Pre Budget Submission 2003

Executive Summary

Comhairle's Pre Budget Submission addresses the social policy issues which are of most concern to people who have used the services of Citizens' Information Centres over the past year. The national network of CICs dealt with approximately 400,000 queries from members of the public in 2001.

The submission makes the following recommendations:

A Long Term Social Welfare Strategy

• We recommend that a long term strategy to deal with the structural problems in social welfare be set out. This would complement the National Anti-Poverty Strategy which sets out a long term strategy for social welfare payments.
• Among the issues which the strategy needs to address are:
• Gaps in the system, especially in relation to caring and to services for people with disabilities. There are gaps in the case of people who were excluded at an earlier stage - e.g. the self-employed and certain older women; the distinction between long term and short term beneficiaries is not always logical and there are still some people who are excluded e.g. employed family members. The manner in which credits are awarded is not sufficiently clear and transparent.
• Problems of interaction between the system and the income tax system - this mainly arises in the case of the different treatment of married and cohabiting couples by the two systems and in the case of tax credits and allowances for carers
• How the system deals with individuals and households
• Other aspects of the system which cause disincentives to work and/or poverty traps including the operation of the qualified adult allowance system, the traps at specific income levels caused by the limits set for PRSI contributions and the health contribution, the problems caused by the upper income limit for retention of secondary benefits, the non availability of Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) to people employed for more than 30 hours a week, the working hours limit for Family Income Supplement (FIS), the disincentives to older people being employed

Disability

We recommend that, within the long term social welfare strategy, the issues relating to a cost of disability payment and thedisincentives to work inherent in the operation of the various payments for training for people with disabilities be addressed. The continuing injustice of certain people in long stay care being excluded from the Disability Allowance should be rectified.

Caring

We recommend a number of measures to improve the support available to carers.

We recommend that

• The introduction of an additional support for carers who are providing the highest levels of care.
• That the various tax credits and allowances available to taxpaying carers should be rationalised and, where possible, transferred to direct payments.

Health Services

We recommend that:

• The policy outlined in the Health Strategy in relation to clarity and consistency of entitlement to medical cards, and a clear legislative basis for all health entitlements, especially entitlement to welfare home and related services and to the core community services be implemented
• Entitlement to medical cards be aligned with social welfare benefits and the minimum wage

Housing

We recommend that:

• Legislation to give effect to the Report of the Commission on the Private Rented Sector be enacted as quickly as possible and that it be rigorously implemented
• Improvements be made to the Rent Supplement scheme to remove the inherent disincentives to work and to make it easier for claimants to avail of the scheme
• Improvements be made to and adequate funding be provided for the housing repair schemes and that they be put on a statutory basis with a legal right for individuals to avail of them.

Employment Laws

We recommend that:

• There be much greater co-ordination among the employment law bodies to ensure that rights are enforced
• An information campaign be undertaken to ensure that both employers and employees are aware of their rights and obligations under employment law
• In relation to employed immigrants there should be systematic inspections of work permit holders' employment conditions and work permit holders should not be tied to one employer.

Community Employment

The drop in numbers of places on community employment projects and the effect that this has had on the capacity of voluntary groups to deliver services, has been a feature both for clients of CICs and for the CICs themselves.

We recommend that the effects of these changes on organizations, which have depended on community employment for efficient and effective service delivery, need to be documented and alleviated by appropriate state intervention.

Asylum Seekers

We recommend that:

• If the direct payments system for asylum seekers is to be continued, it should be specifically provided for in legislation and the payment should be increased in line with social welfare payments generally.

Delivery of Services

We recommend that:

• Independent statutory appeals and complaints systems should be introduced in a number of areas with the Social Welfare Appeals Office as the prototype
• The remit of the SWAO be extended to those areas of social welfare in which it is not currently concerned - for example, the free schemes, the back to work/education schemes and parts of the SWA scheme.
• An enforceable Charter of Customer Rights be introduced that would outline specific time limits for the processing of claims and appeals, as well as other basic standards of service
• Service providers should recognise their clients needs to use advocacy services

This is the end of the executive summary.

