Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 Dec 2023

The survey of income and living conditions for 2021 showed households headed by lone parents continued to be some of the hardest hit by deprivation and poverty. This is before the full impact of the cost-of-living crisis of the past two years is taken into account. Lone parents are struggling to meet the cost of living on a day-to-day basis for themselves and their children and we need to break that cycle of poverty.

In addition to income supports, my Department provides a wide range of employment supports and services designed to assist lone parents to enter or return to employment. Both the one-parent family payment and the jobseeker’s transitional payment have been designed to support persons to pursue their individual employment goals. These schemes include an earnings disregard whereby the first €165 of weekly earnings is not assessed as part of the means test. In addition, 50% of earnings above €165 per week is disregarded in the means test. In April 2021, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, removed the earnings threshold of €425 per week which was being applied to persons in receipt of the one-parent family payment. The working family payment supports more than 45,600 persons with children into employment. More than half of recipients are one-parent households. Budget 2024 saw the third successive increase to the payment’s income thresholds for all family sizes. As a result, the earnings thresholds for all family sizes have increased by more than €100 per week since budget 2022.

My Department is also running a pilot project, lone parents digital activation, in partnership with the NGO One Family. This pilot project is co-financed by the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation, EaSI, which is a European-level financial instrument managed by the European Commission.

This action aims at reaching out to those furthest away from the labour market by developing their employment and education and training capabilities and further enhancing their social inclusion. The Department of Social Protection is the lead partner and, in addition to One Family, there are three partners in Greece and one in Finland. The project commenced in November 2021, has a duration of 30 months, and will conclude at the end of April 2024. My Department will continue to develop the schemes and services available to support lone parents to enter or return to employment.

We are in a perverse situation where we are in an economy at full employment and we need workers within our economy, especially in the whole digital area and yet, we have appallingly poor participation rates for one-parent families. We are rolling out high-speed broadband to every single home in the country, and as I said to the Minister of State previously, we need to look at how we can now utilise the digital hubs as people transition to high-speed broadband in their own homes. Surely there is now an opportunity there to match up the digital skills demand that is there across our economy with the digital hubs across the country to provide training, to engage with one-parent families and allow them to take up flexible employment that meets their childcare needs but also ensures that additional high-value income is coming into that house?

I thank the Deputy for highlighting the issues and challenges that one-parent families face. I will give a broader picture of what we have been doing to date. In 2023, the employer relations division delivered 1,387 employment engagement activities, and almost 2,000 activities to support recruitment. Included in this were 610 events such as career fairs, employer roadshows, recruitment events and general information events. During these events, a full presentation of departmental services and programmes was made. These presentations included promotion of the various incentives available to employers to hire people in receipt of the one-parent family payment in order to increase awareness of the need to build opportunities and support for single-parent families in the labour force.

Seven specific events have been held this year, which focus on the one-parent family payment or the jobseeker's transitional payment. These include two events organised for International Women's Day. Some 984 invitations were issued to the virtual event, which focused on professional, scientific and technical activities. Recruitment events were organised with employers and organisations present. Communications issued to recipients of the payments regarding training courses and of these, 390 were placed on courses.

The difficulty with all of that, with all due respect, is that this is what we have been doing down through the decades, decade after decade. What I am suggesting to the Minister of State is that right across the economy at the moment, not just domestically but globally, there is a huge shortage of staff in the area of cybersecurity. This is an area of flexible employment. It can be done remotely at different times in the day and in different markets, be they here domestically, or across Europe, the Middle East or North America. It potentially provides flexible, high-value employment to one-parent families. This could bring additional high-value income into those homes. There is a whole cultural aspect of this with regard to the long-term impact this can have on society.

A similar project is operating in Norway with Microsoft, where migrant women are being engaged with. We need to look at where the niches are in the economy at the moment, where they can meet an upskilled workforce and specifically target one-parent families for those, taking a radical approach to this.

The Deputy has mentioned a very specific sector there and I know Intreo services do look at skills shortages, try to match people with them and work with industry as well. We will take that point back to see if that is not already in the mix with regard to what Intreo is doing.

