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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 31 May 2017

Vol. 953 No. 1

Priority Questions

Social Welfare Fraud Cost

Willie O'Dea

Question:

26. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Social Protection the way in which the figure of €506 million given in the "welfare cheats cheat us all" campaign is calculated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26051/17]

In tabling this question I wish to make it very clear that I fully support the hardest possible line being taken against social welfare fraud, a particularly despicable form of crime. However, I am somewhat confused about what the anti-fraud campaign seeks to achieve and how it will achieve it, hence my question.

My Department has compiled and published data and reports on its control, compliance and anti-fraud work annually for a number of years. The calculations used are well grounded and underpinned by a recognised methodology. They are a performance management metric used to monitor the progress of control, compliance and anti-fraud work in my Department. The overall metric consists of overpayments and savings that arise from internally initiated reviews and investigation activity.

The total value of control and anti-fraud savings recorded by my Department in 2016 was €506 million. This figure represents the outcome of nearly 950,000 reviews and investigations undertaken by my officials across the board of schemes and programmes. Such savings will only be recorded in cases where a social welfare claim is reduced in value or terminated following a review or investigation initiated by the Department. The basis of the savings calculated is scheme-specific. The nature of the scheme is taken into account, in particular whether it is short-term - for example, jobseeker's benefit or supplementary welfare allowance - or more long-term such as the State pension. This takes into account the length of time a person who has a claim reduced or terminated is expected to remain off a particular scheme or at the reduced rate of payment. The multipliers used in these calculations are based on observed behaviour and historical data for claims. If there is a reduction in the value of the payment or if the payment is terminated, the sum overpaid is calculated and put to the claimant and, if accepted, recovery actions commence soon after. As for future payments, only the difference between the current value and the previous value is counted. This difference or the full value if the payment is terminated, together with the expected number of weeks a person remains off a payment, is used as the basis for the calculation of the savings achieved for the future. As I have outlined, the number of weeks varies between long and short-term schemes. If a person disagrees with our decision, he or she can seek an appeal to the social welfare appeals office. Only the final outcome is considered.

The methodology has been developed by my Department with support from the Central Statistics Office and is based on similar methodologies used in a number of countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia. It is kept under review to reflect the changes in claim patterns. The Department will examine the methodology in the context of renewing the compliance and anti-fraud strategy 2014 to 2018.

In a previous written reply the Minister told me that the breakdown was between overpayments and pure fraud necessitating a prosecution and that the figure attributable to pure fraud was €41 million out of the sum of €506 million. I have some concerns about the nature of the anti-fraud campaign and the follow-up which we will discuss tomorrow at the social welfare committee, particularly the publicising of lists. I do not know how this will prevent future potential social welfare fraudsters. A comparison has been made between the proposed list and the Revenue list, but there is a fundamental difference between the two. Most Revenue defaulters do not go through the courts; there is a settlement with the Revenue Commissioners. If the list is not published, people will never know that the settlement took place. In the case of social welfare fraudsters, people are invariably prosecuted and their cases go through the courts. The courts are public and, as the Minister will be aware, cases are always widely publicised at national level and receive much publicity at local level. There are many other criminal activities such as murder, fraud unrelated to social welfare payments, armed robbery, etc. When these cases take place, they are all publicised, but if subsequent publicisation would deter people from committing such crimes in the future, perhaps it is a system we might use across the board.

As the Deputy knows, we will have a chance to discuss this issue tomorrow at the committee. I do not disagree with him. If publicised lists make sense in dealing with this type of fraud and crime, why would it not also make sense in dealing with others? This campaign and the additional measures we propose to take are all designed to deter people from engaging in welfare fraud in the first place. To clarify some numbers that I know are in the public domain - I have seen them carried in some of the newspapers and online - the figures given by my Department for suspected identity fraud were not correct. I see some coverage in the newspapers today suggesting there has been only one case of suspected identity fraud this year. That is not the case. In fact, there have been 11 such cases. There were 46 last year, 54 the year before and 29 the year before that.

The figures came from the Minister's Department.

Yes, I accept that. My Department gave inaccurate figures. The level of suspected identity fraud is, in fact, 11 times higher than the figures we incorrectly gave to the House the other day. I will give them again. There have been 11 cases so far this year. There were 46 last year, 54 the year before and 29 the year before that, which gives a total of 140 in the past three and a half years. Identity fraud is one of the less common forms of attempted fraud. It is much less common than working and claiming, for example.