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Pre-Budget Submission 2003 - Introduction

This submission addresses the social policy issues which are of most concern to people who have used the services of Citizens' Information Centres over the past year. The national network of CICs dealt with approximately 400,000 queries from members of the public in 2001.

Queries to CICs related mainly to the following areas:

• social welfare: 43%
• employment: 16%
• health: 11%
• nationality related issues: 11%

Other significant areas included problems in the private rented sector and the rent supplement as well as family law and one parent family issues.

Of the social welfare queries, 12% were related to disability payments. Almost half of health queries were concerned with medical cards. Almost half of the employment related queries involved employment rights or redundancy.

The main concerns of the clients of CICs can be broadly grouped as follows:

• Structural problems within the social welfare system including gaps in provision and problems which lead to disincentives to work and poverty traps
• Issues in relation to disability in the social welfare, health and community care systems
• Issues in relation to caring in the social welfare, health and community care systems
• Health Services, and very specifically, entitlement to medical cards
• Housing, in particular, the problems experienced in the private rented sector and the operation of the SWA Rent Supplement
• The enforcement of employment legislation
• The problems faced by migrant workers and asylum seekers
• Problems with delivery of services including delays and inadequate or non existent appeals and complaints mechanisms.

A Long Term Social Welfare Strategy

A significant number of the queries dealt with by CICs concern structural problems within the social welfare system e.g. anomalies within the system which result in disincentives to work or return to education, anomalies between the social welfare and tax systems, disincentives to family formation. These problems are complex and some of them have been analysed in a number of reports. Others are currently being examined by working/review groups. There are no simple solutions but we consider that it is important that there be an overall strategy to address them and not a series of attempts at correction which frequently result in the creation of further problems.

The revised National Anti Poverty Strategy sets targets for social welfare payments including a targeted relationship between child and adult payments. We welcome this development and consider that a similar long term strategic approach should be adopted towards other aspects of the social welfare system.

Among the issues which the strategy needs to address are

• gaps in the system, especially in relation to caring and disability
• problems of interaction between the system and the income tax system
• the individualisation of the system or its continuance on a household basis
• other aspects of the system which cause disincentives to work and/or poverty traps

Gaps in the social welfare system

The inclusion of the self employed and part time workers in the social insurance system has considerably reduced the numbers totally excluded from the system. However, there continue to be problems for people who were excluded at an earlier stage - notably older women, some who are now included do not have coverage for all benefits e.g. the self-employed, the distinction between long term and short term beneficiaries is not always logical and there are still some people who are excluded e.g. employed family members. The manner in which credits are awarded is not sufficiently clear and transparent.

There are also significant gaps in provision for people with disabilities and in recognising the rights of carers. The social welfare strategy which is needed to address these gaps is linked with the provision of health and community care services and are addressed in the next section.

Short term and long term benefits

We accept that there is a logic to the general distinction between long term and short term benefits and that the extra benefits attached to long term beneficiary status are appropriate. However, there is a group of people who, even though they are long term beneficiaries by any reasonable description are still treated as short-term beneficiaries - they are people in Disability Benefit for a year or more who do not qualify for Invalidity Pension. They should be reclassified as long term beneficiaries and qualify for the related benefits.

Short Term Benefits and Child Dependant Allowances (CDA's)

People receiving short term Unemployment Assistance, Unemployment Benefit or Disability Benefit get no financial support in respect of children aged 18 -22 in full time education. This is inequitable and acts as a disincentive to such children staying in full time education. We recommend that eligibility for the payment of CDAs should be the same for all child dependants.

Older Women

Older women who were excluded from the labour force and consequently from the social insurance system continue to have problems in qualifying for pensions. There is a strong case for extending homemakers credits to people who were carers before 1994. This case has been accepted by a number of reports but no action has yet been taken. We recommend that this be addressed - if necessary gradually - over the next few years.

Employed Family Members

Employed family members should be obliged to be included in the PRSI system in the same way as other employees. Their exclusion means that they continue to be regarded as dependants even though they have been in employment and goes contrary to the general principle of inclusion which has been the aim of the system for some time.

