Léim ar aghaidh chuig an bpríomhábhar
Gnáthamharc

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 23 Jun 2015

Vol. 883 No. 3

Leaders' Questions

From July 2015, lone parents with children aged seven and older will no longer be entitled to the one-parent family payment. This has become known as the Burton cut but, more than that, it is a brutal cut that will plunge thousands more children into consistent poverty, on top of all the other cuts that have affected lone parent families. Up to 30,000 lone parent families will be affected by this particular move. Thousands of those will have severe income reductions as a result, with some losing up to €140 a week. Others, for example, a lone parent working 20 hours a week on a minimum wage, will face a cut of €108 a week.

I do not understand how the Government can even contemplate introducing such a measure at the end of this month. The Taoiseach would know, and Fintan O'Toole put it very well in his article this morning in The Irish Times, that "A lone parent can't ditch a child and go off to work without access to education, childcare and a stable job with a living wage". This cut comes on top of a series of welfare cuts that have affected families, low-income families in particular, and lone parent families. The back to school allowance was cut by one third. The income disregard for lone parent families was cut by €147 a week to €90 a week. Community employment schemes, which were availed of significantly by lone parent families, have been gutted. There have been taxation changes that have impacted particularly hard on separated and lone parent families. The issue of access to education has not improved, and we have no Scandinavian child care model. The result of all of that is that consistent child poverty increased from approximately 6.8% in 2008 to almost double that percentage, 12%, in 2013.

The policy is not working. It is not getting lone parents back to work. It is having the opposite impact and it is driving people further out of work and into poverty. Some 60% of lone parents who were getting the one-parent family payment were working part-time outside the home in 2012. In 2014, that had gone down to 36%. My simple question to the Taoiseach is will the Government will reverse this policy and stop its implementation at the commencement of July?

It is not intended to reverse it, and I will explain to Deputy Martin why. The Government has a particular programme to make work pay. We cannot allow a situation, in an economy that is recovering like ours, which bypasses thousands of households that are locked into joblessness. That has been one of the real difficulties for so many families. Jobless households with children are at particular risk of perpetuating a cycle of poverty that goes on from generation to generation.

That is absolute rubbish. They are working mothers.

The purpose of the phased scheme is to reduce long-term social welfare dependency, an aim with which I am sure Deputy Martin agrees.

From when this scheme was introduced back in 1997 until the end of 2010, recipient numbers increased by 50% and annual expenditure increased by €772 million every year. Despite the significant levels of investment - in excess of €1 billion per annum from 2009 to 2012 - it has not been successful in preventing lone parents from being significantly more at risk of consistent poverty compared to the population as a whole. In 2004, lone parents were at more than 4.5 times greater risk of consistent poverty when compared with the remainder of the population. That is not something we can stand over.

The Government will make them poorer.

It is outrageous.

Prior to the reforms, lone parents could have been on the scheme until their youngest child turned 18 years of age, or 22 if the child was in full-time education. The non-conditional nature of the payment, coupled with its very long duration, consigned many lone parents and their children to long-term dependency on welfare, which is not a good position to be in.

Ireland's supports for lone parents have been out of line with international norms, under which there has been a movement away from long-term and non-conditional support towards a much more supportive approach. In New Zealand and the Netherlands, for instance, the equivalent lone parent supports cease when the youngest child reaches the age of five years.

They probably have child care, though.

They have child care.

The evidence clearly indicates that, despite the investment, the scheme was not successful in addressing the risk of poverty and may have been contributing to the welfare dependency trap for many of those people. It is anticipated that approximately 30,200 recipients will transition out of this payment on 2 July 2015.

Then they will be a lot poorer.

Of these, 20,000 parents will experience no change in income or will gain after the transition. The gain for individuals will be in the range of €10 to €150 per week, depending on their level of earnings and the number of children they have. The remaining 10,000 who are in employment will, based on their current circumstances, have an incentive to increase the number of hours they work.

