payment.

There has been much discussion about child benefit and changes to same. I have had that discussion before with the Minister and have urged her not to make any changes. I have also questioned the contemplated changes, asking whether it was better to leave the system well enough alone as it is, in spite of the changes and cuts the Minister has already made, whether to go with the proposals contained in the Mangan report, or whether to go with the proposals on child benefit that came from the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn. I am adamant I will oppose any other cut to child benefit and I believe the public would also oppose this. The Labour Party in particular will suffer the consequences if it goes down the road of undoing further the promise it made during the election campaign not to cut child benefit. I will not dwell on that aspect of social welfare.

There are many people in extreme poverty, however, for whom this Bill will not do anything, those who find themselves with very little on which to survive. A woman telephoned my office the other day who had €80 for herself and her partner to survive on for the coming three weeks. That is not uncommon. When she had paid all her bills, the mortgage and all other outstanding matters, that is the sum she was left with as a result of the cuts to both her and her partner's wages. There was nothing there for her. She could apply to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which is running out of money because of the huge draw on its resources, or could apply for the exceptional needs payment. However, because her partner is working and that payment is means-tested it is more than likely she would not qualify for it.

Although I welcome that the Minister has seen fit to deal with one parent family payment, she will remember that when we first discussed this, after she had got rid of the existing transitional payment, we argued that this payment should have been left in place. When the change of the qualifying child went from 14 years to seven we argued the Minister needed to reverse and pull back from that change. At the time, the Minister stated there needed to be a proper system of child care in place. In her speech today, the Minister acknowledged that such a system is not yet in place and therefore she would introduce a change. Why will she not simply repeal the section which changed the age qualification for one parent families from 14 to seven years? That would be the easiest way and, at a later date, if the Minister were so minded, she could change the age back when the system of child care we all wish for - the Scandinavian model of child care - is instituted in this State. We do not have it, however, and are not likely to have it in the near future because the necessary investment does not exist. Although what the Minister proposes in this regard is welcome, it goes contrary to everything else she has stated in regard to the social welfare code. She is further complicating that code. Two years ago we had a debate about the single working age payment. At the time the ethos was being dictated by the changes being brought about in Britain and also by the troika. The response was to simplify the code but now the Minister is introducing a new social welfare payment, with all the belts and braces and whatever else attached. I reiterate this is welcome and I do not oppose it. I simply cannot figure out-----

Nobody has total wisdom on everything. I know the Deputy is an admirer of certain models but there are occasions when we can examine something in depth. The Deputy produced a report on the issue.

The Minister should not interrupt.

I did not mind the interruption. I am not being critical-----

My point is that the simple way to address the problem was to reverse the change the Minister had made in budget 2012. That would have been much simpler than putting in a complicated scheme which, I am led to believe, in some cases could end up leaving women in a worse situation than they are in at present.

The Minister has acknowledged that the comprehensive system we need is not in place. I will table an amendment to that effect and I urge the Minister to reverse the change she made in 2012. One might describe this as cover because the new scheme applies only to those who already qualify; it does not apply to anybody who has qualified for the one parent family payment since the change made in 2012. As far as I can work it out, it only goes to those already in the scheme but I will look at it further. It is a reducing number in order that this payment will disappear quickly enough unless the women concerned, who are already in payment, have more children. The payment is a reducing transitional one. I hope I am wrong and that this is not a piece of trickery.

The changes I welcome are similar to those made to jobseeker's benefit and jobseeker's allowance. I have asked the Minister to look at this issue on a number of occasions and I acknowledge she has dealt with it as it relates to the retained firefighters. That has been welcomed and we hope it will work to address a problem that had been about to cause mayhem in fire services around the country had social welfare inspectors been intent on sticking to the letter of the law, as they saw it. At least now the letter of the law will allow them to make allowance for retained firefighters. What will happen to those who were refused and have made an appeal? Will this change reinstate the payment to date from the original date of their appeal, or will they have to reapply following the passage of this Bill into law?