Social Insurance coverage for the Self-Employed

The self-employed are not covered for short term benefits (except for Maternity Benefit). They should be gradually brought into coverage starting with entitlement to Disability Benefit. CICs have come across difficult cases of self-employed people being dependent on Supplementary Welfare Allowance for a considerable period when long term illness set in. (The Sickness Allowance which is provided for in legislation should also be introduced immediately.)

The Operation of Credits

Social insurance credits are awarded in a variety of circumstances and, in some cases, can be as valuable to the individual as paid insurance. Entitlement to credits ought to be as clear as entitlement to any social welfare payment. The strategy should address all the areas where credits are or should be awarded and make legislative provision for this. The award of credits would then be made subject to the Social Welfare Appeals Office.

Interaction between the social welfare and tax systems

There are a number of areas in which the social welfare system and the tax system interact and that interaction does not always lead to consistent or fair treatment. The most obvious example is the different treatment of married and cohabiting couples in the two systems.

The tax system includes a number of credits and allowances which are effectively income support mechanisms. We agree with the Commission on Taxation and the Commission on Social Welfare that the tax system is not the most appropriate way to deliver income support and that direct welfare payments are more appropriate. The relevant tax credits and allowances are mainly in the areas of disability and caring and are addressed below.

Married and cohabiting couples

The fact that unmarried couples are treated as a couple for social welfare purposes, but as separate individuals in the tax system is clearly inconsistent, encourages welfare fraud, and causes hardship for the adults as well as the children. We consider that the treatment of married and cohabiting couples should be harmonised in both the tax and social welfare systems It is noted that cautious support for change in the tax treatment of cohabiting couples is expressed in the Report of the Working Group Examining the Treatment of Married, Cohabiting and One-parent Families Under the Tax and Social Welfare Codes.

This issue should be addressed in the social welfare strategy and a long term plan set out to remove the inconsistent treatment.

Individual or Household Basis for Payments

The question of individual and household basis for social welfare payments has been examined at length in a number of reports. A decision should be made on which direction should be taken and a strategy set out for reaching the required objective. Over the past number of years there have been a series of moves designed to address the problems caused by the continued treatment of some adults as dependants and the different treatment of different household formations. These have solved some problems but created others. We accept that the issues are complex and that there are likely to be some losers but we consider that a long term strategy is likely to result in a resolution of the problems.

In addressing a long term strategy, a system should be put in place which will, as far as possible, end the concept of adult dependency, ensure equitable treatment for all and aim to ensure that family choices are not made on the basis of the availability of social welfare payments.

The issues in relation to he Qualified Adult Allowance are outlined below.

Family Formation

The problems which arise because of the different levels of payment available to lone parents and to those on Unemployment Assistance and the potential loss of the lone parent payments if a couple opt to live together results in disincentives to family formation. This is a particularly difficult problem to solve but a number of options have been set out (particularly in the Report of the Working Group Examining the Treatment of Married, Cohabiting and One-parent Families Under the Tax and Social Welfare Codes, August 1999) and a decision should be made on which direction to take over a period of years.

Disincentives to work

The social welfare strategy should ensure that all social welfare measures are geared towards promoting employment and providing incentives to employment while ensuring that there are appropriate payments for all groups who need them. Some of the issues addressed above under other headings also involve work incentive issues.

Among the anomalies and traps identified by CIC clients and which need to be addressed are:

• the operation of the qualified adult allowance system which involves a disincentive to work for qualified adults, usually women
• the traps at specific income levels caused by the limits for PRSI payments and the health contribution
• the problems caused by the upper income limit for retention of secondary benefits
• other disincentives to work

Qualified Adult Allowance

The upper income limit for qualified adults has increased over the past few years but the basic problem remains that many qualified adults restrict the hours worked in order to stay under the limit. A long term plan to deal with this is necessary. The problem is of greatest relevance in the case of unemployment payments as the majority of people affected are married to Unemployment Benefit or Unemployment Assistence recipients. Further variation on the income limits will not address the basic problem - this requires a broader strategy and its implementation over a number of years.

PRSI

The Minister for Finance has twice signalled his intention to simplify PRSI. We consider that a start should be made this year towards the eventual elimination of the traps caused by the different levels at which PRSI and the health contribution are applied.

