I am glad to get the opportunity to talk again on this social welfare Bill and auto-enrolment. We are hoping that in a very short time, the means test for carers will be abolished altogether. As I understand it, if you are caring for someone with a disability you are actually living their life. That is what many loved ones are doing. They have no choice in the matter. They do not think about it; they just continue to do that. We must be fair and look after those people as they need it because as a Government and as elected Members, we have to be fair to the people we are representing. Take the rising costs of electricity. People have been forced into using electricity. I have said it here before that the regulator is not visible. He is not being seen at all. People are wondering where he is or what is going on. The costs of electricity are increasing, in some cases by 17% and in some by 13%, with no uniform amount. There is no reasonable excuse being given for the cost of the rising electricity prices. People have been advised for carbon emissions and whatever – which is something that I do not subscribe to – and they have taken advice and gone with these under the floor heat systems and all that. They are afraid to put a sod of turf into the fire. The honest truth is that since Bord na Móna was closed down, the cost of electricity has gone up every whole day. 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 long distances. We need to look at everything because at the end of the day we are all under the one sky. The living alone allowance needs to be addressed because people who live alone have the same costs in the house. When there is an elderly couple living together they can share the costs and they have two pensions. They have nothing other than their pensions. That is how many of them survive day to day, but the person living alone is suffering. Some people got an increase in the working family payment that will push them off the housing list. I have so much of this in Kerry. I had a family who were on the housing list for nine years. The family income supplement should be disregarded as income. If a family qualifies for the family income supplement, they are in a bad way. They would not get it only for they need it. It would be a very laudable thing for the Department to consider, the fact that they are getting this payment and it wipes them off the housing list. It is very unfair. I have a man with a wife and three children. They are out in the cold. They are off the housing list. They have no hope in the world of ever buying a house. The way things are going in Killarney, people cannot rent houses. It is costing up to €2,000 a month for a four-bed house, and people cannot afford that. On auto-enrolment, I am concerned about it. I will be honest and say that I do not know enough about it. A lot of people are like me in that they do not understand it. Small employers are the backbone of our economy. I refer to the fellow with two or three fellows working for him, going off in a van to a plastering job, to lay blocks, hauling goods, carpentry or whatever. The man who is employing three or four is very worried about the cost of this. The Minister is saying that the employer will pay 1.5%, the employee will pay 1.5%, and the State will pay just 0.5%. After three years, it will go up for the employee and the employer to 3%. After that, it will go up year on year. After ten years, the employer will have to pay 6%. The truth of it is that the employer will finish up paying for it because otherwise he will lose his employees. That is how they will feel. I have been a small employer for many years. Friday evening often came very quick for me because I was always employing four or five or seven or eight people. The week goes very quick, and you must find the money and have it for them. Now, everything seems to be hitting the employer together, like the extra sick days that employees can ring in for. If people are sick, it is grand to cover them. It is going to be seven days now, I think, this year. Then there are extra bank holidays. It is the employer who must pay for all of that. It is grand for the State to announce a rise in the minimum wage, but it is the employer who is paying it. When that goes up, all the other wages have to go up. I am concerned about the fact that the State is not paying in at the same level. It is the employer who will finish up paying the 6% himself if he has the employee for ten years, and he will be paying the employees as well. The State will still only pay 0.5%. I do not think there is any great deal in that. I am very worried about it. The employer will finish up paying it all. Will this be run by the State? Is it going to create more work for the employer's accountant? If his wife is at it, there is more red tape involved. There is more work in it and more responsibility. I am worried about it. I am getting it in the neck already from employers that there is no one speaking up for them in this House. Everyone seems to be looked after except the employer. There is a big thing happening now called the work-life balance. It is hitting farmers and everyone else. If you are working five days hard on the road, whether it is plastering, carpentry, mechanics or whatever, there is another day's work in organising the next week, paying the lads, having everything in order and sending out the bills. People will be aware that they have the responsibility of employing lads and trying to keep them going. You are paying the worker because you are ensuring that his family, his children and everyone else is looked after. The responsibility for all of that is on the employer's shoulders. I know what it is. I have been employing people since the very first day. Friday evening comes very quick, and it is all included. Young fellows are looking at each other now. They see the fellow who is going off to college and getting a better job, whether it is for the Department or whomever. He works maybe a half day on a Friday and is home early in the evening. The poor farmer's son cannot go home. He must milk the cows, and the cows will have to be milked on Saturday and on Sunday. If one of them is calving, God help us, he cannot leave at all until the calf is born, whether that is at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m. or 6 a.m., and he is alone. We need to look at what is happening more closely. The young fellows of today are able to size the work-life balance up for themselves. They will not be sweating or perishing from cold in the middle of the night; they and their friends will be out at a dance or in the Gleneagles or down the town in Killarney in Scotts, the Tatler Jack or wherever. At the same time, poor Johnny will be at home waiting for the cow to calve and there will be no one to give him a hand. These things need to be recognised. It is fine, but it is God's gospel truth that we need to be more careful when it comes to our employers.

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