Other welcome changes include the provision for appeals under section 8 on the partial capacity benefit. These issues are sometimes overlooked when major changes are introduced, and an appeals procedure should have been in place from the outset. I also support the provision in section 14 to allow more organisations to use PPS numbers, but a mechanism is needed to allow the Minister, with the support of the relevant Oireachtas committee, to designate other organisations between Bills in order to avoid gaps. The Minister's decision could then be endorsed in the subsequent Social Welfare Bill. State organisations requiring access should be facilitated more speedily, albeit subject to the provisions of data protection laws. I also welcome the provisions dealing with anomalies in the civil partnership legislation.
Section 11 makes changes to the PPS card system. I am concerned to ensure provision is made for the case of somebody being unwilling or unable to sign a card. There is a certain level of functional illiteracy in this country and people may not understand what is required of them. Social welfare inspectors, MABS, citizens information offices and even the constituency clinics of Deputies and councillors could help out in such instances if the requirements were less rigid than currently proposed in the Bill.
I urge the Minister to bring forward proposals to address the pensions issue. Tá fadhb mhór againn maidir le pinsin. Fáiltím roimh na hathruithe atá sa Bhille seo. Níl mórán i gceist, cupla mionathruithe ó thaobh teideal, coistí agus a leithéad. Níl siad ró-theicniúil agus déanfaimid déileáil leo níos mó i gcoiste, b'fhéidir. Tá gá orainn féachaint ar na hathruithe móra go gcaithfimid a dhéanamh de thairbhe an chás cúirte le déanaí maidir le Criostal Port Láirge. Muna ndéanaimid é sin, beidh costas mór ar gach duine sa Stát, mar tá a lán daoine atá tar éis íoc isteach i scéimeanna pinsin thar na blianta agus ata ag brath ar na pinsin sin. Muna dtagann siad, beidh costas níos mó ar an Stát in aon chaoi mar beidh siad ag féachaint don Stát an difríocht sna pinsin a dhéanamh. Tá daoine tar éis infheistiú i gciste pinsin agus tá an cuma ar dóibh siúd a bhfuil ag teacht gar d'aois phinsin nach mbeidh na pinsin ann dóibh nó ar a laghad go mbeidh siad íslithe go mór. Tá géarghá déileáil le seo. Tá súil agam go gcuideoidh na hathruithe atá sa Bhille leis an mBille eile, nuair a thagann sé, a chur i bhfeidhm chomh tapaidh agus is féidir ionas gur féidir linn déileáil leis an fhadhb mór pinsin sa tír seo.
Is trua nach bhfuil aon athrú mór sa Bhille seo maidir le JobBridge. I have argued on previous occasions that we need to change the JobBridge scheme to prevent displacement and ensure it is a proper internship scheme which is likely to lead to job placements for participants rather than providing cheap or free labour. Given what we have learned this week, I suggest that internships in crèches should be additional to their full complement of staff. The 35 intern positions in child care facilities advertised on the JobBridge site should not be counted as part of core staff. The individuals concerned will be learning new skills.

Approximately 1,700 people are involved in child care through community employment schemes. I know parents are worried but that should be acknowledged. Deputies will be familiar with the high standards applying to community employment schemes and the programme of education provided to participants. A significant number of people are working very hard in the community sector.

I acknowledge that the Minister changed the community employment schemes to ensure those who worked in community crèches received a full training programme. However, whether fully trained or interns, they should not be used or abused. There must be the possibility of a job at the end of these schemes.

This Bill contains several positive measures. I welcome the overdue recognition of the important role played by retained firefighters and their exclusion from certain conditions of the jobseeker's allowance. I also welcome the rationalisation of the regulation of pensions. The establishment of the new pensions council appears a particularly positive development, although we will have to see how it works out. The council will have greater involvement from consumers, and people who were previously paid will be replaced by volunteers. I have no major objection to identity cards. I am neutral on them, although I will not say I welcome them.

It is positive that the Minister acknowledged the need to undo the damage wrought by cuts to lone parent payments. She is now attempting to address this issue with the jobseeker's transitional payment and the changes to family income supplement. Problems remain with the system but the Government has at least recognised the hardship created for lone parents by previous budgets. Credit where credit is due; the Minister listened to the concerns expressed on this side of the House and, more important, by groups like SPARK and One Family, which have appointed people representing lone parents to speak on these issues.

Before I deal with the details of the Bill, I want to discuss three issues in regard to what is in the Bill, what is not in it and what might be in it.

I will first respond briefly to some of the general comments the Minister made. I welcome her statement that we need to look beyond austerity. Her words echo statements made in recent weeks by senior figures in the European Union and reflect a long overdue acknowledgement that the disastrous policy pursued for the past five years by this Government, the previous Fianna Fáil-led Government, the European Central Bank, the European Commission and governments across Europe has failed. It is now recognised that we cannot resolve the current crisis through a policy of crippling austerity that is aimed primarily at forcing the cost of the bank bailout onto ordinary citizens and must instead move in a different direction. The trick, however, in moving beyond austerity, is to make the shift from words to deeds. As the Minister pointed out when she discussed her brief, there is something of a contradiction between saying we need to move beyond austerity and continuing to adhere to the debt and deficit targets the troika has imposed on us and which require her to impose further cuts in the forthcoming budget.

