Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2007 - 2nd Stage Debate - 27th March 2007

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2007 – 2nd Stage Debate - 27th March 2007

Mr. Norris: Senator Cox has done an honour
to this House by her courageous and clear speech.
It is not easy to offer a direct and open critique
of Government policy from the Government benches
but this is what Seanad E´ ireann is all about.
In her quite outstanding speech, Senator Cox
clearly illustrated what the Seanad is for, namely,
non-partisan debate. While some of what I will
say later may appear to be partisan, I salute this
kind of independence. It is very important.
Senator Cox is quite correct about the question
of maternity benefit.
I wish to return to a few other areas where the
Government is giving with one hand and taking
away with another. This kind of rather meanminded
accounting goes on in all Governments.
It is not just a Fianna Fa´ il exercise, it is a Department
of Finance exercise and it is pretty
wretched. I listened and watched with delighted
as the Minister of State, to paraphrase his final
paragraph, tripped gaily over the stepping stones
to a bright future. He was obviously afraid he
would fall in because he did it all in slow motion.
That is why we do not have quite as much time
as we might otherwise have. On the other hand,
it was a most interesting and provocative speech.
I wish to turn to this speech before I address the
two issues of particular interest.
There is an echo of Bertie’s rabble-rousing
speech out in Citywest. The Government will
implement the largest social welfare package and
all the rest of it, but when one examines the Bill
closely, some troubling issues arise. I refer to support
for lone parents, for example, and the
expanded availability and range of educational
opportunities. What about the fact that I and
many other people have been deluged in recent
years by ordinary members of the public, not constituents,
who are concerned because owing to
the nitpicking provisions that are included, they
have been excluded from schemes such as the
back to education allowance and the vocational
training opportunities scheme? This is
regrettable.
There is a lot of old bilge in the Bill in terms
of the means test for job seeker’s allowance. Reference
was made to reflecting the changes in
society. Like hell they reflect the changes in
society. We are back again to this nonsense about
spouses and how it is women who are usually in
this role and all the rest of it. References to
spouses and couples were sprinkled throughout
the Minister’s speech, yet we know perfectly well
the Government, in the person of the previous
Minister, Deputy Coughlan, operated to define
people out of their rights. The Government is not
talking about couples in the true sense. It should
refer to heterosexual couples every time the word
“couples” is used because gay people have been
mean-mindedly defined out of the rights to which
they are entitled under equality legislation.
A positive spin is put on the supplementary
welfare allowance. This is one of the issues with
which I am most concerned. The Minister of State
referred to “an extension of the qualifying conditions
and an easing of the rent supplement
means test”. The Government is going to “simplify
the means test, so that a rent supplement
recipient can judge the impact of an offer of
work” and so and so forth.
Then we get on to the business of regenerated
areas. It was stated:
This latter measure supports the State’s significant
investment on regeneration in areas
such as Ballymun. The objective is to achieve a
better balance between private, social and
affordable housing.
I give a hollow laugh when I hear about affordable
housing. We heard about it the other day
when we discovered that to qualify for some of
these affordable housing units, one has to have
an income between \47,000 and \58,000. That is
not very affordable. Then we have these inexplicable
and opaque lotteries. They are the reverse
of openness, transparency and accountability.
We then encountered this nasty little phrase,
which we do not really understand. “In taking this
approach, provision is made to protect existing
tenants.” What is meant by “protect”? I would
like to know what lies beneath this expression.
Who is being protected and what is the necessity
for it? Towards the end of the speech some elucidation
is given in the analysis of the sections. It
was stated that section 25 includes measures “to
preclude the payment of rent supplement in areas
of regeneration, as identified by the Department”
of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
In other words, these areas are too nice,
too middle class and too clean to allow people on
rent supplement. That is a nasty form of apartheid.
It is snobbery and discrimination.
Those are my words but I received a pained
response from Focus Ireland which made the
point that this creates in primary legislation a
legal mechanism which prohibits specific categories
of people from living in certain areas. That
can only be described as apartheid, but Focus
Ireland is too polite to say it. This is a most
regressive step. I would like the Minister to reexamine
this matter. I would also like an explanation
why the Department continues to use
terms like “couples”, “spouses”, etc. when it does
not mean couples in the broad sense. I am partisan
on this issue because I deal with people who
have been denied their rights. This is unjust and
unfair.
I wish to return to Senator Cox’s contribution.
She referred to water pollution in Galway. A
number of years ago, briefed by people in Trinity,
I raised the issue of cryptospiridiosis. I could
hardly spell it let alone pronounce it at that stage
but I learned a certain amount about it. I also pay
tribute to my colleague, Senator Henry. Over a
number of years she has consistently raised the
issue of the quality of water. It is an extraordinary
irony that on World Water Day last week, we
heard some of the most disastrous results arising
from this pollution of the water. This is a serious
situation and one person is critically ill in
hospital.
Although there are some positive aspects to it,
and the Government will put the best spin possible
on it, we are charged in this House with prising
open the lid on some of the less positive features
of the Bill. I salute Senator Cox. I note she
said she would table an amendment. I hope she
does if she is not satisfied with the result. She
raised a bit of a stink in the House last week when
she said she would table an amendment. On this
side of the House we were all hungry for that
amendment so that we could vote on it and we
could see which way Senator Cox would vote, but
whichever way she does, it does not take away
from the fact she is a courageous, intelligent
woman who knew what she was speaking about
on the Bill. She and Fianna Fa´ il did honour to
this House by that exercise of freedom of speech
which I now propose to hand over to my
esteemed colleague, Senator Henry.