The ministerial brief which the Minister received on his accession to office and which was shared with the rest of us details seven full pages of anti-fraud control measures in which the Department is engaged. It also gives us the interesting figure that more than 1,000 staff in the Department are employed directly in the control area and that 1.1 million reviews took place last year. Therefore, there is much ongoing activity. As I said, I will return to the matter with the Minister's officials tomorrow when we debate this section. The idea is to publish the list within three months after the end of the quarter in which the offence is successfully prosecuted and the offender convicted. What is there to prevent others from using the list and consistently publishing and republishing it constantly? Can the Minister give us any guarantee in that regard?

What we will discuss tomorrow are the heads of a Bill. We will have a chance to go through the issue in more detail then. The intention is that the list would be published on a quarterly basis after the convictions have been secured but would not appear on the website in perpetuity, that it would be taken down after a period. As is the case with any information in the public domain, of course, people could retain it and make use of it into the future. However, as the Deputy pointed out in his initial comments, the media organisations very often cover convictions related to welfare fraud and the same applies in this instance: people could save the information and keep it for the future.

School Meals Programme

John Brady

Question:

27. Deputy John Brady asked the Minister for Social Protection the reason cuts were made to the school meals programme in 2017; the schools which are expected to do without the necessary funding for the remainder of the school year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26225/17]

As I know that the Minister is in the middle of a campaign to become leader of Fine Gael, I thank him for taking time out to come before the House to potentially answer his last series of questions as Minister. I cannot promise him that the questions I will put to him will help in his election campaign, but I hope he will be able to answer them regardless.

In February I referred to the consequences down the line for primary schools that had their school meals funding cut.

Tomorrow the consequences of these cuts will become a reality for many primary schools in the State. What is the Minister telling schools to do in the face of these cuts?

Notwithstanding the ongoing campaign for the leadership of Fine Gael, I have fulfilled my parliamentary duties in full. I am here today and will be here later to take a Topical Issue. I will be at a committee tomorrow.

The Minister will attend the committee tomorrow.

I will indeed. I have not missed a single parliamentary or Cabinet duty since the Taoiseach announced he was stepping down as leader.

I can confirm to Members of the House that no cuts have been made to the school meals programme. The programme provides funding towards the provision of food to schools and organisations, benefitting over 200,000 children. The allocation for 2017 is €47.5 million, an increase of €5.5 million or 13% on the 2014 allocation of €42 million. This increase will benefit over 50,000 children.

The funding for this year provides an additional €2.5 million to provide increases to DEIS schools, including supporting a further 51 newly designated DEIS schools. Funding is now available to all DEIS schools in the country to provide breakfast for all children and lunch for the majority of children. Breakfast is prioritised as it provides very positive outcomes in terms of children’s energy levels, punctuality and school attendance.

In addition, my Department has recently contacted 240 schools inviting them to join the scheme from September 2017. This includes 64 newly designated DEIS schools and 175 non-DEIS schools, which are schools which have a high level of children affected by disadvantage, selected in consultation with the Department of Education and Skills. This is the first time in many years that increases are being provided outside of DEIS. Almost 190 of those schools contacted have responded positively.

Schools are notified in writing of their allocation at the beginning of the academic year and are expected to manage within the funding provided. The issue of running out of funding should, therefore, not arise as schools are responsible for managing within their allocation and ensuring value for money. If any school finds itself in this position, it should contact my Department, and we will do our best to assist it. I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

I hear what the Minister is saying. As we stand here, many schools in the State have issued letters to parents informing them that, as of 1 June, they will not be in a position to provide lunches for the entire month. Other schools found out at the beginning of September last year that there would not be the same level of funding as the previous year. Those schools chose to forgo school meals for the entire month of September.

Schools are being put in a very precarious situation. One school was in consultation with a supplier of school meals, who asked the school to leave the matter with him and said he would see what he could do to try to accommodate it for the month of June. The supplier came back to the school and said that due to the level of cuts, and given that similar schools were in similar situations, he was not a position to be able to put in place plans for the month of June.