That is the lingo.

They should demand that their employers give them more hours.

Who is going to mind the kids?

Of these 10,000, approximately 6,000 lone parents will have an immediate incentive to increase the number of hours they work to 19 in order to claim family income supplement and the back-to-work family dividend.

It is just about choice, is it?

These individuals will be better off financially than they are in their current position. Many parents in this position will be able to increase their hours to 19 per week or four per day, given that their youngest children will still be at school.

This is better than a script of Oliver Callan's.

The positive impact has been evident from the increase in the number of new family income supplement applications from lone parents who were affected by these reforms in July 2013 and July 2014. The incentive is there to reach a point at which they can draw down the family income supplement and be better off than they are in their current position.

They are not automatically entitled to the family income supplement.

They should be thrilled.

Approximately 20,000 will either have no change or be better off, and the remaining 10,000 will have an incentive to increase their income and increase the number of hours they work in order to be eligible for family income supplement or the back-to-work dividend, and therefore be better off.

That is not correct.

Wealthy men in suits are ordering working mothers.

Would Deputy Coppinger ever stay quiet, please? It is Deputy Micheál Martin's question.

The Taoiseach should put aside those written notes that someone gives to him to read out in answer to Leaders' Questions. He should go out and meet the people who are affected. The Taoiseach is out of touch and completely detached from the reality on the ground. The policy is not working. In 2012, 60% of lone parents on the one-parent family payment were actually at work outside the home. In 2014, the figure is 36%. It is counterintuitive, as those who are actually at work are losing the most out of this. They are being absolutely hammered as a result of this measure.

I put it to the Taoiseach that, not so long ago, the Tánaiste, Deputy Burton, said:

I will only proceed with the measures to reduce the upper age limit to seven years in the event that I get a credible and bankable commitment on the delivery of such a system of child care enjoyed by the Scandinavians by the time of this year's budget. If this is not forthcoming, the measure will not proceed.

Recently in the Dáil, when Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Tánaiste about this commitment she made, she replied, "[T]he delivery and expansion of child care services is the responsibility of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs." I know I cannot use the word "lie", but I will use the phrase "broken promise". Was that not a basic untruth? Would the Taoiseach accept that the Tánaiste has reneged on a cast-iron commitment that she gave to the Dáil, the public and the various lone parent family organisations that she would not introduce the measure she is introducing in a couple of weeks unless there was a Scandinavian-type child care model? We know we do not have that. Is that not a broken promise? Does the Taoiseach accept that the Tánaiste has reneged on her commitment and that the policy is clearly not working?

I cannot believe that the leader of the Fianna Fáil party, who has had long experience in politics, is content to leave many lone parents wallowing in a poverty trap.

They are working.

They have an incentive to get out of the trap and be better off under the new transition arrangements.

How dare the Taoiseach say that?

Why are we not out on the street celebrating?

It is normal basic manners for Deputy Coppinger to allow the person who was asked the question to reply. It is not Deputy Coppinger's question, and I ask her to please stay quiet.

The position is that 30,200 people will be affected by the transition. Deputy Martin says the policy is not working, and it is not, because people are locked into a poverty trap. The opportunity for them is to get out of that poverty trap, increase their benefit and incomes and have a better life.

The Government is preventing them from doing that.

As I said, 20,000 will experience no change or will be better off. The remaining 10,000 have the opportunity to work more hours and be eligible to draw either the family income supplement or the back-to-work dividend. That is a fact. An example of the kind of gain that can be had here is a lone parent with one child who increases her work from 15 to 20 hours per week at the national minimum wage, which the Government is now examining in terms of a report.

Where is she going to get the extra five hours?

If she claims family income supplement for the first time, she will be €38 better off. Is Deputy Martin seriously saying to that lone parent that she can be better off but he will not allow her to do that?

Her child is running around the streets and she is looking for the five hours.