I note the European Commission stated this morning that the Government must not waver from its commitment to remove a further €5 billion from the economy in the next two years. To date, the Government has made clear it will not waver from this commitment. I shudder to think what this means. Whether one believes, as the Minister does, that the adjustments and cuts that have been imposed over the past five years are necessary or whether one believes, as I do, that they are unnecessary and wrong, we all accept they have been cruel and have caused hurt and suffering. People are close to the end of their tether in terms of the cuts in income they can endure. I suspect that people across society, especially the vulnerable who depend on social welfare payments, shudder to think where the Government will find further savings in the forthcoming budget beyond what is in the Bill. I do not know how the Government will find the savings without causing suffering to people who have suffered enough. It is contradictory to state that austerity has ended and we need to move beyond it while at the same time recommitting oneself to imposing cuts of billions of euro in the forthcoming budget.

I note the Minister's statement that the Government's key commitment is to jobs. We all agree that growth and jobs offer the way out of the contradiction between the desire to move beyond austerity and demands to meet debt and deficit targets. It is, however, difficult to reconcile these two imperatives. I do not see how one can take a further €5 billion out of the economy without causing further job losses. I hope the Government is not impressed by figures showing that unemployment has declined from 14.6% to 13.7% since the Government came to office. Many of the jobs lost during the period in question were full-time, permanent positions, including in the public sector, which have been replaced by part-time jobs. Moreover, the decline in the unemployment rate can almost certainly be explained by the high level of emigration during the period in question. The reality, therefore, is that little of substance is taking place in the area of job creation.

In setting out her commitment to job creation, the Minister cited a figure of €1 billion to be spent on education and training. This funding is welcome and desperately needed as we try to reposition and reorient the economy and encourage the unemployed to prepare for the new work opportunities we hope will materialise, even if there are few signs that this is happening. I note in passing that there is also a contradiction between making a commitment to re-education and training in one area, and I accept the Department of Social Protection is spending money in this area, when cuts being imposed by the Department of Education and Skills in the further education sector will significantly and adversely impact on the training and education available to the very groups on which we know we must focus if we are to help them out of unemployment. Further education, as we know, is the sector that caters most for people in disadvantaged areas who are unable to access or do as well in the mainstream education system. It has done well in filling a gap through the provision of education and training to sections of the population which have not prospered in the mainstream education system. However, the sector is under attack and its educational offering will be significantly reduced as a result of the decision to increase the pupil-staff ratio in further education colleges. It is campaigning hard against retrograde cuts which will undermine the critical imperative to provide education and training to people who need it if they are to get out of the unemployment disaster that has struck us.

It is unfortunate that the Minister continues to repeat the claim that the Government has not touched core social welfare rates. Let us at least be honest about what has taken place. Everybody who receives a social welfare payment has taken a significant hit in recent years arising from the budget cuts the Government has imposed. Playing around with semantics about core social welfare rates is disingenuous. Cuts to the rent and fuel allowances, lone parent payment, child benefit, school clothing and respite care grants and many other payments have caused suffering and constitute real cuts in the income on which some of the vulnerable sections of society must live. The Department acknowledges this in its assessment of the main welfare and taxation measures in the 2013 budget. According to the document, which is published on the Department's website: "Households worst affected by the measures are those with children, in particular lone parent families." The Department acknowledges that the most vulnerable sections of society have been adversely affected by the social welfare cuts it has imposed.

I propose to raise an issue that should be addressed in the Bill. The Minister may not be aware of it as I have not raised it previously. A couple in my constituency contacted me recently to discuss a decision to reduce significantly their jobseeker's payments.

This decision was taken after the Department of Social Protection inquired as to how this man and his wife are paying their mortgage, which is currently in distress. The man had been working but, like many others, he lost his job and could not afford to pay his mortgage. When asked how he was meeting his mortgage repayments, he openly and honestly replied that his children had loaned him some money in order that he might try to do so. He also informed the Department that he is attempting to obtain employment on a daily basis and that in the meantime - and because he does not want to fall behind with his repayments - his children, who are working, have agreed to lend him some money in order to pay off the mortgage. When this emerged, the Department cut his and his wife's payments by €65 per week. This was in direct proportion to the amount of assistance they received from their children, which is disgraceful.

If one cannot pay one's mortgage and one approaches the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for and receives financial assistance, this is not taken into account by the Department. However, because one's children help one out of a hole, one is penalised. This is not extra income one is hiding or using in order to lead a better life, it is, rather, money one is using to pay off one's mortgage rather than allowing it to fall further into distress. If people cannot repay their mortgages, there are consequences for the banks and, ultimately, the taxpayer. This is a matter to which the Minister should give consideration because what happened in this instance was unfair.

Perhaps the Deputy might give us the details relating to the case and we will examine the position. I do not want to comment on a case with which I am not familiar.

I will do so. I wanted to draw the matter to the Minister's attention because I am of the view that the way these people were treated was grossly unfair. I suspect that if it happened once, then it is probably occurring on a wider basis.