The Minister said there were no cuts, but the reality is that schools are not in a position to be able to provide school meals for the entire month of June or were unable to do so in September last year. The funding is only 90% of what schools received the previous year. Cuts are being imposed on schools, but perhaps not to the overall budget that has been allocated. Children are the ones who have to bear the brunt of that.

I really do not understand why that should be the case. The budget for 2016 was €42 million and was €39 million the year before. There was an increase on last year, and there will be a further increase this year.

Schools get 100% funding for school breakfasts for all of the children in a school and not just those from disadvantaged families. When it comes to lunches, 90% of the funding is provided. There has been no change to that figure; it has been 90% for a long time. A school is supposed to manage within that allocation, taking into account absences and so on. That is not a change.

There may be particular issues in particular schools, such as the number of children in a school having reduced which may mean the budget was reduced or, for some reason, schools have not been able to manage their allocation. The best thing that can be done in those circumstances is for those individual schools to make contact with my Department and we will see what we can do to assist them.

In March, the Minister stated the school meals programme was a top priority for him, and I have to take him at his word. The reality, as I outlined, is that schools are being impacted. One school which I brought to the attention of the Department in February is now in the process of carrying out an audit into its spending.

Schools are operating within the same budget as previously. As I outlined, I have spoken to a number of schools which have operated within the same budgets over a number of years and have provided the same level of school meals, but because there was an increase in pupils this year they made inquiries to the Department to try to increase their allocation. At that stage, they were told they would not get an increase but, rather, that there would be a decrease in the amount of funding available.

The school to which I refer is now not in a position to be able to feed the children in the school. I have spoken to many other schools. One school was made aware of the nature of the cuts in September last year and chose to front-load the cuts and not feed children for the entire month of September. It is not the case that the same level of funding is being provided. Schools have operated within tight budgets over many years and it is only in the current school term that they have faced difficulties.

I appreciate the Deputy is referring to individual cases and schools and I do not know which schools they are. It is impossible for me to comment on them without knowing that. In my constituency, which has a high level of disadvantage, this issue has not arisen in any of the schools.

Has the Minister spoken to them?

I speak to them regularly, and they know to contact me if there is a problem. They are not behind the door in doing so if there is a problem, I can guarantee the Deputy. There have been some problems in some schools.

Suppliers are saying-----

Among the problems we have had in some schools is, I regret to say, misappropriation. Money provided for schools for school meals was spent by principals on other things, and we have prosecuted a school principal for doing that.

I can guarantee that is not the case.

I am not suggesting it is, but it may be a local school issue rather than a cutback.

State Bodies Mergers

Willie O'Dea

Question:

28. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Social Protection if his attention has been drawn to the report from the Joint Committee on Social Protection on the restructuring of the Money Advice and Budgeting Service and the Citizens Information Service; the actions he plans to take on foot of the report; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26052/17]

In my initial comments, I forgot to mention that this may be the last time the Deputy opposite addresses the House as Minister for Social Protection. We wish him the very best in the future, in whatever onerous responsibilities he may be called upon to take.

We have discussed the issue raised in my question ad nauseam. We had a Private Members' motion on it which was carried by a large majority, as the Minister will be aware. We have had detailed discussions on it in the Joint Committee on Social Protection. We came to a conclusion and issued a report, and we have forwarded the report to the Minister. On behalf of all of those who will be or may be affected by the proposed changes, I ask the Minister to outline whether he has seen the report and his views on it.

While I understand that the committee has not yet published its report, I saw a draft copy of it and thank the committee for its engagement with this matter. At the outset I would like to highlight again how the Citizens Information Board, CIB, has repeatedly stated that the restructured governance arrangements will result in no job losses for those working in local services, no diminution of existing services, no closures of service delivery points and no disruption for those who use them.

Indeed, it is my understanding that the board of CIB is committed to supporting the long-term delivery of services at a local level and wishes to see all services extended on a consistent basis to existing locations and, perhaps, new ones over time. However, in doing so, the board is obliged to ensure that it and its service delivery partners comply with standards as set out in the code of practice for the governance of State bodies and meet Comptroller and Auditor General requirements. This is the context in which the board has made its decision to restructure the governance arrangements of local CIS and MABS companies. I accept the bona fides of the board in its decision.