Figures provided by the CSO find that the employment rate for lone parents has increased from 64.8% in quarter 2 of 2019 to 67.1% in quarter 2 of 2023. There was a drop during the Covid-19 pandemic but we are back on the right trajectory.

Separate from this Department is a key improvement the Deputy will see helping the situation and giving people more options, and that is the investment in childcare by the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. Childcare is a key issue with regard to allowing lone parents to access the labour market, and the significant investment of the last two years will, in time, also see greater participation rates in the employment markets in that regard.

I am taking Questions Nos. 96, 99 and 101. It is my field day.

The question is, what are the changes to caring credits? I know they are very beneficial and long-term carers are included but the Minister of State might outline what they are.

This Government acknowledges the important role that carers play and is fully committed to supporting them in that role. Accordingly, the current State contributory pension system provides measures including PRSI credits, home-making disregards and the home caring periods to recognise caring periods of up to 20 years outside of paid employment in the calculation of a payment rate.

Last September, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, announced a series of landmark reforms to the State pension system. The measures are in response to the Pensions Commission's recommendations and represent the biggest ever structural reform of the State pension system.

One of the key pension reform measures announced is the introduction of enhanced State pension provision for people who have been caring for incapacitated dependants for 20 years or more. It will do this by attributing the equivalent of paid contributions to these long-term carers to cover gaps in their contribution record for the periods that they were caring for an incapacitated dependant.

The measure will be available to individuals who reach State pension age from 1 January 2024 and will also be available to people currently over pension age. They will be able to apply for these contributions and receive a State contributory or enhanced pension from 1 January 2024 where eligible.

In September, my Department launched an online system for people to register for long-term caring contributions. This will facilitate the expeditious processing of these contributions upon enactment of the legislation. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys introduced the legislation to give effect to these measures in the Dáil last month and I expect the legislation to be enacted by the end of the year.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

If I heard the Minister of State right, if somebody is caring for over 20 years, the 520 rule does not apply any more. They will be able to get paid credits for part of that period and therefore if they have not achieved the 520, they can bring it up to 520 contributions. I would like the Minister of State's confirmation that I understand it right because this is of huge significance for people who have worked maybe five to nine years. I had one case recently where somebody had done nine years and 51 weeks. They had been caring for a disabled son since. This seems to say that they are going to be able to get that paid credit. That would be of major importance.

The Minister of State might confirm something else for me. It is related but not exactly on the same topic. Are these changes to means testing, including the carer's allowance means test, all coming in on 1 January, except for child benefit? I am aware that child benefit is not.

The short answer to the Deputy's first question is that I understand that is the case. I will read out some detail on that with regard to the evidence that people can provide to prove those 20 years. If a customer was in receipt of carer's allowance, carer's benefit, the carer's support grant or the domiciliary care allowance, he or she will have met the qualifying conditions for the pension caring support. For long-term carers' contributions, this will also require a duration of care of over 20 years. If a person was not in receipt of carer's allowance, carer's benefit, the carer's support grant or the domiciliary care allowance, he or she will be asked questions regarding the care provided and will be asked to provide supporting documentation to confirm that both he or she and the caree meet the qualifying conditions. Relevant supporting documentation may include medical certificates or documents including birth certificates, marriage certificates if applicable, earnings details and any other information that may be relevant for the purpose of establishing the entitlement. The short answer is, yes, there are other ways of assessing the 20 years beyond the contributions.

I welcome that because it will make a huge difference, along with the change in the means test for the carer's allowance, which is getting nearer to the target the social welfare committee was heading towards and the recommendation of a disregard of the first €500 for a single person and the first €1,000 for a couple. It is getting much nearer to that, at €450 and €900, respectively. Will the Minister of State confirm that measure will come in on 1 January next year?

I cannot confirm that. I do not know the status of the means test, in particular with regard to carers. There is an overall review of means testing in general, of which that may be a part. If that is the case, it will not be implemented on 1 January 2024 but I am open to correction on that. There have already been 1,000 applications in the new credits system for the State contributory pension system for carers. We expect that when people become eligible for it we should be able to turn decisions around in a few weeks. People can log their credits in real time online so there does not have to be a trawl back into their history. They will be able to use an online system and enter their credits on an annual basis to help provide the 20-year record.