Secondary Benefits

The retention of secondary benefits by people going back to work/education continues to be desirable but the upper income limit (€317.43/£250) for retaining some of the benefits has not changed for a number of years and this effectively means that a number of people cannot actually retain these benefits. For example, a lone parent with more than one child who goes on to a Community Employment scheme cannot now retain entitlement to Rent Supplement.

Reforms of the medical card system and of the Rent Supplement system could, of course, reduce the necessity for retention of secondary benefits.

Other Disincentives to Work

Disincentives to work arise in a number of other areas of social welfare as follows:

Supplementary Welfare Allowance

Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) and Exceptional Needs Payments are not available to people who work more than 30 hours. This is causing a problem for people who can only get part time work. They should have an incentive to take such part time work. There should be an income limit rather than an hours worked limit for entitlement to SWA and Exceptional Needs Payments.

The report of the review group on the SWA scheme should be published.

(The issues arising in the case of SWA Rent Supplement are addressed below.)

Family Income Supplement

The qualifying working hours for Family Income Supplement (FIS) should be reduced to 17.5 as many lone parents are job sharing (a 35-hour week being increasingly common) and many fail to qualify for FIS due to number of hours worked.

Older People

We welcome the commitment in the Programme for Government to remove the retirement requirement for recipients of Retirement Pensions and "to review ways in which older people can be encouraged, where they so wish, to extend their working lives without financial penalty and in conditions which suit their personal lifestyle wishes".

The effect of spouse's earnings is disproportionately high for the old-age non-contributory pension as compared to other means-tested transfers such as unemployment assistance, the pre-retirement allowance and the disability allowance. This is seen by some CICs as constituting a disincentive for the spouses of old-age non-contributory pensioners to work.

Widowed People

The means-testing of widow's/widower's non-contributory pension is tighter than in other social welfare payments (because there are no disregards) which creates a strong disincentive to work. For instance, a person in receipt of unemployment assistance is allowed to earn more than a person in receipt of widows'/widower' non-contributory pension without losing his/her payment. Means-testing of payments should be made uniform across social welfare payments.

Disability

People with disabilities have brought a range of issues to the attention of CICs in the past year. Some of these will be addressed by the proposed Disabilities Bill and the Education (People with Disabilities) Bill - the right to and availability of assessment of needs, appropriate education services, community care services and advocacy services. Some will not be addressed in these Bills - notably income maintenance issues. We consider that the income maintenance issues should be addressed in the social welfare strategy which we propose above. These issues are related to the structure of the social welfare system rather than the level of payments for existing income maintenance arrangements (for which the National Anti-Poverty Strategy provides).

Cost of disability payment

The group examining the cost of disability payment should report shortly. A long term plan could be put in place to introduce such a payment. All groups dealing with disabilities concur in the view that such a payment is essential to promoting independent living.

We welcome the commitment in the Programme for Government to "consult on other options for assisting families who may wish to make long-term provision for a person with a disability."

Mobility Payments

The Inter-Departmental Review Group, on the Disabled Drivers' and Disabled Passengers' (Tax Concessions) Scheme has been in existence for a number of years - its report should be finalised and published. In our submission to that group we argued that the scheme should not be viewed in isolation from other transport/mobility schemes for people with disabilities and should also be reviewed in the context of the proposed analysis of a Cost of Disability payment. We consider that there should be a transport/mobility subsidy available to a much wider group of people with disabilities. This should be a direct payment rather than a tax expenditure and should be based on an individual needs assessment.

Grants for vehicle adaptations are currently only available to employed people with disabilities. These grants should also be made available to those who are undertaking training, or need to travel to day care centres.

The Mobility Allowance is very small and people over 66 may not apply for it although they may retain it if awarded before that age. This is unfair as many over this age are likely to need it and it is arbitrarily discriminatory on the basis of age.

Training

People with disabilities should be encouraged to work in the same way as all other groups. At present, there are disincentives inherent in the disability payments systems.

People who go onto training courses are treated differently depending on whether they are getting DB (Disability Benefit) or DA (Disability Allowance). People on DA lose their DA and get training allowance and training bonus while DB people get this plus their DB. People on DA need an incentive to go on training courses, the training bonus just about covers the extra costs involved.