The CIB undertook a series of regional consultations with stakeholders this month to discuss key aspects of implementing the new model. These were attended by 127 representatives of local company boards and 223 representatives of management, staff and volunteers of local services. Each session was chaired by an independent facilitator. Attendees had an opportunity to raise their concerns about service delivery under the new model. The board will host further sessions over the summer on key areas such as the role of volunteers, the delivery of consistent high quality services countrywide and the preservation of the fundamentally valuable local community focus and support ethos within the new regional model.

The board has also established an implementation group with cross-sectoral representation to assist in the governance reorganisation and committed to carrying out a full cost-benefit analysis of the 16-company model. I am satisfied that the board is making efforts to allay the concerns of staff, boards and volunteers and genuinely seeking to preserve the strong community ethos of services and embed these important values as it transitions to its new governance model.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

The Minister will find that the commitments given by the Citizens Information Board, certainly in relation to the staff, only apply for the lifetime of the implementation process. They will cease when the implementation has actually been carried through. Why has the Department not responded to the committee which has submitted the report to the Minister? To the best of my knowledge, we have received a response from the board, but we have not had one from the Department. I hope I am not breaking any rule in putting the following to the Minister. All parties represented on the committee, including the Minister's, have unanimously recommended that this process be stopped in its tracks. That is also the view of volunteers, front-line staff and users of the service. Is the Minister confirming to the House that the restructuring process is going ahead as planned, regardless of what the report states and regardless of the unanimous opposition of all parties in the House, including, as I understand it, one or two not represented on the committee but which voted in favour of the Private Members' motion? Does all of this activity and opposition mean nothing in reality?

I have on my desk a draft response to the committee's report, but I have not yet signed off on it. I may not do so. I do not know what is going to happen in the next few weeks, but if I move on to a different office, somebody may want to look at it afresh. I have a particular view of Ministers signing off on things at particular points for reasons the Deputy will understand. However, I note that this is a decision of the board, not a ministerial one. I sought legal advice from the Attorney General who communicated to me her advice that no matter who the Minister was, he or she did not have the authority to reverse a decision of the Citizens Information Board. The Minister appoints the board and can give it policy directions, but he or she cannot call on it to reverse a decision on what is, in essence, an operational matter.

The Minister let in a chink of light. He now seems to be suggesting that if he does not sign off on this matter and moves on from the Department, it will fall to his successor who might very well take a different view. I want to correct a few things. On his powers to overrule or not to overrule the board, as the case may be, the Minister will be aware that this proposal is not new. It was mooted when the Minister's predecessor, the late Seamus Brennan, managed to stop it in its tracks, as all of the organisations acknowledge. The Minister mentioned the consultation process, but what the people being consulted wanted to be consulted about was whether the reorganisation was a good idea. What they were actually consulted about was how the reorganisation would take place. In other words, they were told the decision had been taken and that it did not matter what they said. They were to be consulted about marginal and minor matters of implementation. That is the only consultation which has taken place. Is that what was intended by the Minister when he arranged for this further consultation to take place?

The position is that the board has taken its decision, as it was legally entitled to do. The consultation is about how best that decision might be implemented and how the transition can be organised. Having talked to people involved in the services, I note that there are mixed views. People on the various boards around the country do not agree with the changes. While some might agree to a county-based model, generally, they do not agree with it. The view among staff and managers is, however, more mixed. Some of them can see the benefit in reporting to a regionalised board rather than having a local board for every individual office. The Deputy mentioned something I have seen in dispatches, the commitment that there will be no loss of staff and no closure of offices pending the restructuring. In my meetings with the chairman and the CEO of the Citizens Information Board I have sought a commitment that there will be no office closures at all, not just in the transition period.

Even after the restructuring takes place.

JobPath Implementation

Mattie McGrath

Question:

29. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Social Protection if his attention has been drawn to the detrimental effect the Turas Nua scheme is having on participants, community employment schemes, Tús and other job placement schemes which have been the bedrock of communities over the years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26226/17]

I too wish the Minister well in his efforts and travails to become party leader. I hope he took the advice of the Taoiseach this morning. They were very wise words.

As I understand it, once a person signs on with Turas Nua, he or she is prohibited from doing anything else for at least one year. This forces people to engage with Turas Nua or face a cut in their social welfare payments. As someone who has been involved in community employment since 1988 and knows the valuable work being done, I note that schemes are now finding it difficult to find participants. Once they go into Turas Nua which I call Turas Uafásach, they cannot get out. They are locked in for 12 months.