I have raised this question previously. It relates to people with insufficient contributions to qualify for either self-employment-based contributions or PRSI contributions in the normal way and who do not qualify for any pension. When I was in the Department once upon a time, I brought about some changes in this area, which made an improvement. Unfortunately, with the cutbacks during the financial crash, all of them have been eroded. This measure could be considered now. I spoke with the Minister about it before.

Qualification for the contributory State pension is based on a number of criteria, including a minimum of 520 qualifying social insurance contributions having been paid. As the actuarial value of the State pension is currently estimated at approximately €380,000, it is reasonable to require people claiming a contributory pension to have made at least ten years of paid contributions over the term of their working life before qualifying for a payment. When a person reaches State pension age and does not satisfy the conditions to qualify for the contributory State pension or qualifies for less than the maximum rate, he or she may instead qualify for another payment from the Department such as the non-contributory State pension or an increase for a qualified adult if his or her spouse has a contributory pension. If the spouse or civil partner is deceased, a widow's, widower's or civil partner's contributory pension may be payable.

A key reform of the State pension system, which the Minister announced last September, is the introduction of a flexible pension system in Ireland. Under this new system, people can still retire at 66 and draw down their pensions in the same way as they can today. In addition, those reaching age 66 from January 2024 may choose to defer their pensions, work longer, build contributions and receive a higher pension payment if they wish. People will decide what best suits their needs and circumstances. For example, in the case of a person who reaches age 66 and has fewer than the 520 paid contributions required to qualify for the contributory State pension, he or she may opt to continue working and paying PRSI between the ages of 66 and 70 to build up contributions. I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

On self-employed contributions, if the payer of said contributions does not make a profit in whatever profession he or she is in for one or more years - which happened to many people, including some Members of this House - that could have a detrimental effect on his or her pension. Such contributors could buy out extra contributions to qualify until the financial crash, when emergency measures changed the position and made it virtually impossible to qualify. The period from 2035 onwards has been heralded as a time of great stretching of measures, given the population age imbalance. It is not as much as people say. A huge number of people are entering the contribution period now and they are all young.

The Deputy is referring to the broader challenges of the ageing population in the years ahead. I may touch on that context in some of the proposals in the reform of the pension system. These include flexibility of the age of drawdown, which will be introduced from January. A person with less than 40 years of contributions may be able to use the period between the ages of 66 and 70 years to build up additional entitlements. The long-term sustainability of the State pension system is to be addressed through gradual incremental increases in social insurance rates, which has happened, the introduction of enhanced State pension provision for long-term carers of incapacitated dependants and a smoothed earnings method of calculating the benchmarking index rate of State pension payments, which is to be introduced as an input into the annual budget process and submitted to the Government in September each year. We have started that process. Those are some of the measures we are undertaking to ensure sustainability in the long term.

I welcome all of those measures. It is a tremendous budget for social welfare recipients and many others. All those improvements were admirable and necessary. However, there is a constitutional principle in this regard. People are paying into a system in anticipation of receiving a pension from it at a later stage but they do not qualify when the time comes. There is a constitutional commitment that does not arise as far as they are concerned. As the Minister of State said, it is usual that they would qualify for a non-contributory pension but there are many who do not. The few are the ones we should deal with now. It will not cost a lot. In any event, these people paid contributions but they were insufficient in number to qualify for the pension.

I was reflecting on the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2023, which is going through the Seanad. As regards the extension of the age limit for making contributions beyond 66 years, the Bill states people cannot do so if they claim a contributory State pension. It is silent on the issue of a non-contributory pension. For someone who was short on contributions and subject to means testing, the best option would be to apply for the non-contributory pension, get a job at €39 a week, get the A stamp and claim the non-contributory pension because, on reaching the age of 70, that person will get the contributory pension as the extra contributions will be thrown in. That is an anomaly which was not foreseen by the Department. I do not expect the Minister of State to reply to my point because it is quite technical but perhaps he will convey my concerns to the Minister that the Department may be subject to a load of claims for non-contributory pensions that were foreseen. One could have an craiceann agus a luach.

