Danny Healy-Rae urges end to carers' means test, warns on auto-enrolment

Thank you very much. I am glad to get the opportunity to talk again on the social welfare and indeed on the auto-enrolment. I suppose what we are hoping for is that in a very short time that the means test for carers will be abolished altogether. Because, as I understand it, if you are caring for someone with a disability, you are actually living their life. And that is what many loved ones are doing, seeing after that. And they have no choice in the matter, they don't think about it, but they just continue to do that. And we must be fair, Minister, and see after those people as they need to, because as a government we have to be fair, and as elected members we have to be fair to the people that we are representing. The disability belongs with the rising cost of electricity. You see, people have been forced into using electricity. And I have it said here before to Minister, the regulator is not visible. He has not been seen at all. And people are thinking, where is here? What is going on? I mean, the cost of electricity is going up some 17%, some 13%. And there is no uniform amount, and there is no reasonable excuse being given for the cost of the rising electricity cost. And you see, people have been advised for carbon emissions and whatever, something that I don't subscribe to. But at the same time, people have been advised, and they have taken advice, and they have gone with this under the floor heat systems and all that. And this is what they were afraid to do. They are afraid to put a salatrop into the fire. And the honest truth is, since Borna Mourna was closed down, the cost of electricity has gone up every whole day. And I regret that very much, because there is a carbon footprint bringing gas from wherever it comes, and there is a carbon footprint from bringing electricity from long distances. So we need to look at everything, because at the end of the day, we are all under the one sky. Working, the other thing, the living alone alone needs to be addressed, Minister, because people who live alone, they have the same cost in the house where there is an elderly couple together, they can share the cost, and they have two pensions, and it really goes because they have nothing else, only their pensions, and many of them, that's how they survive day to day, but the person living alone is suffering. The working family payment, you see, some people, they got an increase in the working family payment. And what that does then, it pushes them off the housing list. And I have so much of it in Kerry. I had a family that was on the housing list for nine years, and the family income supplement, please, it should be disregarded as income, because if a family qualifies for the family income supplement, they are in a bad way. They wouldn't get it only for, they need it. And I'm asking you, Minister, to the very lardable thing for you to consider and to look at the fact that they're getting this payment, and it wipes them off the housing list. It's very unfair. And I have a man and wife and three children now, and they're out in the cold. They won't, they're off the housing list. They have no hope in the world of ever buying a house. And the way the thing is going around Killarney, you can't rent a house. They're costly up to 2,000 a month for a four bed house, and people can't just afford that. In relation to the auto enrolment, I'm concerned about this, and I suppose, Minister, Minister, I'll be honest, I don't know enough about it, and I think a lot of people are like myself. They don't understand it. But employers are saying to me, small employers, that are the backbone of our employment situation in Ireland. The fellow with two or three fellows working for him, going off in a van, whether it is plastering, whether it is building blocks, whatever it is, whether it is a haulage company, or whether it is, you know, carpenters, or whatever. The man that's employing three or four, he's very worried about the cost of this, because you're saying in one hand that at the start that the employer will pay one and a half percent, the worker, the employee, will pay one and a half percent, and that the state will just pay 0.5 percent, a half a percent. And then after three years, it will go up for the employee and the employer to three percent, and then year and year it goes up, and then after ten years, the employer has to pay six percent. And you see, the honest truth with this, Minister, today the employer will finish up paying it, because otherwise he will lose his employees, and that's how they feel. I have been a small employer for many years, and Friday evening often came very quick for me, Minister, because I was always employing four or five or seven or eight, and the week goes very quick, and we will find the money and have it for them, but now everything seems to be hitting the employer together, whether it is the extra sick days now that employees can ring in, look, if people are sick, it is grand to cover them for, it is going to be seven days now, I think, this year, is it? And there's extra bank holidays, it is the employee must pay for all, because the state, it is grand for the state to announce a rise in the minimum wage, but it is the employer is paying it, and then you see, when that goes up, all the other wages have to go up, so I'm concerned at the fact that the state and paying in at the same level, that the employer will finish up paying the six percent for himself, if he'll have the employee for ten years, and he'll be paying the employees as well, and the state will still pay 0.5 percent. I don't think there's any great deal in that, Minister, and I'm very worried about it, because, as I said to you, the employer will finish up paying it off, and I have a couple of questions, like, will it be the state, will this be run by the state, is going to create more work for the employer's accountant, or if his wife is at it, there's more red tape, and whatever, there's more work in it, and more responsibility in it, and I'm worried about it, because I'm getting it in the neck already from employers, that there's no one speaking up from here inside, and that everyone else seems to be seen after, only the employer, and if the employers don't continue, and there is a big thing happening now, Minister, this thing called work-life balance, it is hitting farmers, it is hitting everyone, because if you're working the five days had on the road, whether it is, I said, plastering, carpentering, mechanical, whatever it is, there's another day's work in organising, the work for next week, and for paying the leads, and having everything in audience, and note the bills, people very shortly will arrive working for someone else, for the department, or something else, they'd be way better off than having the responsibility of employing lads, and trying to keep them going, and you see, you're paying the worker, but you're ensuring that his family, his children, and everyone, the responsibility of all that is on the employer's shoulders, and I know what it is, I have been employing people since the very first day, and Friday evening comes very quick, and it's all included, but young fellows are looking at each other now, and they see the fellow that's going off to college, and going off and getting a better job, whether it is for the department, or whoever it is, they're finished maybe a half day Friday, and they're home early Friday evening, whereas the poor farmer soon, he can't go, he must milk the cows, and the cows will have to be meal Saturday, and they'll have to be meal Sunday, and if there's one of them calving, he got ahead to seek and leave it all, they are under the cows, whether it is 2 or 3 o'clock in the middle of the night, or 5 or 6 o'clock in the early morning, and he's alone, and we need to look at what's happening more closer on the ground, because this thing called work-life balance, the young fellows of today are able to size it up for themselves, and they won't be sweating, or perish with the cold in the middle of the night, when their friends are out, maybe at the dance, or the lead eagler somewhere in Killarney, or down the town in Scots, or the Tatler Jack at one of these places, and poor Johnny at home, waiting for the cow to calf, and no one wants to give him a hand, so these things need to be raised, it is fine, but it is the God's gospel truth, and we need to be more careful of our employers.