I thank the Deputy. I always listen to the advice of the Taoiseach and sincerely hope it will continue to be available to the Government and whoever takes up his position in the coming weeks.

The Minister was not always listening.

I always listen, although I may not necessarily always take advice.

The Minister is eating into his time.

The Minister has had his moments.

I am sure there are people whose advice is valued and listened to by the Deputy, although he may not necessarily always accept it.

That is not related to the question.

I apologise.

Turas Nua Limited is one of two companies which my Department contracted for the delivery of JobPath services. Turas Nua is headquartered in Roscrea, County Tipperary, where it employs 39 people. The aim of the service is to assist jobseekers in finding sustainable full-time employment. This is in contrast to the community employment schemes which provide part-time employment and training opportunities in local communities as a stepping stone back to employment for people on a range of social welfare payments, including the long-term unemployed, those who are parenting alone or who are in receipt of other social welfare payments. The Deputy will appreciate that the welcome reduction in the unemployment rate is a factor in recruitment to all programmes. However, the data available to my Department show that the number of people who have participated in the various schemes since the introduction of JobPath in 2015 has been relatively stable.

I recently announced changes to the terms and conditions for participation in community employment schemes. The main purpose of the changes is to broaden the availability of the programme to a greater number of people on the live register and standardise other conditions around the length of time a person can participate in the programme. Among the changes I plan to introduce next month will be a reduction in the general qualifying age for those on the live register from 25 years to 21. This will give more young people the opportunity to participate in community employment schemes. In addition, I have agreed to review the current participation limits for older people and a decision will be made in this regard in the summer. As part of the implementation of the new measures, my Department is consulting with key stakeholders across the country. If any scheme is experiencing particular difficulties, it should contact the local Intreo office for assistance.

An analysis of employment outcomes for JobPath participants shows that they have a higher chance of securing and remaining in a job than others with a similar duration of unemployment. The complete details are available on the Department's website. Given that only a small number of people have completed their full engagement with JobPath, these results can only be treated as indicative at this stage. Nevertheless, they are very encouraging. My Department will be publishing similar performance reports for each successive quarter as jobseekers complete their 12-month engagement period, with the next results to be published in the coming weeks. In addition, my Department will have an econometric review of the JobPath service which will commence later this year when participant numbers will have reached a level to support a robust review.

I hope the Minister's engagement with schemes like mine and those of other Deputies will continue. He has said he will look at those aged over 55 years by the summer. I hope the new goodwill will still be shown, in whatever capacity the Minister is acting. There is a deeply frustrating inflexibility built into the system and we can only guess at whether it is by accident or design. If it is by accident, we must address the issue. I have said the following to the Minister on a number of times, as have others. I have been chairman of a scheme since 1998 which should have 17 participants. We are now short five and cannot find them, despite having approached the Intreo office and everybody else. They are all being sucked into Turas Nua which is aggressive in recruiting people because it is paid according to the number of participants in a scheme. It is deeply damaging to community employment schemes which are the backbone of many communities, urban and rural, from Tidy Towns to social care, visits to the elderly and community alert schemes. They are great schemes and I have been calling for years for a national audit of their value.

They are being undermined by Turas Nua. It needs to be looked at again because people are being brought in who are not suitable. They would much prefer to be out working in their communities. They are better equipped to do a variety of work in the community rather than sitting in an office in front of a computer. Many of them do not have the literary skillset or the passion for it. They like what they do.

We must observe the time.

I ask the Minister to review the scheme.

All schemes and services, whether community employment, Tús or JobPath, are paid by participant. The payment model may be different, but they are all paid by participant. We do not allow in any case people to chop and change from one programme to another while on it. We can imagine how difficult it would be to organise services if people could chop and change from one to the next two or three months into it.

I am not saying that.

People are expected to be on it for its entirety.

As I mentioned, a review is under way and it should be completed later this year. The results so far are very good and we must bear in mind what Turas Nua and Seetec aim to do. They aim to provide people with a system to get into full-time paid employment of 30 hours a week, which they sustain for more than three months. The results so far are very good. What we now see are many people who have spent a year on JobPath and who have not found full-time employment. Those people are all eligible for community employment. A greater effort needs to be made by the Department and community employment supervisors to identify the JobPath returnees. There are now tens of thousands of them who have been on JobPath for a year but have not found a full-time job. Surely they are ideal candidates for community employment. I would like to see them filling the vacancies.