I will take Deputy Ó Cuív's query on board. I am not sure it is doable. From queries I have received, for some people aged 66 who are working and have got the contributory pension, it is a disincentive because they are paying more tax, whereas this measure will help them. It is not quite what the Deputy mentioned but it is related.

On Deputy Durkan's point, there will be a ten-year phase of full transition to the total contributions approach, together with a phased abolition of the yearly average approach. Workers have access to a social insurance contribution statement service each year to enable them to understand their entitlements based on these contributions. Officials in the Department will explore the design of a scheme that would modify the current benefit payment for 65-year-olds to provide a benefit payment for people with a long social insurance history.

The Department of enterprise will introduce measures that allow, but do not compel, an employee to stay in employment until the State pension age.

The roadmap for social inclusion contains a commitment to develop a benchmarking approach for use in adjusting the value of State pension payments. The approach proposed by the Department, known as the smoothed earnings approach, was subsequently endorsed by the Pensions Commission. I am pleased to say that the Government subsequently agreed the Department of Social Protection would, in submitting budget options, set out the rate of pension payment using the smoothed earnings benchmark approach, and can confirm that this calculation was prepared and submitted to Government as an input into budget preparations.

Taking account of this benchmark in assessing the options open to it the Government was mindful, as it was last year, that the cost-of-living pressures were most acute over the winter period. For that reason, and rather than take a simplistic approach to applying an indexed rate of increase to weekly rates of payment, the Government decided to front-load supports through the provision of special payments including extra fuel allowance, working family payment, child benefit, carer's allowance, disability allowance, qualified child and living alone payments. These payments are in addition not only to the €12 increase in the weekly payment rate, but to the Christmas bonus payments being made this week and extra double week payments being made in January. This combination of special payments plus a weekly rate increase, not only exceeds the value of a benchmarked increase, but ensures a significant proportion of this value is delivered when people need it most - over the winter period.

The double payment to be made in January, for example, will have a value for a single pensioner of €277.30, equivalent to more than €5 per week - as does the double payment to be made this week. That is more than €10 per week in value from these two payments alone. Pensioners living alone, and in receipt of fuel allowance, will have received bonus payments of €500 - equivalent to approximately a further €10 per week. The measures taken by the Government therefore meet, and in fact exceed, any increase calculated under the smoothed earnings benchmark. In addition, ESRI post-budget analysis shows that the approach taken by the Government is progressive in nature and that households, including pensioner households, are better off compared to a purely index-linked approach. Its analysis also showed that the approach taken benefited low-income households the most and reduced their risk of poverty.

My understanding is that the smoothed earnings benchmark was provided as an input, but other determinant factors were taken into account. We all accept those extra payments are obviously welcome. However, the Pensions Commission and the technical subcommittee sat and made a determination on the 34% of average gross earnings. There was a reason for that. We have had conversations here about how farcical it gets, not only on pensions but all social protection payments, in particular at budget time. We almost get into a game of one-upmanship about who proposed a fiver more, €12, €20, €25 or sometimes unfortunately a lot less. We have called for a social welfare adequacy commission or something where we could just get down to indexing and take the politics and the sting out of it. We could take it out of this Chamber and provide people with what they need.

I agree with the Deputy's sentiments, and I support the benchmarking approach. I will give a little detail on it. The Government decision specified that calculation be submitted to Government as an input to its deliberations. This is because it is important the Government retains the ability to explore various options based on prevailing circumstances. In the case of the budgets in 2023 and 2024, the Government decided it was preferable to front-load the payments in order that people would have money when they most needed it, rather than spread over 52 weeks. As the ESRI analysis shows, this delivers more value to people dependent on welfare. It should also be noted that the detail of how the smooth earnings benchmark is calculated has been set out in the roadmap for social inclusion, and the data used in the calculation is also available on the CSO website. The rate, calculated by the Department using the smoothed earnings method, indicated that an increase of €20 in the weekly payment rate would be required to maintain the relative value of the State pension. As I also said in my initial contribution, the ultimate value of what people got from the measures in the budget superseded that amount.