Work is not demand-led. Nobody knocks on their employer's door and says, "I am going to work for an extra four hours next week."

She may also be entitled to claim the back-to-work family dividend for each additional child she has, increasing her income by a further €30 per week per child, so that is almost €68 a week in total where the lone parent has one child.

We are in low-hours contract zones. Whatever bean counter put that together, the Taoiseach should sit him down again.

What about child care?

That is an absolute example of how a lone parent with one child can be €68 better off than the current position. If Deputy Martin does not believe that, he should go and talk to them, because I do.

I have talked to people. That is the point. The Taoiseach should go to the family resource centres, community centres and community employment schemes. They will tell him. Lone parents are being targeted deliberately.

That is why we need an incentive for people who are locked into a welfare trap, generation after generation, to get out of that and have the opportunity to earn more, provide more for their families and so be better off. These are facts.

They are harrowing facts for the people affected.

I thank Deputy Dooley.

The Taoiseach is welcome.

I appreciate that.

In 2012, a very harrowing report by the independent child death review group, which documented the deaths of 196 children in State care, deeply shocked many citizens. The report's conclusions were a serious indictment of child protection systems and maintained that the State had abdicated its duty in respect of some young people and failed to provide adequate child protection support. The Taoiseach will recall that key recommendations of the report included independent reviews into the deaths of ten children and for aftercare to be put on a statutory footing.

Three years later, only one of these recommendations has been implemented. The result is that some young people in State care are now being left without adequate support when they turn 18 and these young people are being exposed to exploitation and violence.

When the report of the independent child death review group was first published, the Taoiseach said it detailed a litany of shame. The then Minister for Children and Youth Affairs described it as harrowing and promised that an implementation plan would be developed, but it never was. Is the Government's failure over the course of three years to implement the findings of this most shocking report not an indictment of the Government's record in protecting the most vulnerable of our young citizens who are in the care of the State?

As the Deputy knows, the Government and the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs have set up the Child and Family Agency, Tusla, which is very well funded. The Minister is acutely aware of the nature of the difficulties and challenges that face many children who are in difficult and vulnerable positions. Clearly, this is an issue that he has worked on, and he is making preparations in respect of the discussions that will take place prior to the budget in October. I accept that not all of the recommendations on the litany of issues that were raised in the report have been implemented. The Minister has prepared his report and, hopefully, the discussions he is to have in the period ahead will lead to some improvement in that situation, which I agree is not satisfactory.

As the Taoiseach said, Tusla was established to improve children's services. He said it was well funded, yet Tusla recently cut funding to Rape Crisis Network Ireland and women's centres and said that part of its problem was that it did not have the funding.

The Irish Times has a report today about a HIQA review of Tusla inspections last year, and I have read the executive summary of this review. HIQA found inconsistencies in the safety and quality of children's services and said that this caused major concern. It also found significant delays in assessing the needs of children and families where there were reports of suspected abuse or neglect. There was evidence that children at risk of harm did not have timely access to social workers or vital supports, and others who are dealing with children, including teachers, have told me they have the same difficulty in getting timely access to social workers or vital supports. The Taoiseach should read the report, or at least the executive summary. HIQA says it is concerned that management systems may not be adequate to provide consistently safe services. Some services cannot meet the needs of children with challenging behaviour and, as a result, HIQA is to commence a review of Tusla's governance arrangements in 2015, which I very much welcome.

The question is what the Government is doing. It has failed to implement key recommendations of the independent child death review in 2012, a point the Taoiseach did not respond to in his earlier reply. Now, HIQA is so concerned about governance arrangements in Tusla, the very body that was set up following the scandal of the deaths of so many young people in care, that it is to commence a review of these arrangements. Does this not call into question the Government's child service strategy, including the funding of services? Would the Taoiseach not recognise this as a crisis and explain how he proposes to deal with this crisis?

As the Deputy is aware, the independent child death review group was set up back in March 2010 following the deaths of two children. It made 25 recommendations and, obviously, it is the intention of Government to see that those are implemented.