Our supervisor is doing a great job, but he is ringing social welfare offices and everybody else but cannot get them. There is a huge logjam. The spirit of what is supposed to be done by JobPath is fine, but it involves private companies. It is regressive. The forerunner of one of the companies had difficulties in England.

My colleague, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, wanted to ask this question but could not get to it. He and other colleagues from throughout the country know of awful cases where people have to walk or cycle miles because they do not have transport to go to an office in a town. They would love to be at home in their village or community doing work on a community employment scheme. This would be meaningful work, which is very badly needed and which local authorities and the HSE have abandoned. I ask the Minister to look at this. It is regressive. It involves private companies and I do not like this aspect of it.

What I meant about getting paid is that the people are paid by the Department of Social Protection but the company gets paid based on the number of participants that come through the door and are signed up. This is what I meant. I do not mean people jumping from scheme to scheme. I ask for fair play for community employment, Tús and other schemes, which provide huge necessary work that is not being done at present, and cannot be done because people are being sucked into JobPath, or Turas Nua as it is called, and it is not satisfactory. There are problems and I hope the Minister, and his successor if he leaves, will look at this.

The funding model is a registration fee of approximately €1,000 for each participant, and any payment that follows only arises if somebody finds full-time employment and stays in it for more than three months. Certainly if there are community employment schemes and local employment services which want to move to the JobPath model of funding I will be happy to entertain it.

I am not saying that.

I have not come across any yet which would like to give up its block grant and move to that level of funding.

I am not saying that. The Minister is being mischievous now.

I have been in Turas Nua and Seetec officers in various parts of the country. At a time when Government offices and post offices are closing down throughout the country Seetec and Turas Nua are opening offices all over the place, often in very rural locations. This should be noted and regarded as a positive. I accept there is an issue with transport costs, and it is something the Department is working on, recognising that where there is no public transport in place travelling to the office can be a very high cost to bear. This is something we have under examination.

Tax and Social Welfare Codes

Eamon Ryan

Question:

30. Deputy Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Social Protection the new measures his Department may be considering regarding the way in which unpaid forms of work such as caring may be rewarded by the State; and the initial measures in this regard he may introduce in the next budget. [26234/17]

Following questions to the Taoiseach earlier on how we value caring work, I saw in one of the Minister's manifesto documents recently that this is one of his stated aims. I want to work out the detail of what the Minister will do, recognising, as I see it, that the current system is deeply unfair particularly for parents in the home. We support every couple in whatever parenting they do. There is an almost €4,500 difference in take-home pay between a dual income couple with an income of €50,000 between the two of them and a single-income family because our individualised tax system discriminates against single-family payments. It is the same with the new system the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, has introduced. I very much welcome it, but it introduces a further €2,000 disadvantage to anyone who may decide to raise children at home. A total of 75% of Irish children are raised by parents choosing that option but everything we do says not to do it. I am keen to see how we can reverse this trend because it is wrong.

The reply I have before me relates to the carer's allowance, but the Deputy is speaking about something much broader so I will answer the question the Deputy has put.

I am sympathetic to the argument the Deputy is making. It is important that we subsidise child care. The cost of child care is a major barrier to work for many people, men and women, but particularly lone parents. The measures coming into place from September will make a big difference and will change quite considerably the household calculations people must make. It is only a start but it is a very important start and I am very much behind what the Government is doing in this regard.

I agree it is important. It is good social policy and probably good economic policy also to facilitate the choice of parents. Some parents do choose to try to get by on one income, and often make significant sacrifices to do so, because it is their decision they would like to have a parent in the home, or a parent who is largely in the home. This is why I put in my paper recognition we need to take account of this. In my view, the best way to do this is by continuing to increase the homemaker's tax credit. There was an increase in the homemaker's tax credit in the budget just gone by, but I anticipate it could be increased progressively and substantially, as resources allow, to cover exactly with the Deputy is speaking about.

I note the enthusiasm of my colleague, the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government for bringing the Green Party into Government, and perhaps this is one of the areas where Deputy Ryan and I agree.