I understand the argument but I will put it back on the record that if we are talking about benchmarking then we need to get serious about it. We cannot always consider one-off payments. I understand why at times there is a need for an element of flexibility in setting budgets. However, we need to look at the idea of something that provides adequacy of payments. If we come up with figures on benchmarking based on what was best practice, with a considerable amount of due diligence done by a large number of officials on this 34% of gross average earnings, then we have to take it seriously. Again, I state that a social welfare adequacy commission is the way to go. I also put on the record, as I will hardly get to the question, that I brought up with the Minister delays around the processing time for disability payments and allowance applications. We need to look at that, and I will send the Minister of State something in writing on it.

I will take the Deputy's point about the delays in processing disability payments back to the Minister. This is the first budget with benchmarking even in the mix. There is a stronger role for it going forward to ensure adequacy. We continue to see social transfers having a significant impact on reducing poverty and income inequality. Ireland remains one of the most effective countries in the EU in this regard. The at-risk of poverty rate before social transfers was 36% in 2022. This reduced to 13% after transfers were included. That represents an overall poverty reduction effect of 64%. An independent post-budget analysis from the ESRI further found that the package of measures introduced under the budget ensures there are gains in disposable income for all household types, with lone parents and pensioners living alone recording the largest proportional increases. I welcome the first budget where we have used benchmarking as an input. I would like to see it as a bigger part of the discussion in future budgets as well.

The question is to ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will ensure measures are taken to align the pay of Tús supervisors with CE supervisors, and if she will make a statement on the matter. I will expand the question slightly to include both Tús and RSS as I understand the negotiations took place together.

I am not sure if the Deputy was in the Chamber earlier but at risk of repeating myself, I will give the answer and we can elaborate and go a different direction with it. My Department operates a number of employment support schemes including community employment, Tús and the rural social scheme for long-term unemployed persons and low-income farmers. I acknowledge the important role played by Tús supervisors in providing valuable opportunities to participants, and in supporting the delivery of key services to local communities across the country. As Tús supervisors are employees of the individual implementing bodies, neither the Department nor the State is the employer of this group of workers. Nevertheless, recognising the valuable role they play in delivering services on behalf of the Department, departmental officials continue to hold meetings with representative associations to discuss employment related matters. As I already stated, and as part of this regular engagement, Department officials have met the union and employing companies' representative groups in connection with a claim seeking pay parity of Tús and RSS supervisors with CE supervisors. As outlined in an earlier reply, there is a difference in the supervisor roles, with CE supervisors having a key role in drawing up and supervising individual participant learning and development plans. As a consequence, we would expect the service fees paid to the service providers to reflect this difference in scope. That said, the Department, in its role as funder of the programmes is open to proposals and suggestions from the implementing bodies. It is important to note this is not a matter for determination by the Department alone, and any proposal that might be brought forward will be subject to the approval of the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform and will need to stand on its own merits.

My officials continue to be available to liaise on the issue with the union and employing companies' representatives. I trust this clarifies matters for the Deputy.

I will cut to the chase. I understand there were negotiations between the unions and the Minister of State's Department, proposals were put together at official level and those proposals were then sent over to the Department of public expenditure, as all such changes inevitably must be. When were those proposals sent to the Department of public expenditure and what response came back, either in the form of a further information request, a refusal or agreement? As I said, I understand the negotiations concluded and a proposal was forwarded.

With a view to getting the best outcome for everyone, I will not get into the nitty-gritty of this. We have had two successful processes over the past couple of years in terms of securing the gratuity and the 5% increase for CE supervisors. I have put a lot of work into those two processes in the background. I have been asked questions about them, while they were in process, in this Chamber. For the benefit of those processes, I have held off on the detail. I will say that negotiations are not complete. To my knowledge, they are in an exploratory phase at the moment. An additional meeting was scheduled for November but it had to be postponed for good reasons. There was no other motive for the postponement apart from there being practical issues around availability that meant it was not viable to proceed. My understanding is that there will be an attempt to reschedule that meeting before Christmas. Once again, it may be difficult to do so for simple, practical reasons of availability.