Means tests

A separated person in receipt of a disability payment has all maintenance assessed whereas a person on One Parent Family Payment has only half of the maintenance assessed. The same rules on maintenance payments should apply to all social welfare recipients.

Disability Allowance for people in long stay care

A number of people with disabilities who have been in long stay care for some time are still not eligible for Disability Allowance. This constitutes a severe injustice in that they have no income and they are being treated unequally relative to people who came into long stay care later. This should be rectified immediately.

Carers

Comhairle has recently published a Social Policy report - Supporting Carers. This draws on, among other sources, queries to CICs. The report recommends a number of measures to improve the situation of carers which we do not propose to repeat here. We would like to reiterate the following points:

• The provision of an additional income support for carers who are providing the highest level of care, i.e. looking after a highly dependent person (so-called ‘continual care payment'), should be considered as recommended in the 1998 Review of the Carer's Allowance.
• There is a range of tax credits and allowances available to carers - the Home Carers tax credit, the Incapacitated Child Credit, the Prescribed relatives credit and the allowance for employing a carer. There is no overall policy behind these credits and allowances. By their nature, tax credits and allowances are only relevant to people who have taxable income. Significant numbers of carers do not have a taxable income and so do not qualify. These credits and allowances should be examined to see if they have any significant impact on the target groupings and to see if the expenditure involved would be better used to finance direct payments.

Health Services

Comhairle welcomes the publication of the Quality and Fairness - Health Strategy 2001. It provides for long term plans for improvements in the areas of which concern CIC users and it sets out plans for establishing a comprehensive and clear statutory framework of entitlement.

The major health service concerns of CIC users over the past year were waiting lists for treatment in hospitals and in dental and orthodontic services, issues in relation to caring in the community, nursing home subventions and, most of all, entitlement to medical cards. We acknowledge the difficulties in addressing the various waiting lists and that the Health Strategy, if fully implemented, would lead to major improvements. We welcome the intention expressed in the Health Strategy to introduce new legislation dealing with entitlement to health services, especially entitlement to welfare home and related services and to the core community services. We consider that this new legislation should be enacted and implemented urgently.

Medical Cards

The Health Strategy plan for increasing the numbers who are eligible for medical cards (affirmed in the Programme for Government) and for clarification of entitlement is to be welcomed. However, it must be said that the practice in 2002 has gone contrary to the stated intention of the Strategy. Evidence from CIC users shows that

entitlement to a medical card is not clear or consistent

significant numbers of low income families, including people whose only income is a social welfare benefit do not qualify

Clarity and Consistency

The social welfare increases over the past two years in particular have resulted in many people whose only income is a social welfare payment having an income in excess of the relevant medical card income guideline. Medical card income guidelines have not kept pace with social welfare increases. Earlier in 2002, the Minister for Health and Children said that nobody should lose a medical card because of the increase in social welfare payments.

Evidence from CICs shows that people whose only income is a social welfare payment are being refused medical cards. So, new social welfare recipients are being treated less well than those who were receiving their payments before January 2002. In some cases, people have actually lost their medical cards because of the increase in benefit - the Minister's corrective action in relation to social welfare recipients was not actually implemented in a number of cases. This situation is clearly inequitable.

People who are going back to work or education may retain their medical cards for a time as part of the system of retention of secondary benefits. This also has led to some inequity but there is a clear and appropriate rationale for it - i.e. removing disincentives to work. There is no rationale for discriminating between people whose only income is a social welfare benefit.

Entitlement to benefits should be clear and transparent. Arrangements such as that put in place in 2002, while they address the problems of one group, lead to actual and perceived problems for others.

Income guidelines too low

CICs hear constant complaints about people on very low incomes not qualifying for medical cards. As already stated, some of these are living on social welfare incomes.

The income guidelines for medical cards are too low at present and need to be raised. Comhairle considers that the medical card income guidelines should be aligned with social welfare payments and the minimum wage.