That depends on how far the Minister goes. There was an increase in the homemaker's tax credit in the previous budget but it was buttons. Fundamentally, the message from the Government has been it will support people who care for other people's children and it will pay for it, but if people care for their own children it does not care and those people do not matter. This needs to change at scale. This cannot just be a marginal few bob here, a few bob in the next budget and a few bob promised in five or ten years' time. The reason I was interested in the line in the Minister's paper, where he stated we must value caring work, is I believe it is a quintessential central economic issue that we must change our ways. The Minister is right that it is a better economy. Elizabeth Warren has described what happens to economies which are tied into supporting only one type of option. They end up with consequences in property prices and the dual income trap about which she has written. It is bad economics as well as being fundamentally wrong.

I would very much like to see the homemaker's tax credit increased, but there would be people left out, such as lone parents, people below the tax income threshold and single-parent families. It does not address all of the inequities that exist. To go into the detail of it, and I will not negotiate here but I want to give an idea to those parents who have an acute interest in it, what scale of change would the Minister make to the tax credit? How would the Minister address some of the inequities for those other groups, such as lone parents, single parents and people below the tax net, so they are not discriminated against?

We do care as a Government and I certainly care. We have child benefit in Ireland, which is at the higher end of child benefit payments throughout the world. It is universal and does not make any distinction between parents who decide to parent at home or those who decide to or have to work outside the home. It is not always a decision to have two incomes. Some people have to do so because of the cost of living. When we were negotiating, alongside the former Minister of State, Kathleen Lynch, the free GP care for children aged under six, I was very conscious of the impact it would have on household budgets.

The cost of increasing the homemaker's tax credit is €7 million for every €100 in the credit. I did not specify an amount in the paper I produced because, as I stated in the paper, everything is contingent on the public finances and the ability to pay. I acknowledge that a €100 increase in the homemaker's tax credit is quite small. It is very modest. What I have in mind is something much greater than this. What the Deputy is touching on, and what I need to do a lot more work on, and certainly the next Minister for Finance might be able to do some work on it, is whether the homemaker's tax credit could be made refundable. This would entirely deal with the issue the Deputy mentioned. Not having access to this type of information, I did not want to write it into the paper.

That is the right direction to take. I agree that refundable tax credits are one of the steps we must take towards a basic income type of social welfare system in which people will be free to be enterprising and do caring work, thus valuing a range of work options. I would support a move towards a system of refundable tax credits and pressure being put on the Department of Finance in that regard. I have been in that position previously and it was not easy to get it over the line. We should consider it. There are other measures the Minister might also include in the mix for inclusion in the budget. Many parents were caught out by the reductions that were applied to the one-parent family payment and the restriction to children aged seven years. If one's child was over seven years of age, one did not apply for any of the credit. Many single parents who were not able to gain any income, let alone dual income, were particularly disadvantaged. It is a target group. When considering addressing acute poverty, that is another measure we should examine.

Last but not least, I heard the Minister mention recently that he was considering increases in parental leave, maternity leave and other leave arrangements. Ireland is often mentioned with other Scandinavian countries such as Finland, Denmark and Norway which have a much better system of such leave arrangements. These arrangements must also be in the mix in order that people who wish to work would be given the capability to take longer breaks. That is another measure which would allow people at a particular time to care in the way they wished to do.

The direction of travel in terms of parental leave, if I have any influence over it, is that there should be more and a couple should be able to share it. It is important that there always be dedicated maternal leave for particular reasons, but couples should be allowed some flexibility in how they use their parental leave. If we can afford it, through a far more modern social insurance system, the payment should be pay related. It used to be a pay related benefit. Obviously, it must be balanced against the impact on labour costs. That must also be taken into account. However, some of the best employers in the country such as some of the multinationals offer the best parental leave arrangements. Facebook, for example, offers four months paid paternal leave, which is extraordinary. I am not sure if SMEs could afford to do it, but it shows that an increasing number of employers are understanding finding and keeping good staff can be linked with the benefits and terms and conditions they provide.

I spoke to many of my counterpart Ministers in the Nordic countries, as well as in Estonia and the Baltic states. What is different about many of these countries is that they have a very low birth rate and are having difficulty in sustaining their populations, which is one of the factors involved in some of the policies they are putting forward. That is not the case in Ireland.

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