In the first instance, Tusla, the dedicated Child and Family Agency, has been established. It is chaired by one of the authors of the report, as the Deputy knows. Some key reforms that are being implemented as part of that work include the national service delivery framework and national policy guidelines across a range of areas such as welfare, protection and alternative care. They also include the development of the child protection notification system to secure the safety of children at risk from harm by improving communication and information sharing. There is much greater emphasis on early intervention and prevention, and work is being done through the roll-out of the Meitheal model, the prevention partnership and the family support programme, as well as a dedicated aftercare service to standardise the delivery of leaving and aftercare services. As promised, the Children First Bill has been published. It was recently strengthened and clarified in regard to some of the recommendations-----

It was watered down.

-----and it is currently before the Oireachtas being debated, as the Deputy is aware. A Bill to provide a statutory right to an aftercare plan is currently being drafted and will be published shortly. Since the publication of the review group's report, HIQA has continued its work in reviewing both fostering and child protection and welfare services, and is supporting the aim of continuously improving these. Finally, following the publication of the review group's report, the national panel process for the review of child deaths has been greatly strengthened. Guidance for the national panel review was revised and published last year. HIQA now has a very specific oversight role in auditing the independence of that panel, and the panel reports directly to the board of Tusla under the new arrangements. These are some of the areas of work that are currently under way following that.

Greece is in a state of humanitarian and economic catastrophe. It is in that state because of the austerity imposed by the troika and implemented by New Democracy and PASOK. Wages have fallen by 37%, public sector employment by over 25% and pensions by almost 50%. The result is an explosion of homelessness, unemployment, suicide, poverty and misery for the Greek people, and an economy that has shrunk by almost a third.

The purpose of this austerity, like our own, was to bail out German and French banks. Of all of the so-called bailout funds that went into Greece, less than 10% has gone into the Greek economy. It is for that reason that the Greek debt truth committee, set up by the Greek Parliament, has found the debt to the troika to be illegal, illegitimate and odious. In response, Syriza was elected to tackle the humanitarian crisis, to end austerity and to demand a debt write-down. The response from the EU authorities has been to try to strangle at birth the hopes of a different Europe, of a Europe that would not be run for the millionaires but instead would be run for the millions. The democratic wishes of the Greek people, expressed in an election, have been casually tossed aside by those authorities.

A key player in this has been the unelected, unaccountable European Central Bank, which previously held a gun to the head of the Irish Government, demanding that we go into a bailout and that bondholders not be burned. It has a noose around the neck of the Greek economy in the form of restricted access to ECB funding for Greek banks, and it is using that noose to threaten the collapse of the Greek banks in order to demand the humiliation of the Greek Government.

A question, please.

What did the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, say about this noose yesterday? He lined up with the German Minister for Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, and said, "Tighten the noose."

The Deputy is over time.

He said, "Tighten the noose. Don't give them any more money. Demand their humiliation." Is that the Government position? He stabbed the Greek people in the chest and, in so doing, he stabbed the Irish people in the back. Would the Taoiseach agree that he and his Government are putting their own party interests - the same party as Merkel, as Juncker, as Samaras, as Rajoy - ahead of the interests of the people in this country, or anywhere else in Europe, that he is against debt write-down for the Greeks, that he is against an end to austerity for the Greeks-----

Sorry, Deputy. You are way over time.

That is not because it is not in the interest of people in this country, but because it would not be in the interest of his party, whereas we, on the contrary - the 99% in this country - share the same interest as the 99% in Greece in debt write-down and an end to austerity.

I reject the Deputy's speculative comments on leaks from the Eurogroup. The Minister for Finance has been consistently very clear in his support for growth-related proposals from Greece. I attended the meeting last night with the Prime Minister and other leaders from the eurozone countries. The feeling at the meeting was unanimous that there should not be, under any circumstances, an exit by Greece from the eurozone. Leaders, as they have done previously, were very clear in their support, encouragement and assistance for the Greek Prime Minister and his Government.