The possibility of giving a medical card to all children whose parents' income is below a certain limit should be seriously considered. The current system where income limits for medical cards are very low leads to a situation where many low and medium income parents (who do not qualify for medical cards for themselves and their children) may be reluctant to take their children to the doctor due to the cost of the visit and treatment. Medical card income limits do not take into account many important expenses such as childcare costs that can leave families with very little disposable income even when their gross income is clearly over the qualifying income limit.

Housing

Queries in relation to housing continue to be a major element of the CIC workload. The increased availability of social and affordable housing should alleviate some of the problems. The major issues in the past year were:

• Problems within the private rented sector
• Problems with the Rent Supplement
• Grants for house improvements

The Private Rented Sector

We welcome the commitment in the Programme for Government to "implement a full package of reforms in rented accommodation sector, arising from the report of the Commission on the Private Rented Sector." We also welcome the commitment to provide Housing Advice Services through the local authorities.

Implementation of the Commission report would address most of the legislative inadequacies which exist at present particularly in relation to security of tenure and tenants' rights generally but, we are concerned that, as well as passing the necessary legislation, there will be adequate mechanisms put in place to ensure that it is rigorously implemented. There is clear evidence from CICs that the existing legislation is not being implemented, that landlords are frequently in breach of their existing obligations in respect of minimum standards, rent and registration, notice to quit rules and provision of rent books.

Rent Supplements

The Rent Supplement scheme gives rise to many queries in CICs. It is a major issue from the point of view of disincentives to work and from a fairness and equity viewpoint.

We have made a number of submissions on this issue, most recently in our submission on Housing and the NAPS and we are in the process of compiling a social policy report on the issue. A number of aspects of the scheme need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. We have welcomed the proposals to transfer responsibility for the Rent Supplement to the local authorities where the question of rent supplementation can be seen and dealt with in the context of social housing generally. However, there does not seem to be any progress on this proposed move and we consider that it should be expedited.

We consider that entitlement to Rent Supplement should be based on housing need and employed people should not be automatically excluded.

Disincentive to work

The income limits and conditions attached to rent supplement should operate in a way which ensures that the unemployment trap is eliminated. Rent allowance should be reduced gradually as income increases (but the reduction in rent allowance should, up to a certain income ceiling, be smaller than the increase in income), so that transfer from unemployment (or part-time employment) to employment (or full-time employment/more hours worked) always results in considerably higher income.

The rent supplement should be based on an assessment of housing needs, income, means and family size: it should not be affected by the applicant's age or assumptions about their family circumstances.

The level of housing benefit/rent assistance should be tapered i.e. grow/diminish in response to changes in the recipient's circumstances (e.g. unemployment/work, family size, two-parent/single parent household etc.). Working/training should always result in a considerably higher income level than ‘passive' receipt of benefits: the retention and only gradual tapering of secondary benefits such as rent allowance plays a key role in this.

Other Problems

There are consistent problems of rent supplement refusals to young people whom the CWO adjudges should live at home and about what constitutes reasonable rent.

There is evidence of a reluctance on the part of some landlords to participate in the rent supplement scheme. Consequently, the tenant may not be able to claim a Rent Supplement.

Employment Laws

Queries to CICs in relation to employment legislation and particularly to its enforcement have been increasing consistently in recent years. Some of these queries are posed by immigrants but they are by no means confined to immigrants. This is an area in which there are clear legislative rights but the failure to implement them is the major problem.

CIC clients have had problems with the payment of incorrect wages, denial of holidays/holiday pay, non-payment of PRSI, failure to provide payslips/P.60/P.45 forms.

There is evidence that employers - especially small employers - are not aware of the right to force majeure leave for emergencies.

Our pre budget submissions for the past number of years have addressed the issues of enforcement and the need to provide greater information to both employers and employees about employment rights.

Employed Immigrants

We welcome the commitment in the Programme for Government that "we will ensure the effective monitoring of the working conditions of all persons with work visas".

Immigrants have particular problems with the enforcement of employment rights. They suffer from the general enforcement problems specified above, they tend to be less aware of their rights and, understandably, more reluctant to make complaints. There is evidence from CICs of non nationals paying employment agencies - under the guise of travelling expenses. Many are provided with housing by their employers which actually makes it even more difficult for them to try to enforce their rights. There should be systematic inspections of immigrants' employment conditions. The Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment has all the information necessary to carry out such inspections.