A written reply I received on the issue of the gratuities seemed to give me a lot more information than is available here today. I cannot understand how these processes go on as long as they do. There has been a failure by successive Governments to reform the system in order to ensure there are quicker decisions. In fact, if anything, things have been getting slower and slower over my period in the House. That is a matter of concern. The answers always seem to be inevitable but the processes seem to be a lot longer and a lot more convoluted, with much less satisfaction from them as a consequence.

This is the third pay-related issue in which I have been involved. I worked to progress the previous two issues. We got the gratuity issue sorted, which was going on for a very long time. It came to my table, I progressed it and now it is done. We also had the pay claim issue and we worked through that as quickly as we could. The 5% increase has been done now, with the first part given earlier this year and the second half in November. Now this third issue is on my table. The best reassurance I can give the Deputy is that while the issue may be long-standing, it is live and active on my desk. Realistically, it will take a couple of months to address it. As I said earlier, I meet with officials on a weekly basis to discuss the RSS, Tús and CE. We will be doing so again next week. There is interest from my point of view in making sure things progress.

I presume the Minister of State will have to accept that the Green Paper on disability reform has been met with almost universal criticism and opposition from people with disabilities and campaigning organisations. A protest will take place at 12 noon today outside Leinster House. There are activists in the Gallery right now. It is time to withdraw the proposal in the Green Paper to introduce a tiered benefit system similar to the Tories' work capability assessment.

I welcome the visitors in the Gallery. The Government committed, as part of the Roadmap for Social Inclusion, to develop and consult on proposals to restructure long-term disability payments and simplify the system. The consultation process has been ongoing since the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, launched the Green Paper on disability reform in September. I emphasise that the Green Paper is a consultation document, not a final reform design. It sets out one possible approach for the purpose of inviting discussion, informing debate and prompting suggestions. I am very mindful of our commitment under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to consult closely with, and actively involve, disabled people and their representative groups in changes to policies and services that will have an impact on them.

The aim of the Green Paper is twofold. First, it seeks to better insulate from poverty disabled people who cannot work by providing for higher rates of payment. Second, it seeks to support and encourage a higher level of employment for people with disabilities by tailoring the provision of employment supports to suit a person's capabilities. The Green Paper aims to achieve this through its main proposal of a three-tiered personal support payment, rather than the one-size-fits-all payment currently in place. I am aware that concerns have been expressed about the possible impact of the proposed approach on a person's entitlement to a disability payment or the level of that payment. I want to make it clear that nobody will lose their entitlement to a disability payment arising from the Green Paper proposals and nobody will see that payment level reduced. In addition, engagement with public employment services will be on a voluntary basis.

I assure the Deputy that all feedback on the Green Paper proposals will be considered in any future reforms of the system. That is the purpose of the consultation process. My officials have held a stakeholder event and four public consultation events over the past two months. We want to hear from as many disabled people and their representatives as possible. Accordingly, we have extended the closing date for the consultation until 15 March 2024. This was in response to a number of requests for an extension to allow individuals, disabled persons' organisations and disability groups time to compose their submission. We are open to all ideas and suggestions. I encourage everybody with an interest in improving the lives of people with disabilities to engage in the consultation process.

If the Government is serious about consultation and listening to people, it would, in fact, have listened to people and it would be withdrawing this Green Paper. "Nothing about us without us" is the slogan of the disability rights movement. Let us listen to what people with disabilities are saying. They are saying the proposed work capacity assessments are dehumanising and degrading, will objectify disabled people and will place blame on them for seeking welfare benefits. They say the Green Paper constitutes degrading and humiliating treatment under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and breaches disabled people's human rights. They say it will set disabled people against each other by discriminating between those seen as deserving of full benefits rights and those not deemed so deserving. They say the proposed process is based on a value judgment and will place blame on disabled people for seeking welfare benefits. They say it sends out a message to the general public that disabled people are falsifying the nature and extent of their impairment or illness and this will set up public resentment towards those disabled people who claim welfare benefits. They point out that it will do nothing to tackle the discrimination, societal ableism, oppression and prejudice from employers that are experienced by disabled people every day of their lives.