In the context of the jobseeker's transitional payment, it is positive that the Minister has addressed a major problem which arose on foot of the fact that people cannot obtain the lone-parent or one-parent family payments when their children reach the age of seven. However, there is a problem with her assertion to the effect that she wants to provide people with incentives to return to work in order that they will not be dependent on social welfare payments. Let us start with the facts. When income disregards were initially introduced in respect of lone parents, the latter took them up in droves. The number of lone parents who were working when those disregards were first introduced stood at 58%. This meant that the belief that lone parents do not work because they can depend on the lone-parent payment was simply not true. When they were given incentives to work, these people took them up as a result of the introduction of income disregards. Under the Bill, however, when lone parents whose children reach the age of eight move onto the jobseeker's transitional payment, they are going to lose out if they are working. Those who are in jobs in respect of which they earn €200 per week will lose out to the tune of €39 each week as a result of the fact that the income disregard which applies is significantly less. Initially the disregard was €149 under the lone parents scheme. It then decreased to €110. Under the jobseeker's transitional payment scheme it has fallen to €60. As a result, lone parents who are working on a part-time basis are going to take a major hit. What is proposed is going to act as a significant disincentive for lone parents to work at a time when the Minister and the Government claim they want to incentivise those people to work.

The matter to which I refer must be addressed, otherwise what the Minister is doing will be a retrograde step not only in terms of people's incomes but also in the context of being a disincentive to work. This is against the background of the EU-SILC report on deprivation showing that the level of deprivation among the general public in this country is 24%, that it is 42% among the unemployed and that it stands at 56% among lone parents. It is clear that lone parents suffer disproportionately from deprivation. We had in place a scheme of incentives to get people back into employment that was working but now we are moving in a retrograde direction. I ask the Minister to give serious consideration to this matter. There should be no disincentives for lone parents and nor should there be any further attacks on their incomes.

My final point relates to pensions. There is significant disappointment regarding the fact that the Minister has not addressed the order of priority in respect of pensions, particularly in view of the fact that four out of five defined benefit pension schemes here are in serious trouble. As long ago as 2011, she acknowledged that something needs to be done in respect of this matter. She promised that legislation would be brought forward but she is now using the judgment handed down by the European Court of Justice in the Waterford Crystal case as an excuse to, yet again, place this matter on the long finger. As already stated, I welcome the fact that an attempt is being made to rationalise, restructure and reform pensions regulation. However, the Minister has not dealt with this critical issue which has given rise to cases such as those relating to Waterford Crystal, the Abbey Theatre, etc. The entitlements of thousands of pensioners are under serious threat. Not including a provision in respect of this matter is a major omission. It should be addressed in this Bill.

There is no doubt that the Minister talks the talk but she does not walk the walk. The Bill contains only a few minor positives. It is part of an overall policy of austerity, of making cuts and of forcing middle and lower-income families to pay for a recession which they had absolutely no hand, act or part in creating. The previous Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government began the destruction of the social welfare system in this country by launching a direct attack on rates of payment. The current Administration has continued that attack but has done so in a much more subtle, devious and underhanded way by introducing cuts and changes to eligibility across the board.

Since she came to office, the Minister has introduced what I call the "dirty baker's dozen of cuts". She has presided over cuts to child benefit, household benefit, the fuel allowance and jobseeker's allowance; changes to the contributory payments for pensions - these affect women to a much greater extent because many of them were obliged to leave work in order to raise families; cuts to carer's allowance, farm assist payments, the back to education allowance and exceptional needs payments - which hardly exist anymore; an increase in the age eligibility criteria relating to State pensions; the taxation of maternity benefit; and huge cuts to one-parent family payments and rent allowance. The effect of these and of extracting in the region of €28 billion from the economy in recent years - a huge chunk of which came from the Department of Social Protection - has given rise to poverty rates increasing month on month and year on year. There have been significant increases in both consistent and relative rates of poverty. In addition, there has been a huge increase in the rate of child poverty. These are the effects of the cuts introduced by the Department of Social Protection.

There are alternatives and the Government has choices. However, the Government has no mandate in respect of the cuts it continues to introduce. The cuts to which I refer run completely contrary to the promises and commitments those now in Government made in the 2011 general election campaign. The Labour Party stated that things would be done its way and not Frankfurt's way and that it would protect the vulnerable. It also stated that there would be no more money for the banks, that bondholders would be burned and that ordinary men and women would be protected. The opposite has, in fact, proven to be the case. As stated, there are alternatives. There are people in this country who possess significant wealth. The Minister for Finance informed me a month ago that the top 20,000 earners in Ireland have incomes amounting to €7.42 billion. This means that they each take in €371,000 per annum. The wealthiest 5% of people here have personal assets worth of the order of €239 billion. In the past two years, the richest 300 individuals in this country have increased their assets by €5.5 billion.

Debate adjourned.
Sitting suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.
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