The Programme for Government also states that "We will introduce a special working visa scheme for child minders." While this would alleviate the supply problem in this area, we consider that it would need to be monitored particularly closely. The scope for exploitation in this area is enormous.

In order to address the problems of immigrants, we consider that the Immigration and Residence Bill and the statutory framework for work permits and authorisations should be enacted as a matter of priority. In our submission on the Immigration and Residence Bill, we have recommended, among other things, that

there should be a clear framework of rights both for applicants to enter Ireland and for non-EU nationals who take up residence here.

the work permit/work authorisation scheme should be put on a statutory basis. The legislation should deal with the procedures for getting permits, the rights of permit holders etc.

Work permit holders should not be tied to one employer. Procedures may be necessary to ensure that the holders do not breach the terms of the permit but we consider that work permit holders are considerably less likely to be able to avail of their entitlements if they are tied to the one employer. We acknowledge the efforts that have been made by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to inform work permit holders of their rights but problems will continue unless holders have genuine freedom of movement.

The status of long term non European Economic Area nationals resident in Ireland should be clarified

The spouses of non-nationals who have work permits should also be allowed work permits/authorisations for the same period.

Community Employment

The drop in numbers of places on community employment projects and the effect that this has had on the capacity of voluntary groups to deliver services, has been a feature both for clients of CICs and for the CICs themselves. While these projects were designed as an employment intervention and not as a long-term solution to unemployment they have had benefits for organizations, the community and the individual community employment worker, which were not originally anticipated.

While it is understandable in the improved employment situation in Ireland today that FAS would lessen its activities in this area, it is important that the unforeseen benefits, which are already documented within FAS and within the projects themselves, are not lost to the communities and organizations they have served or to the individual participant.

The effects of these changes on organizations, which have depended on community employment for efficient and effective service delivery, need to be documented and alleviated by appropriate state intervention.

Asylum Seekers

In our submission to the review of the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme we expressed concern that the direct provision arrangements for asylum seekers may not be adequately underpinned from a legal point of view. If the direct payments system for asylum seekers is to be continued, it should be specifically provided for in legislation.

We are concerned that the direct payment to asylum seekers remains at a very low level and has not been increased since it was first introduced. We consider that the payment should be increased in line with social welfare payments generally.

Delivery of Services

We acknowledge the commitment of the service providers in almost all areas of the social services to improve the manner of service delivery and to provide customer focused services. Here we set out areas in which CIC clients have experienced shortcomings in service delivery.

Independent Complaints and Appeals Systems

Comhairle regards statutory independent complaints and appeals machinery as an essential requirement of a customer focused public service.

In a recent submission to the review of the Social Welfare Appeals Office (SWAO) we reiterated our view that the SWAO provides a prototype of the independent statutory system which we consider should be available in all areas. We recommended that the remit of that office be extended to those areas of social welfare in which it is not currently concerned - for example, the free schemes, the back to work/education schemes and parts of the SWA scheme.

An independent statutory appeals system along the lines of the SWAO should also be established for health services.

As well as formal appeals procedures, there is a need for complaints procedures to be available to citizens who feel they have been treated unfairly or discourteously. These procedures should be established in all state agencies dealing with a large public throughput as a matter of priority. There should be some external element to these procedures and their existence should be widely advertised.

Delays

Feedback from CICs provides evidence of long delays in decisions about various services. There are particular delays in processing SWA claims.

There are long delays, in some cases of almost one year, in the processing of applications (for Family Income Supplement, One Parent Family Payment, Carer's Allowance, free schemes, living alone allowance, pensions ). This is obviously causing hardship and frustration among people who are entitled to payments but have to live without them for long periods of time. More efficient use should be made of computerised records in order to minimise the amount of paperwork and duplication of applications and certificates required from social welfare clients. There should be more integration between the customer services of social welfare offices and health boards so that duplication and delays are avoided.

Comhairle recommends the introduction of an enforceable Charter of Customer Rights, that would outline specific time limits for the processing of claims and appeals, as well as other basic standards of service.