We need to heed the issues the Deputy has raised. I urge individuals and groups to view the Green Paper as an opportunity to detail and express the barriers they face in society that prevent them from participating at an equal level. They include financial barriers and physical barriers in workplaces and public infrastructure. Crucially, as the Deputy referred to, there are also barriers of preconceptions and prejudices among employers. The Green Paper will give us an opportunity to talk about all these issues and, most importantly, come up with solutions. We are talking about a Green Paper, not legislation. The idea is that we have the debate first. We need to listen carefully to what we are told.

I wonder whether the Minister of State has seen Ken Loach's fine film, "I, Daniel Blake", which reveals in horrifying detail the impact of a tiered system such as that being proposed. In the UK, it is called a work capability assessment; in the Green Paper, it is called a work capacity assessment. In effect, they are the same. When I asked the Taoiseach about this, he said "I, Daniel Blake" was a good film but it was one-sided; in other words, he was suggesting that perhaps some of these people may, in reality, be trying to scam the system.

The Minister of State said Intreo officials will carry out the work capacity assessments and that engagement with public employment services will be voluntary. If he has been listening to disabled people, he will know how negative their experiences with Intreo have been in the past. The proposal is to force people to jump through more hoops for Intreo into the future.

What does it mean to say it will be voluntary engagement where Intreo will have the power to categorise people into tiers and people will be left with little power to challenge this? The Minister of State said we should not worry and that nobody's payments will be cut. That might be the case now under this Government, but if we establish this tiered system we create the basis for cutting people's payments in the future, as happened in Britain.

As a Department, we have a responsibility to listen to and take on board people's experiences with Intreo. I know that good work is done, but as I said, the voices of people with disabilities are key in this regard. I thought the Deputy might ask me about the film. I have not seen it, but my understanding is that it is about the UK context. I understand, from what I have heard about it, why people might be fearful. This is Ireland and I believe we do things differently here, notwithstanding that people are concerned. While working in the Department, I have certainly learned that there is an openness to listening to stakeholders, and particularly in the area of disability there is an open-mindedness to doing things differently. I would see this as an opportunity for people to express the concerns that they have. It is a Green Paper. The idea is that it is a consultation document; it is not written in stone at the moment.

The question relates to domiciliary care allowance and the increasing number of rejections under domiciliary care allowance based on the number of claims. The Minister of State might outline whether he is concerned that the number of rejections is increasing at a time when we know, because of an increase in the rate of autism, that the number of children that should qualify for domiciliary care allowance is unfortunately going up.

Domiciliary care allowance is a monthly payment to a parent or guardian in respect of a child aged under 16 who has a severe disability and requires care and attention substantially over and above that usually needed by a child of the same age. This care and attention must be given by another person, effectively full-time, so that the child can deal with the activities of daily living. The child must be likely to require this level of care and attention for at least 12 months.

The number of applications for domiciliary care allowance received by my Department increased from 8,609 in 2018 to 8,719 in 2019. There was a slight reduction in the number received in 2020, most likely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, when 7,289 applications were received. However, the numbers increased substantially in 2021 to 9,131. Last year, the number of new applications surpassed the 10,000 mark for the first time, when 10,524 were received. The number of domiciliary care allowance applications that were disallowed at the initial decision stage in 2018 was 2,225, and in 2019 it was 2,875. In 2020, 2,639 applications were disallowed, and in 2021, this figure was 2,478. Last year, 3,948 applications were disallowed at initial decision stage. It should be noted that some of these applications would have gone on to be awarded on review where further medical evidence was received, or on appeal to the Social Welfare Appeals Office.