The Prime Minister spoke very positively about the current situation and said the new proposals on the table from Greece went very much in the right direction towards meeting the principles, objectives and targets set by the institutions. Clearly, there is a gap between them at the moment but the Prime Minister was very clear that it is his intention to be able to come to a conclusion on these negotiations this week so that the matter can be dealt with and Greece can continue to be a strong member of the eurozone. He referred to pensions, early retirement, reduction of debt and the issues his Government had put on the table. The institutions responded to that in a way that today and tonight, in respect of the both the principals of the institutions and two Government Ministers from Greece, conference calls, as necessary, be put in place so that discussions can conclude on this matter.

The outcome of this has to be fair, make economic sense and be sustainable from a financial point of view. The Prime Minister was very clear that he wants his country to be able to pay its way and contribute but under no circumstances to leave the eurozone. The Deputy wants to continue speculating, which is his prerogative. I will give him a direct report from the meeting of all of the leaders of the countries in the eurozone, including the contribution from the Prime Minister of Greece and his summing up afterwards. Everybody hopes that this matter can be dealt with by the weekend.

The Taoiseach referred to speculative comments. I will quote from the Financial Times, which stated: "Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble and Michael Noonan, his Irish counterpart, pushed for curbs on emergency liquidity for Greek banks unless capital controls were imposed, one of the officials said." Translated, that means: "Tighten the noose. Make them scream. Bring them to their knees. Humiliate them." I ask the Taoiseach to conform to what he said a couple of weeks ago, that is, answering questions fully and completely. Is that the position of the Irish Government? It is attempting to put pressure on the ECB, a supposedly independent institution, to squeeze the Greeks further in order to pressurise them into doing a deal which is not one they want to do.

I remind the Taoiseach of June 2012 when he and the then Tánaiste, like Chamberlain declaring, "Peace in our time", announced there had been a seismic shift and that we would get a deal on debt. That has since been quietly shelved and instead the Irish Government, along with Germany, has joined the chorus that there will be no debt write-offs. It is in the interests of working people, the majority in this country, that Greece gets a debt write-down and that we join with the Greeks and demand a debt write-down for all of the unsustainable debt. Why does the Taoiseach persist in backing the Angela Merkel pro-austerity line so he can get a few more pats on the head?

I again reject the Deputy's assertions regarding any comments made by the Minister for Finance at the Eurogroup meeting.

So he did not say that.

One should not believe everything one reads in the Financial Times. That is the message. The ECB is completely independent of Governments. It has given €87 billion in emergency liquidity to Greece. Mr. Draghi said given its independence, because it is a eurozone, ELA has been continued on the assumption that negotiations would conclude and a deal can be done. That is why, as the programme ends this weekend, it is very important that the principals of the institutions discuss in a rational way with the representatives of the Government of Greece the conclusion that is necessary.

The Prime Minister said not everything about his Government is absolutely positive. He said his Government is in a position to achieve social consent, which is an important element given that the consequences of a collapse could be very serious. I do not expect that to happen. All of the leaders at the meeting were unanimous in that regard. I expect there will be another meeting of the Eurogroup Ministers for Finance tomorrow evening, which may go on for some time, and there is a European Council meeting on Thursday and Friday. It may not be necessary to get that far but when arrangements like this are put in place, they have to be endorsed by, for example, the Parliaments of Finland-----

Is there any chance the Taoiseach could answer the question?

-----the Netherlands or Germany. There is, therefore, a need to structure things in a way that will allow for the bailout and bailout programme to end positively. I hope the discussions that take place with the institutions and Government of Greece can have a positive outcome.

The Prime Minister has been elected and has a mandate from his Government. Like all of these things, this requires discussion and negotiation. We hope, in everybody's interests, that can be concluded positively.

Barr
Roinn