As domiciliary care allowance is not means-tested and does not require PRSI contributions, the main reason that a customer would not qualify for the payment is that the child does not satisfy the medical criteria. A very small number of applications may be disallowed where the habitual residency condition is not satisfied, where the child is in full-time residential care, or where an application is not fully completed. Applicants are advised to provide as much detail as possible at application stage, including any additional information or documentary evidence that is relevant, medical or otherwise, to ensure that all information is available for consideration in the decision and assessment process.

Obviously I do not have any figures for 2023, but as the Minister of State said, the number of claims registered in 2022 was 10,524. The number of claims rejected in that year was 3,948. I rounded the figures and that is just short of 40%. That seems to me to be a very high level of refusal. I am bit surprised to hear the Minister of State say that claims that were changed on review are still registered as being rejected. I would have thought that the record would have been correct. Similarly, I would have thought that on appeal the Department would have corrected the record. It is a very high number. As I said, one would expect the number of claims to increase because, as I am told by disability organisations, the number of people requiring services is going up. In a number of cases recently, I have been absolutely stunned to learn that the Department has not agreed that the child in question needs care and attention way over and above what a normal child would need.

My understanding, from discussions with officials, is that the rate has not increased over time, notwithstanding the fact that 70% of disallowed claims eventually do get granted. The explanation for this is the supply of the medical information. It tends not to be supplied in the initial application, at least in these particular cases.

If the Department is not getting the information it requires the first time, and many of the people who are applying for the allowance have their own challenges in life, are not super literate and do not read law, I would think that quite a bit could be done to make the application form more useful in terms of what is required from the professional and what is required from the parent. In many cases, when a parent comes to a politician, you advise them to write a diary of what their life is like and then get professional back-up to validate that that is true. That is weighing down the process and tying people up in a lot of red tape. Some people are better able for it than others. We have to always remember, in welfare, that not only are we dealing with very vulnerable children, but in many cases we are dealing with vulnerable parents.

There is an amenability in the Department in terms of looking at the question of backdating claims. People get the application in as soon as possible and then some of the medical information follows. We are looking at a way of maybe improving that. It is also important to state that budget 2023 saw new legislation coming into effect, with a new provision put in place making domiciliary care allowance available for children with severe illness or disability who remain in hospital for up to six months after birth.

According to data compiled by my Department, the average employer social insurance contribution rate across the EU stands at approximately 19.5%. Ireland's current higher employer social insurance rate is 11.05%. However, it is important to note that social insurance rates across Europe are not directly comparable as different benefits, thresholds and ceilings apply across each member state. Following Government decisions in response to the report of the Commission on Pensions and the publication of the Actuarial Review of the Social Insurance Fund, it was agreed that the Minister would bring forward a roadmap for PRSI changes as one of the primary means of addressing the projected shortfalls in social insurance income. This approach was agreed as an alternative to increasing the State pension age.

In recognition of the long-term sustainability challenges facing the Social Insurance Fund, in budget 2024 the Government agreed to incrementally increase all PRSI rates on employer, employee and self-employed by 0.4 percentage points over the period 2024 to 2028. As a first step, rates will increase by 0.1 percent from October 2024. A further review of the adequacy of the social insurance rates will be carried out once the next actuarial review is completed in 2027. I am satisfied that the approach decided by the Government achieves a fair balance between addressing the long-term sustainability of the Social Insurance Fund, without unduly impinging on the incomes of workers and the cost of doing business in Ireland.

I hear what the Minister of State is saying. There was an agreement to increase employers' PRSI in relation to State pensions. Research by SIPTU shows that increasing employers' PRSI to the EU average would provide an extra €10 billion, similar to what we spend on education each year.

The Nevin Institute has said the tax revenue from employees exceeds the EU average while employers are undertaxed. It went on to say that the Republic's low overall implicit tax rate on labour arises because employers in the Republic have an implicit tax rate of just 9.2% compared with 17% for the EU as a whole. Ireland sits 27th in Europe for employers' contributions to social insurance. We need to take a serious look at employers' PRSI contributions. We could use €10 billion for public services. It could be phased in with significant support for SMEs and still increase revenue receipts. It needs to be seriously looked at.